Kathryn Bigelow Biography

Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born November 27, 1951) is an American film director, film producer, screenwriter and television director. Her films include Near Dark (1987), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), The Weight of Water (2000), K-19: The Widowmaker (2002), The Hurt Locker (2008), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012). The Hurt Locker won the 2009 Academy Award for Best Picture, won the BAFTA Award for Best Film, and was nominated for the 2009 Golden Globe Award for Best Drama.

With The Hurt Locker, Bigelow became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing, the BAFTA Award for Best Direction, and the Critics' Choice Award for Best Director. She also became the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director in 1995 for Strange Days.

In April 2010, Bigelow was named to the Time 100 list of most influential people of the year.

Early life and education

Bigelow was born in San Carlos, California, the only child of Gertude Kathryn (née Larson; 1917"1994), a librarian, and Ronald Elliot Bigelow (1915"1992), a paint factory manager. Her mother was of Norwegian descent. Bigelow's early creative endeavors were as a student of painting. She enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute in the fall of 1970 and received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in December 1972. While enrolled at SFAI, she was accepted into the Whitney Museum of American Art's Independent Study Program in New York City. Bigelow's early work benefited from her apprenticeships with Vito Acconci, Richard Serra, and Lawrence Weiner.

Also in her early days in Manhattan, Bigelow teamed up with Philip Glass on a real-estate venture in which the pair personally renovated distressed apartments downtown then sold them for a profit.

Bigelow entered the graduate film program at Columbia University, where she studied theory and criticism and earned her master's degree. Her professors included Vito Acconci, Sylvère Lotringer and Susan Sontag, and she worked with the Art & Language collective and noted conceptualist Lawrence Weiner. She also taught at the California Institute of the Arts. While working with Art and Language, Bigelow began a short film, The Set-Up (1978), which found favor with director Milo? Forman, then teaching at Columbia University, and which Bigelow later submitted as part of her MFA at Columbia.

Directing career

Bigelow's short "The Set-Up," is a 20-minute deconstruction of violence in film. The film portrays "two men fighting each other as the semioticians Sylvère Lotringer and Marshall Blonsky deconstruct the images in voice-over." Bigelow asked her actors to actually beat and bludgeon each other throughout the film's all-night shoot. Her first full-length feature was The Loveless (1982), a biker film which she co-directed with Monty Montgomery and featured Willem Dafoe in his first starring role. Next, she directed Near Dark (1987), which she co-scripted with Eric Red. In the same year, she directed a music video for the New Order song "Touched by the Hand of God"; the video is a spoof of glam metal imagery.

Bigelow's subsequent trilogy of action films "? Blue Steel, Point Break, and Strange Days "? merged her philosophically minded manipulation of pace with the market demands of mainstream film-making. In the process, Bigelow became recognizable as both a Hollywood brand and an auteur. All three films rethink the conventions of action cinema while exploring gendered and racial politics.

Eric Red was also co-writer on Bigelow's 1990 film, Blue Steel. Blue Steel starred Jamie Lee Curtis as a rookie police officer who is stalked by a psychopathic killer, played by Ron Silver.

Bigelow followed Blue Steel with Point Break (1991), which starred Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent who poses as a surfer to catch the "Ex-Presidents", a team of surfing armed robbers led by Patrick Swayze who wear Reagan, Nixon, LBJ and Jimmy Carter masks when they hold up banks. Point Break (1991) was Kathryn Bigelow's most profitable 'studio' film, taking approximately $100 million at the American box-office during the year of its release, and yet it remains one of her least well-received films, both in terms of commercial reviews and academic analysis. This is perhaps due to the fact that it most successfully conforms to its action genre and abandons much of the stylistic substance and subtext of Bigelow's other work.

In 1993, she directed an episode of the TV series Wild Palms.

Bigelow's 1995 film Strange Days was written and produced by her ex-husband James Cameron. Despite some positive reviews, the film was a commercial failure. Furthermore, many attributed the creative vision to James Cameron, diminishing Bigelow's influence on the film.

She directed episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street in 1997 and 1998.

Based on Anita Shreve's novel of the same name, Bigelow's 2000 film The Weight of Water is a portrait of two women trapped in suffocating relationships.

In 2002 she directed K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, about a group of men aboard the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered submarine. The film tanked at the box office and was received with mixed reactions by critics, gaining an aggregate score of 58 on Metacritic.

Bigelow next directed The Hurt Locker, which was first shown at the Venice Film Festival in September 2008, was the Closing Night selection for Maryland Film Festival in May 2009, and theatrically released in the US in June 2009. It qualified for the 2010 Oscars as it did not premiere in an Oscar-qualifying run in Los Angeles until mid-2009. Set in post-invasion Iraq, the film received "universal acclaim" (according to Metacritic) and a 97% "fresh" rating from the critics aggregated by Rotten Tomatoes. The film stars Jeremy Renner, Brian Geraghty and Anthony Mackie, with cameos by Guy Pearce, David Morse and Ralph Fiennes. She won the Directors Guild of America award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures (becoming the first woman to win the award) and also received a Golden Globe nomination for her direction. In 2010, she won the award for Best Director and The Hurt Locker won Best Picture at the 63rd British Academy Film Awards. She became the first woman to receive an Academy Award for Best Director for The Hurt Locker. She was the fourth woman in history to be nominated for the honor, and only the second American woman.

