KATHRYN BIGELOW

PERSONAL INSIGHT SHOWS THROUGH IN FILMS ABOUT SOCIAL DYNAMICS

By PETER THOMAS BUSCH

The lens does not necessarily have a more delicate focus with a female director pursuing the film narrative.

But when director Kathryn Bigelow sits behind the camera, the filmmaking art is influenced with a uniquely personal insight not captured on film before.

The guys are often still center stage with a strong female role somewhere in the script dynamics.

The Detroit 12^th Street Riots took on a greater sense of importance to the Civil Rights Movement in the context of white flight from the Inner Cities and the black ghettos ablaze from coast to coast when Bigelow told the story. 

The viability of America was in question. And with that toxic mix of race, gender and authority, the inequalities erupted in the face of the white conservative establishment in Detroit (2017).

Bigelow shows how the Inner Cities became charged with a lot of adrenaline after multiple triggers converged in a small part of America’s fifth largest city.

John Boyega and Anthony Mackie portray characters struggling to remain rational and survive a night when urban humanity had finally lost control of any sense of reason.

The white police force in a predominantly black neighborhood shows the face of racism with Bigelow behind the camera, while 12^th Street represents the intersection of systemic problems still prevalent in America.

In Zero Dark Thirty (2012) starring Jessica Chastain and Jason Clarke, Bigelow explores the thin moral divide of the ends justifying the means.

The film narrative follows the interrogation and surveillance process involved in hunting down the mastermind of the 9/11 Terrorist Attack on New York City.

Chastain plays leading protagonist CIA investigator, Maya, whose relentless pursuit of the smallest of intelligence data eventually uncovered the target’s whereabouts in Pakistan near a Pakistani Military College.

Maya must first convince a male dominant power hierarchy that she is on to the target and has found the target.

Bigelow shows how Maya must talk like and act like her male coworkers to get the respect she deserves for the work she is doing.

Chastain has been on a career roll ever since the starring role, often starring in leading biopic roles and as action heroes, or in supporting parts in fantasy films, to become one of the most recognized talents in Hollywood.

Clarke has made a film career out of important supporting character roles, such as opposite Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby (2013) and Anne Hathaway in Serenity (2019), but he has also landed significant biopic roles such as Ted Kennedy in Chappaquiddick (2017) and Ed White in First Man (2018).

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences awarded Bigelow the Oscar for Best Directing, the first woman to be awarded the honor, for the contemporary war drama The Hurt Locker (2008). The film won six Oscars, including Best Picture, which Bigelow helped produce.

Jeremy Renner, John Mackie and Brian Geraghty star in this gripping film about a US Military bomb disposal team operating in war torn Iraq.

The camera slowly grinds away the time during several tours of duty as Renner’s character must methodical defuse one improvised explosive device after another. 

In one sequence of scenes, the bomb disposal squad is ambushed in the desert with the time just ever so slowly dripping away as Renner and Mackie show how their characters must painstakingly outlast their enemies in the dry heat.

Staff Sergeant William James, played by Renner, is addicted to the adrenalin charge he receives when called to the site of an improvised explosive device, a charge that defuses only when the last wire on the bomb is cut.

James is such an adrenaline junkie that he finds life a bit too slow back in America when on leave from the military. And so, James returns to the war theater over and over again.

Sergeant JT Sandborn, played by Mackie, and Specialist Owen Eldridge, played by Geraghty, are not as addicted to war as the bomb specialist. James is seen as reckless and a bit crazy, whose actions put their lives at risk.

Bigelow shows how this awkward chemistry among the crew transfers to their conduct during off duty down time in the barracks.

In K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) starring Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Peter Sarsgaard, the first Russian nuclear powered submarine malfunctions.

Bigelow first develops tension in the crew before the nuclear reactor begins to leak. The audience can almost feel the ill effects of the radiation as the crew becomes exposed to the lethal airborne toxins. 

In Point Break (1991), starring Patrick Swayze, Keanu Reeves and Gary Busey, Bigelow manipulates film speed to build tension and suspense in this film about a gang of California bank robbers.

Reeves’ character, Johnny Utah, goes undercover to infiltrate the surfing community on a hunch that the robbers are surfers. The camera slows down the live action motion of surfers and crashing waves to create some initial tension that drives the narrative and builds toward the plot reversal.

Lori Petty plays a strong female role as surfer, Tyler.

Bigelow begins to develop her theories of social organization with this film, looking from the outside-in at male circles of influence loosely bound together though the mutual enjoyment of an adrenalin rush.

Johnny Utah must prove his bravery to win the acceptance of the tight community of surfers.

Bodhi and the other characters do stupid crazy things like surfing at night after getting all lit up on drugs and alcohol, but this nocturnal socialization also makes them a good tight crew for bank robbing.

Bigelow also shows how even within the Federal Bureau of Investigation offices, groups form along personality lines and layers of authority. The film roles are not about gender as much as socialization and how people fit and do not fit together at work and at play.

The police authority figures developed by Reeves and Busey often only begrudgingly get along, but they are often also directly at odds as a team with the other undercover units.

The director also does not shy away from controversial topics.

Bigelow questions the competency of the police while at the same time glorifying the beach party culture.

In Zero Dark Thirty, Clarke’s character is mainly on film to torture suspected Al Quadi insiders. Clarke’s character must get whatever intelligence he can out of very few high value captures. And then he passes the intelligence on to Maya. 

In Detroit, the white police brutality amidst scenes of interracial harmony shatters the American dream. The film characters are part of distinct social groups that converge during the violence and mayhem, and racism of the riots.

In K-19, the chain of command in the Russian navy collapses and the malfunctioning nuclear reactor powering the submarine becomes a striking symbol of the recklessness the adrenalin fueled clash of naval officers creates. 

Bigelow brings her perspective to important communities in America operating often incompetently with dysfunction.

These systemic flaws are a detriment to society. The camera brings these problems festering in the shadows out into the light of public criticism often as the underlining cause of more controversial missteps, such as water boarding and police brutality.