High Impact Filmmaking: Kathryn Bigelow

“I don’t want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going.”

“Everyone else seemed so much more normal. I began drawing in order to create my own universe. I still have a tendency to withdraw into my own world. Directing films requires communication with hundreds of people, and it has made me open up.”

"Exactly, there are rest notes and there are flurries. You need rest moments where the camera is simply covering two people in an unbroken wide shot and you see the body language. It's a cinematic exhale. That's why we have punctuation. Peak experience only exists in relation to something that is not. It's all context."

"I don't believe in censorship in any form."

“Those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement. If it was, no artist would be able to paint inhumane practices, no author could write about them, and no filmmaker could delve into the thorny subjects of our time.”

"I like high impact movies."

"If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies."

*****

Kathryn Bigelow holds a unique spot in the pantheon of great modern directors. Her movies are equal parts intelligent and exhilarating. As the quotes above testify, she's also highly intelligent, extremely thoughtful, and chooses her words carefully in order to best express herself.

She was a fine artist who never intended to make movies, but quickly became one of the best filmmakers of the last several decades. The remarkable run she put together in her prime—Near Dark (1987), Blue Steel (1989), Point Break (1991), and Strange Days (1995)—stacks up against any other great director’s peak runs. Strong arguments can be made that any one of these four films could be considered Bigelow's masterpiece.

And, of course, let's not forget she became the first—and still only—woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director, for The Hurt Locker (2008). That moment, when Bigelow held aloft the Oscar statue, signifying the highest honor a director can win, only affirmed what many of us had already known for years: she is a rare talent whose complex and engaging films will remain powerful and relevant forever.

I could write so much more, and in fact have, elsewhere, and no doubt will again. For now, I just want to wish one of the best directors of my lifetime a happy 67th birthday. She's a true legend.

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