Profile of Kathryn Bigelow on Famous Like Me

Kathryn Bigelow (born 27 November 1952) is a movie director having placed her distinctive style on male-dominated genres like science fiction, action and horror. She was born in San Carlos, California, USA, as the only child of a paint store manager and a librarian.

Bigelow entered the cinema by way of the art world, starting her creative life as a painter. She took up formal studies at the San Francisco Art Institute for two years before winning a prestigious scholarship to the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program in 1971.

Bigelow entered the graduate film programme at Columbia University where she studied theory and criticism. Her first short film, The Set-Up (1978), is a 20-minute deconstruction of violence in film. Bigelow's first feature was a biker movie, The Loveless (1982), which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery. Next she directed Near Dark (1987), which she also co-scripted with Eric Red. Near Dark attracted interest from both critics and horror fans for its unusual blend of genres, bringing together the vampire movie and the western.

Bending genre conventions is something the director continued to do in her next three films, all of them action flicks. In Blue Steel (1990) she does a cop thriller, but instead of a tough male in the lead, Bigelow cast Jamie Lee Curtis as a female rookie who is very aware of her own vulnerability. Point Break (1991) stars Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent who poses as a surfer to catch a team of bank robbers. The film was trashed by most critics, who focussed on its flaws while overlooking its examination of gender roles, male competitiveness and the loss of idealism in American culture.

With Strange Days (1995), written and produced by her then ex-husband James Cameron, Bigelow won many of the critics back, but the film failed to attract an audience. A neo-noir thriller set in Los Angeles at the turn of the millennium, the film focuses on the effects on society of a new technology, SQUID, Superconducting QUantum Interference Device. Basically a video camera for the brain, it records everything a person experiences, and allows others to relive the sensations when they wear the device and play back the recordings. Woven into this is a murder-mystery plot, culminating in a gigantic finale during a New Year's Eve Party, which involved tens of thousands of extras, in and around the Westin Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. The film, starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett played heavily with gender stereotypes, making the lead a weak ex-cop who is heavily dependent on a strong woman. Although the action heroine is a clearly visible type in all of Cameron's films, Bigelow made this theme even more explicit, for example dressing Fiennes in elegant, colorful printed silk shirts, while Bassett wears suits and masculine leather outfits.

Based on Anita Shreve's novel, The Weight of Water (2000) is a portrait of two women trapped in suffocating relationships. In the present day story, Jean, a news photographer, investigates a nineteenth century double murder that may have been committed by Maren, a Norwegian immigrant. The film is a departure in some ways for Bigelow, in that it doesn’t have the kinetic action or technical dazzle of her previous films. But like her other work, The Weight of Water explores relationships, and it shows her continued fascination with families. While the “families” in Bigelow’s work are usually not of the traditional variety, if we look at the vampires in Near Dark we can see “siblings” dealing with jealousy, “parents” trying to hold things together. The surfers in Point Break are a tightly knit little tribe, bound together by loyalty to a father figure who ultimately betrays them.

K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) is also about a “family”, this time a group of men aboard a submarine who must work together in order to survive. The film tells the story of the Soviet Union’s first nuclear powered sub, and the members of the crew are, of course, communists. This is crucial, because the film is about the responsibility of the individual to the group. In contrast to her earlier work, Bigelow adopts a subdued, classical approach as she examines the crew’s concepts of loyalty and duty.

Besides being a director, Bigelow has also modelled for a Gap ad as well as acted in Born in Flames (1983).

Her TV credits include episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street (1997-1998), the post-Twin Peaks TV series Wild Palms (1993) and several others. She also directed the music video for the New Order song "Touched by the Hand of God".

Bigelow was married to fellow director James Cameron from 1989 - 1991.

See also List of female directors

Filmography

1. K-19: The Widowmaker (2002)
2. The Weight of Water (2000)
3. Strange Days (1995)
4. Wild Palms (1993) TV Series (Episode: 4)
5. Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-99) TV Series (Episode: "Fallen Heroes: Part 1", "Fallen Heroes: Part 2", "Lines of Fire")
6. Point Break (1991)
7. Blue Steel (1990)
8. Near Dark (1987)
9. The Loveless (1982)
10. The Set-Up (1978)

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