Bigelow's next film was Zero Dark Thirty, a dramatization of American efforts to find Osama bin Laden. Zero Dark Thirty was acclaimed by film critics but it has also attracted controversy and strong criticism for its allegedly pro-torture stance. Bigelow won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director for the film, making her the first woman to win the award twice. She had already won previously for directing The Hurt Locker. She also won the National Board of Review Award for Best Director for Zero Dark Thirty, making her the first woman to win that award.

One of the many visual elements that helps secure Bigelow's style as an auteur is her use of slow motion. Slow motion is a recurring technique in Bigelow's storytelling, often most successful where it is the most experimentally employed, where it can help the spectator participate in a collective meditation on action and affect.

Other work

In the early 1980s, Bigelow modeled for a Gap advertisement. Her acting credits include Lizzie Borden's 1983 film Born in Flames as a feminist newspaper editor, and as the leader of a cowgirl gang in the 1988 music video of Martini Ranch's "Reach", which was directed by her ex-husband, James Cameron.

Personal life

Bigelow was married to fellow director James Cameron from 1989 to 1991. She and Cameron were both nominated for Best Director at the 2010 82nd Academy Awards, which Bigelow won.

Criticism

Bigelow is criticized for her depiction of torture in Zero Dark Thirty. One critic has gone further with his criticism of Bigelow by alleging that such depictions are justifications of torture and wars. Noam Sheizaf of [[+972 Magazine]] states "this narcissistic movie, with all its aesthetic portraits of torture and assassinations, not only enjoys and fetishizes the violence it depicts but also justifies and rationalizes it." Sheizaf further states that "ZDT and The Hurt Locker together, you understand that Bigelow actually thinks that in the more than 11 years of wars in three countries, the sole and only victims were Americans."

Filmography

Year	Film	Role	Notes
1982	The Loveless	Director/Writer
1983	Born in Flames	Actress
1987	Near Dark	Director/Writer	Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film " Silver Raven Nominated "? Saturn Award for Best Direction
1987	"Touched by the Hand of God" " New Order	Director	Music video
1988	"Reach" " Martini Ranch	Actress	Music video
1989	Blue Steel	Director/Writer
1991	Point Break	Director
1995	Strange Days	Director	Saturn Award for Best Direction
2000	The Weight of Water	Director	Nominated "? San Sebastián International Film Festival Golden Shell Award
2002	K-19: The Widowmaker	Director/Producer
2009	The Hurt Locker	Director/Producer	Academy Award for Best Director Academy Award for Best Picture AFI Dallas Film Festival " Dallas Star Award Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Director Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Woman Director Austin Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Film British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Direction Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Film Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Columbia University " "Andrew Sarris" Award Denver Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Hollywood Film Festival for Director of the Year Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Director London Film Critics Circle Award for Director of the Year National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director New York Film Critics Online Award for Best Director Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Producers Guild of America Award for Theatrical Motion Pictures San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Santa Barbara International Film Festival Award for Outstanding Director of the Year Satellite Award for Best Director Seattle International Film Festival Golden Space Needle Award for Best Director Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Director St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Venice Film Festival SIGNIS Grand Prize Award Venice Film Festival Arca Cinemagiovani Award Venice Film Festival Young Cinema Award Venice Film Festival Human Rights Film Network Award Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Nominated "? Golden Globe Award for Best Director
2012	Zero Dark Thirty	Director/Producer	Top 10 Film-American Film Institute Awards Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Director Alliance of Women Film Journalists Award for Best Picture Austin Film Critics Association for Best Film Boston Online Society of Film Critics Award for Best Picture Boston Online Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director Boston Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Chicago Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association Award for Best Director 2nd place-Las Vegas Film Critics Society Award for Best Film 2nd place-Los Angeles Film Critics Association Award for Best Director National Board of Review Award for Best Director National Board of Review Award for Best Film 2nd place-National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Director 3rd place-National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Film New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film New York Film Critics Online Awards for Best Director New York Film Critics Online Awards for Best Picture 2nd place"?Oklahoma Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Director San Francisco Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Runner-up Southeastern Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Runner-up Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Film Runner-up Toronto Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Runner-up Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Utah Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director Vancouver Film Critics Circle Award for Best Film Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Washington D.C. Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Film Nominated "? Academy Award for Best Motion Picture Nominated "? AACTA International Award for Best Film Nominated "? AACTA International Award for Best Direction Nominated "? BAFTA Award for Best Direction Nominated "? BAFTA Award for Best Film Nominated "? Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Nominated "? Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture Nominated "? Denver Film Critics Society for Best Director Nominated "? Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Nominated "? Golden Globe Award for Best Director Nominated "? Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture " Drama Nominated "? Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Nominated "? Houston Film Critics Society Award for Best Film Nominated "? London Film Critics Circle Award for Director of the Year Nominated "? Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Director Nominated "? Online Film Critics Society Award for Best Picture Nominated "? Producers Guild of America Award for Best Theatrical Motion Picture Nominated "? St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Director Nominated "? St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture

Television

• Wild Palms: "Rising Sons" (1993) miniseries
• Homicide: Life on the Street: "Fallen Heroes" Parts 1 & 2 (1998)
• Homicide: Life on the Street: "Lines of Fire" (1999)
• Karen Sisco: "He Was a Friend of Mine" (2004)

See also

• List of female film and television directors