In each instance, one was aware of her simmering anger. This driven filmmaker was not to be trifled with and any acceptance she received in the industry had to be on her terms.
On Sunday, she became the first female director to receive an Academy Award, for the gritty Iraq drama, The Hurt Locker.
But the greater significance of this victory lay in the fact that she won with the kind of movie she wanted to make -- a movie reflecting a violent macho sensibility. Much of her anger over the years seems to have stemmed from her resentment over complaints that she -- a woman -- should not be making films like this.
I watched this resentment explode into fury 15 years ago in New York, when Bigelow met the press to defend Strange Days, a violent, nightmarish vision of Los Angeles on the eve of the millennium. Her outburst was triggered by a female journalist who accused Bigelow of gross irresponsibility for making a movie that could encourage violence against women.
"How dare you!" an outraged Bigelow exclaimed. Her anger was palpable. Later in the day, she cornered the reporter again and berated her for daring to ask such a question.
Back in 1995, Strange Days polarized critics and audiences. Roger Ebert may have called it one of the best movies of the year, but The New Yorker's Anthony Lane found it more unpleasant than Showgirls.
In Canada, The Vancouver Sun condemned it for its hatred of women. A furious Calgary Herald critic complained of a scene "filmed from the exact point of view of the rapist-murderer: He breaks into a woman's apartment, handcuffs and blindfolds her, slices her clothing so her breasts are exposed (she's only wearing panties and a T-shirt), rapes her, then strangles her to death with her T-shirt. . . . No Canadian will be able to watch this in-your-face horror without thinking of the innocent victims of Paul Bernardo."
Throughout her film career, nobody has been neutral about Bigelow. Even as New York's Museum of Modern Art was hailing her renown as a visual stylist with a retrospective of her first three films, she was being condemned in other circles as a purveyor of nasty, gratuitous violence.
The controversy generated by her movies reached its zenith with Strange Days, a box-office failure that almost finished her career. But even during the hard times, she has never compromised.
My other encounter with Bigelow had occurred five years earlier, in 1990. I was interviewing her about Blue Steel, a blood-spattered action thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a female cop in pursuit of a serial killer.
The uproar this film generated began with its sexually charged opening credits, which had the camera obscenely exploring and caressing every aspect of a .44 Magnum. Montreal Gazette critic John Griffin was incensed, attacking Blue Steel as "blatantly sexist ... strongly misogynistic" and guilty of "undermining the cause of women and common decency on every front."
Bigelow was already upset by the time I talked to her about Blue Steel because of an earlier confrontation with a group of student journalists who had bluntly asked her what she, a woman, thought she was doing making a gory movie like this?
Bigelow has always hated having her gender dragged into the violence debate. Back in 1990, she cited one of her favourite directors, the ultra-macho Walter Hill, who made 48 Hours.
"I mean, if I was sitting here and I was Walter Hill instead of Kathryn Bigelow, people wouldn't be asking me about the violence," she objected.
"What I'm picking up from these questions is that violence is a male domain and I don't agree. . . . I make movies about things that interest me. I'm not trying to beat men at their game. I'm not trying to be the only woman who can make an action movie or whatever."
It was a revealing conversation. Bigelow was guarded but cordial. And then, suddenly, she revealed her short fuse.
A publicist for the film entered the room to retrieve a file, and Bigelow abruptly rose to her full six feet and towered over the poor woman. "You're bothering us!" she snapped. "Get out!" Once the offending publicist had fled, Bigelow settled back in her chair to admit to a fascination with violence in all her movies, from her audacious biker movie, The Loveless, which involves a child who commits suicide after killing the father who's been raping her, to her vampire western, Near Dark.
She was genuinely enthusiastic about the lengths she went to with her first film, a short subject called The Set-Up.
"I was making this movie about two guys beating each other up, and I couldn't afford stunt coordinators, so I asked these two guys to beat each other up for take after take after take.
"We were shooting all night, and at first, they thought it was cool, but by dawn the next morning, when they were both bloody and bruised, they didn't think it was as much fun."
And yes, she loves seductive imagery. "I think you kind of need to massage your viewer before you punch him."
By her standards, Bigelow is a filmmaker of integrity who doesn't compromise her artistic principles.
The Hurt Locker, a brilliantly executed treatise on the macho bomb-disposal culture, is a case in point.
"War's dirty little secret is that some men love it," she said in explaining why she wanted to make The Hurt Locker. An Oscar may have brought her respectability, but the lady remains true to her nature.
Source:vancouversun.com/
