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In the great tradition of tough guys like Howard Hawks, Don Siegel and
Samuel Fuller, Kathryn Bigelow is one of the finest living directors of
male-bonding genre films. At first this seems like an odd fit. The
beautiful, elegant, highly intelligent, 57 year-old woman comes from a
background of painting and an education at the San Francisco Art
Institute; which is a far cry from chomping cigars and wearing eye
patches along with her Hollywood predecessors. When I asked her about
this duality in 2002, she responded with genuine puzzlement. Why would a
woman want to make muscular action films? The answer is clearly: Why
not? Frankly, none of this matters anymore, because Bigelow has once
again proved her talent with a new masterpiece, The Hurt Locker, which
is easily one of the year's best films. It revolves around the lives of
three Army bomb techs (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie and Brian Geraghty)
in the last days of their tour in Iraq in 2004. Yes, it's another Iraq
War film, but nothing at all like we've come to expect from that genre.
It doesn't hurl any messages in our faces about the horrors or futility
of war. It's not dreary or somber or self-serving. It's not about
politics or politicians, wives or families, insurgents or Iraqis.
Rather, it's a good, sturdy combat film with lots of thrills and
explosions and action. It dares to suggest that, yes, sometimes war can
be fun, as well as hell.
Q: Can you please talk about this notion that war can be fun?
KB: It has so much to do with the fact that Mark was on an embed.
And also this is a combat film. This isn't about re-integration into the
home front. So you're there and he was there, and all of his
observations, his terror, his experiences on a day-to-day basis, that
was what we both wanted to preserve. These are guys who, some of them
are enjoying what they're doing. Some of them don't. You're given an
opportunity to look at it through many different lenses. This was
somewhat influenced by Chris Hedges' book, War Is a Force That Gives Us
Meaning, and he talks about how it's a volunteer military. These are men
who are there by choice. When Mark went over on his embed, he fully
expected that kind of Vietnam era trope of the disgruntled soldier. But
that's a draft military. These are men who are there by choice. Some
guys liked being there! He was shocked and surprised. And then as he
tried to unpack it further... he talks about the allure -- not for
everybody -- but there is an attractiveness to combat.
Q: Which is why there are so many war films...
KB: War is the ultimate canvas in a way. It sort of defines,
sadly, history in that there's always been war. Obviously that's a
comment in and of itself. But apart from that, I suppose it's a
genetically encoded desire to re-affirm your humanness and there's not a
better test, or crucible, by which to make that evaluation. All your
survival neurons have been switched on in order to live through an
experience like that. And then Chris Hedges makes the case that, once
all that is switched on, it creates a potent transformation. There's a
hunger to replicate it outside the war zone, and it can't be replicated.
Q: The difference between this and the other Iraq movies is that
you feel like you're there. You feel that in a lot of the WWII movies,
but the difference is that those people actually served in WWII.
KB: That's the distinction I was trying to make. Those others are
not combat movies, though I'm not familiar with everything that's been
made on the subject so far. And not that Mark engaged in combat, but he
certainly ducked shrapnel. He was over there. And I think because of
that first-hand observation, it gave me an opportunity to put you in the
Humvee. I wanted you to walk out of the theater and wipe the sand off
your pants. There's a real visceral, raw, immediate immersion into a day
in the life of a bomb tech. You're also looking at it from the soldier's
perspective. You're not changing perspectives and going to, let's say,
the perspective of an insurgent. They don't know if the guy on the
balcony on the third floor looking down is hanging out his laundry, or
is calling in your coordinates for a sniper hit.
Q: I love that the film is in segments, and it reminded me of The
Big Red One.
KB: That really had to do with Mark. These guys would go out 10,
12, 15 times a day. It's something like you're 48 hours on, 24 hours off
and 48 on. So it's day-night-day-night. So it has that nature. It's both
repetitious and potentially catastrophic, simultaneously. You never know
what you're going to encounter. It's so dangerous. When he was over
there, there were maybe two or three other embeds. That was it. It's
just too dangerous. And because he was reporting for Playboy, they let
him in. I think the troops wanted to talk to the guy who was reporting
for Playboy. He said he'd be standing next to the bureau chief of the
New York Times, and the soldier would be like, 'when do you want to go
out?' He was like 'I don't have any of the girls with me!'
Q: There's a brilliant, show-stopping sequence in which your
characters are stuck on a ridge for what seems like hours, in a
long-range face-off...
KB: That was inspired by this rooftop fight in Fallujah. I
certainly wasn't aware of these 50 caliber sniper rifles, whose range is
800 meters. You're looking at a mile. You can shoot somebody a mile away
between the eyes. And these guys have to breathe a certain way to even
have the potential for a degree of accuracy. They're such powerful
weapons. I think it's an effective sequence because of the idea that
that kind of distance is actually possible. It's pretty extraordinary
piece of equipment. I'm sorry it had to be invented.
Q: About filming in Jordan, was that your first choice?
KB: I would have gone to Baghdad if I had access, but it was hard
enough to find a crew to go to Jordan. I don't think I could have found
any followers in Baghdad. I actually scouted Morocco at first, but it
paled in comparison to Jordan. The architecture's perfect. You could
shoot 360 degrees. But the great bonus that I did not anticipate was the
refugees. There were hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees, many of
whom are actors because there was a fairly thriving cultural community
in Iraq before the occupation. These refugees are all living in Ahmad.
All of my background extras and some of the speaking Iraqis, like
professor or the suicide bomber, are all Iraqi. And it's as close to the
war zone as you can get. At one point [cinematographer] Barry Ackroyd
and I were about five kilometers from the border and I said, "let's just
go across, just so we can say we shot in Iraq." And he said, "too many
snipers." They couldn't guarantee our safety. Also, the film commission
is very effective. It's a monarchy, and the royal family was very
supportive of this production. I started this trainee program; there's a
film school there, and I enlisted various students in all the
departments. They loved it! It ended up being very hospitable and very
logistically productive place to shoot. But rolling into a neighborhood,
it's really densely populated. We're rolling Humvees in, we've got
American soldiers carrying M4s, and there were moments when I thought...
but people were fascinated and intrigued and supportive. I loved
shooting there.
June 15, 2009
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