Kathryn Bigelow wins Best Director Oscar--making history....!

..this Women's History Month!

:bounce::toast::party::party::toast::bounce:

Only the fourth woman in history, to ever be nominated for a Best Director Academy Award. Despite the many years of women directing films of note--Barbara Streisand, Jodi Foster, Kasi Lemmons, are just a few to come to mind. No female director has won an Oscar in 81 years.

The last three women nominees were Lina Wertmuller, Jane Campion and Sofia Coppola. Here's a brief article discussing the history of the award, the prior female nominees and Bigelow.

http://insidemovies.moviefone.com/2010/02/04/three-women-directors-before-bigelow-who-rocked-oscars-history/

The fact that Bigelow was nominated in the same category as her arrogant ex-husband was just icing on the cake--to me at least.

Anyway, Congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow.
Happy Women's History Month!

a woman has been recognized with this award at last.

(lol)...i didn't. did you like it?

i usually don't care for war/combat/soldier types of films. though i loved platoon. :thumbsup: saw it several times and would see it again. didn't care for apocalypse now the first time, but liked it better on repeat viewings.

didn't like full metal jacket. though i appreciated the first part (w/vincent d'onfrio)...but disliked the rest of the film. :shrug: my guy wants to see "hurt locker." i'm still not sure i do. let me know your thoughts on it, (if you feel like it).

Some parts were sheer genius. It had the potential to be a much better film than it was. There were some moments in which Bigelow captured the sensation of being in dangerous, chaotic combat situations quite well. But there were other parts when the direction totally lost its focus. There are scenes in which I had no idea what was going on (didn't know where the character(s) were, what they were doing, etc.) While I can buy that Bigelow was attempting to show how disoriented the characters were in certain moments, there really shouldn't be any moment in a well-directed film in which the audience is left clueless.

I also thought KB's take on the main character was muddled, as was the overall message of the film. The movie opens with the epigraph, "All war is a drug," (which I thought was a pretty heavy handed way of "helping" the viewers figure that out) and ends with William James getting bored with life in the States after his tour, deciding to return to the Gulf to help take apart more IEDs. So, she suggests that James' main motivation for doing the job he does is an addiction to the adrenaline rush. But if that is his motivation, why were we treated to so many scenes in which James' seems so devoted to certain characters, suggesting an emotional reason for his choices? I was also annoyed that Bigelow had to have some of the supporting characters pound home the "William James is hooked on his job" meme by having said characters literally telling him that. Hasn't she ever heard of the show, don't tell rule?

All that being said, the scene featuring the one bomb James can't defuse is still haunting me, four weeks after watching it. And I have to give KB credit for making an action-oriented drama that was both action-oriented and yet not gratuitously so. I would actually declare this film totally family-friendly (for kids 12 and up, anyway).

I'm kind of embarrassed to say. But a worthy milestone nonetheless. I avoid war movies, perhaps because my son is deployed, but I loved Inglorious Basterds, mostly because it's so weird with great dialog. I will make of point of watching this one.

My son sent me pictures of IED's being blown up in the desert. For some reason, I thought these were 'little' bombs (if there is such a thing) Those pictures were impressive. And terrifying

...for the comment on Inglorious Basterds. :hi: i wasn't sure if i was going to see this one, or not. having talked w/you previously about his work, i trust your opinion. if you say the dialogue's worth it, i'll check it out.

i'm still kind of stunned by the fact that it took 81 friggin' years for the academy to recognize a woman's work. and people wonder why one minority group or the other goes w/out appropriate acknowledgement by the academy. clearly as far as they've been concerned, only males (usually non-ethnic) can direct films of note. speaks volumes as to why it took so long to see scorcese's work recognized. :eyes:

...thanks so much, BlueIris!

and i honestly didn't find your comments too "spoiler-ish"...no more so, than a couple of reviews i've checked out.

personally, i believe Bigelow's strong suit is her visual sensibility, having been a photographer first (i think). while watching "End of Days" i always think how awesome it's shot (love the way the film looks). Blue Steel w/Jamie Lee Curtis i think was also her work....also shot beautifully.

anything that is still haunting you, i may have to take a pass on. i'm uber-sensitive. movies stick w/me, even when the content isn't necesessarily "heavy." when something is disturbing...:scared:...forget it. the movie Seven stayed w/me for months. it's in my top three of creepiest, most psychically disturbing films i never want to see again.

I'd never heard of it before Oscar night. I watched about the last hour of the godawful show just because there was nothing else on.

What I said when her win was announced, having by then got some notion of what the movie was all about, was: Oh look. A woman director can win an Oscar when she makes a movie where all the characters are men, about war, and breathes not a word of critique or criticism of the filthy war in question. How nice.

I see echos of this in the papers this weekend.

Oh well. I'm not interested in very many movies with all-male casts about what men get up to, in particular filthy little wars that the movies in question just use as backdrop for some feely-goody crap, and it really doesn't matter to me who makes 'em. I guess I just find it unfortunate that a woman would make one in the first place.

Especially WRT its message (or lack thereof) about the war.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/03/22/the-empty-locker

Granted, probably a bit of an axe to grind, but not alone.

If I do see it, it will be by bootleg download, so at least I won't be lining the pockets of warmongers, if it turns out that I share that view. ;)


http://www.altfg.com/blog/awards/the-hurt-locker-iraq-war-oscar-393/

... I was disappointed — but hardly surprised — that none of the Hurt Locker filmmakers mentioned the people of Iraq or the election held in that country on Sunday. Kathryn Bigelow dedicated her Best Director award to "the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world." When she came back to receive a second Oscar statuette for co-producing the year’s Best Picture winner she once again made a dedication "to men and women all over the world who … wear a uniform, but even not just the military – HazMat, emergency, firemen. They’re there for us and we’re there for them."

