By Kimberly Chun
How does a director like Kathryn Bigelow vault from 1991’s Point Break – still applauded for its camp values at Point Break Live!, SF’s theatrical tribute to bank-robbing surfers – to the closer-to-real-life heroics of the recently released The Hurt Locker? Highly entertaining and unafraid to reach for the throat-clenching terrors of a very specific war – and gaze empathetically on the very specific warriors who sign up to risk death and dismemberment as bomb squad technicians – The Hurt Locker is a departure of sorts for the director of Strange Days (1995), K-19: the Widowmaker (2002), and one of my favorite vampire flicks, Near Dark (1985). It’s a short leap from the imagined, long ago, and far away toward the knuckle-gnawing present day, though in the director’s effort to bring journalist and screenwriter Mark Boal’s story to life, she’s managed to keep the harrowing tension and gallows humor of her characters intact. I chatted with Bigelow briefly while she was in SF on press tour. (Spoiler alert: at least one plot twist dissected.)
SFBG: This is probably your most grittily realistic film, though it has ties to your other movies.
Kathryn Bigelow: For sure and perhaps the most topical. That’s really due to the fact that it’s based on the observations of a journalist who’s on an embed, named Mark Boal. When he came back he had these extraordinary stories and observations, and I wanted to protect the reportorial nature of his observations and basically transmit that to the viewer – so that we could have a boots-on-the-ground, you-are-there, day-in-the-life look at probably the world’s most dangerous job.