Battle of the exes

It's been dubbed the battle of the exes. In one corner stands a blowhard moviemaker whose latest project is a visual extravaganza with an eye-popping budget to match. In the other, his former wife, a respected director in her own right who has wooed critics with her unsentimental take on the Iraq war. With Oscar season looming, the question on tinseltown lips is, will the race for the coveted best picture statuette descend into a straightforward tussle between the former spouses?

In a showdown that could only have been scripted in Hollywood, Avatar director James Cameron appears almost certain to be pitted against ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow and her gritty Iraq drama The Hurt Locker.

Both films appear to be a shoo-in for the short list, raising the delicious prospect of Titanic director Cameron being denied another 'King of the World' moment by none other than his former wife. The fact that Cameron beat Bigelow to claim the Golden Globe for best drama has merely added spice to proceedings.

On paper, Avatar and The Hurt Locker couldn't be less alike. Featuring boundary-shattering 3D technology and stunning sci-fi vistas, Avatar is, depending on your opinion, either a tour de force in the tradition of The Ten Commandments and Star Wars or a depressing example of the movie industry at its most bloated. What can't be denied is that it's an epic slab of corn-ball.

Conversely, The Hurt Locker is the little movie that could. Released with no fanfare and with a largely unknown cast, it came in the wake of a series of flop Iraq movies. But Bigelow has proved you can make a decent Iraq film with commercial appeal. Perhaps the most striking thing about The Hurt Locker is its price tag -- $11m (€7.8m), less than one-twentieth of Cameron's $230m (€163m) Avatar.

"Cameron has been divorced more times than he's been nominated, he was bound to come face to face with an ex sooner or later," says Vincent Donnelly of website Movies.ie. "He and Bigelow are still good friends; they've worked together after their split in the early 1990s.

Cameron reportedly advised Bigelow to drop what she was working on to direct The Hurt Locker. So even if she wins the Oscar, he's going to take some of the credit for her success.

"A contest where former husband and wife are the frontrunners for the two big awards certainly adds some spice to the event," says Hollywood insider Steve Pond. "It's Hollywood and people love intrigue and gossip."

Publicly, both parties are playing down the potential for conflict. Since divorcing, Cameron and Bigelow have always insisted they remained on friendly terms.

"I would love to see The Hurt Locker get nominated and see her get the recognition she has deserved for a long time," said the five-times married Cameron. "Nothing would make me happier." Bigelow, for her part, has been tripping over herself to laud her ex, declaring Avatar one of her favourite movies of the year. "I've seen Avatar, and I love it, love it, love it," she told Entertainment Weekly. Perhaps her generosity can be explained by the fact that, if critics are to be believed, and notwithstanding the Golden Globes, the Hurt Locker is in pole position to be named best picture. It has already been given that honour at the Producers' Guild of America, LA Film Critics and American Film Institute awards and won Venice Film Festival Grand Prize (closer to home, it's been nominated for an IFTA).

Bigelow and Cameron were married for two years. Shortly after their split, he began a relationship with his Terminator II star Linda Hamilton, though that relationship eventually flamed out too. Today, Cameron is on wife number five, with actress Suzy Amis, who he met on the set of Titanic.

Joking about his colourful love life, Cameron said: "I've been divorced more times than I've been nominated (for the Globes). I don't really know which one is more awkward."

An Oscar-night triumph for Bigelow would be inevitably hailed as a major step forward for women in cinema. In the 75-year history of the Oscars, only three have even received best director nominations (Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1976, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993 and Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003). And yet, in many ways, she makes for a peculiar role-model for female movie makers. Certainly her previous films -- action flicks like K19: The Widowmaker and Point Break -- have been as testosterone splashed as anything her one-time husband has made.

Speaking to reporters last week, Cameron insisted that he wasn't too bothered about winning the approval of the Academy of Motion Pictures (then again with Avatar on course to eclipse the record $1.8bn box take achieved by Titanic, why would he?).

"Do I think we'll get some nominations? Hell, yeah. For visual effects and things like that, I think we should be strongly considered for that," he told the QMI Agency. "The genre of this film isn't typically honoured by Oscar in the acting, directing and best picture categories.

"Not like Titanic, which was a historical drama and costume piece. So the stars don't quite line up in that way."

Some, though, see the impending Oscar face-off as nothing less than a battle for the soul of the movie industry. To such commentators, a victory for The Hurt Locker would prove that, even in this era of $200m budgets and deafening marketing campaigns, it is still possible for intelligent low-budget pictures to sneak into the mainstream.

Writing in the online magazine Slate, esteemed American movie critic Roger Ebert couched the tussle in apocalyptic terms.

"For all I know, James and Kathryn speak on the phone every day and wish each other's movies nothing but good fortune," he said.

"But anyone who's ever watched as a smug ex goes on to enormous success has to place him or herself squarely in Bigelow's camp."

Source:independent.ie/