Unfortunately, the filmmaker who made the most talked-about movie about the Iraq War to date made no mention of the Iraqi people and what they had to go through as a result of a war on which they had no say. US military personnel had the option of declaring themselves conscientious objectors. The people of Iraq had no such choice. But ignoring the plight of the Iraqis is typical whenever most people or news publications discuss matters over there; but typical or not, it’s unjustifiable. (Figures for Iraqi deaths are at best iffy, ranging from 100,000 to 1 million people, in addition to 2 million refugees.)

Support those troops.

...that Bigelow's choice to make this film should be construed as support for the war. :shrug:

she's always made films that are rather, "action based." films that would seem to appeal to more men than women. sometimes there's a female lead, sometimes not. i've liked her work (though i haven't seen this film).

personally, i appreciate that she hasn't shied away from certain subject matter, simply because "she's a woman."

oh, and let's be honest.
we all know that a woman would not be nominated for a film that dealt with "women's subject matter." (*cough*...barbara streisand...*cough*) i'm certainly not going to fault a woman for the flaws in the hollywood film system (the long-standing patriarchal regime).

from where i sit, she's merely doing her work, covering subject matter that interests her. i say good for her. :thumbsup:

her choice to say supportive words for the people fighting the war (in her acceptance speech), isn't the same as supporting the war they are fighting---in my eyes at least.

but of course, your choice to disagree and see it differently (as you did above). ;) no harm, no foul.

that anyone construed her choice to make the film as "support for the war"!

I didn't. I understand that her approach to her subject matter is simply uncritical, hugely one-sided, and essentially exploits the war (and the people affected by it -- US troops by misrepresenting them, the Iraqi people by simply disregarding their existence) as a platform for "action".

If that is the case, as it really does seem to be, it's not exactly critique/criticism of the war. And as we all know ... if you aren't part of the solution ...

I really couldn't care less what subject matter women address or don't address in film, and nothing I said had a single thing to do with stereotyping/pigeonholing of women directors. I expect filmmakers to be honest, and not to be propagandists. Male or female. I'd find this film distasteful (to the best of my knowledge so far - and that would be enough not to want to pay money to see it) completely independently of who made it.

I do, nonetheless, find it interesting that a woman made it to the pinnacle of the Academy only by making a film aimed squarely at men, applying a stereotypically male sensibility.


her choice to say supportive words for the people fighting the war (in her acceptance speech), isn't the same as supporting the war they are fighting---in my eyes at least.

And you see, again, nobody actually said what you purport to be disagreeing with. I really don't like that tactic.

Her casual disregard for the people actually affected by the war through no choice of their own -- the Iraqi people -- in her discourse is simply gross contempt. To make a movie that would not have been possible were it not for the suffering of those people ... really. Give me a break, eh?

And I had it to my nose the day after this nasty war started with this "support the troops" garbage, no matter how anyone chooses to frame that or reframe the words someone else spoke it in. Yes, it very much is the same as supporting the war the troops are fighting.

I can feel pity for some of those troops, and contempt for some of them, and indifference to some of them. I can do it all without "supporting" any of them an iota. (And yes, this is directly relevant to me, since Canada has a lot of troops in that Afghanistan place, and some of them appear to have been doing quite appalling things, although in our case it's the brass doing those things, and I want that brass and its political masters fried and impaled on fenceposts, myself. But I do not support a single troop, thank you.)



typos fixed

...with your point--that it is indeed interesting that the first woman nominee (and now winner) in eighty some odd years was nominated for this specific subject matter. i mused over that aspect at the time of the nomination.

i also agree w/blue iris's comment.
it seems unfair to judge that which you haven't seen. certainly your right, but interesting imo.

excerpted quote from prior post:
... I was disappointed — but hardly surprised — that none of the Hurt Locker filmmakers mentioned the people of Iraq or the election held in that country on Sunday. Kathryn Bigelow dedicated her Best Director award to "the women and men in the military who risk their lives on a daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and around the world." When she came back to receive a second Oscar statuette for co-producing the year’s Best Picture winner she once again made a dedication "to men and women all over the world who … wear a uniform, but even not just the military – HazMat, emergency, firemen. They’re there for us and we’re there for them."

Unfortunately, the filmmaker who made the most talked-about movie about the Iraq War to date made no mention of the Iraqi people and what they had to go through as a result of a war on which they had no say. US military personnel had the option of declaring themselves conscientious objectors. The people of Iraq had no such choice. But ignoring the plight of the Iraqis is typical whenever most people or news publications discuss matters over there; but typical or not, it’s unjustifiable. (Figures for Iraqi deaths are at best iffy, ranging from 100,000 to 1 million people, in addition to 2 million refugees.)

Support those troops.
---------------------------------------------------

ah....ok....so, based on your most recent comments, i'm guessing that i misunderstood your original intent (w/the above excerpted material) and your comments. c'est la vie. :shrug: sincere apologies. i hope you can forgive the misunderstanding.

i agree with, appreciate and respect much of what you said, in spite what i perceive as a rather harsh (and seemingly antagonistic) tone. though, i could certainly be misunderstanding that, too. it happens. seems to be par for the course in cyber communication.

take care. :hi:

For a female to succeed in the arts, movies whatever, in current affairs she has no way to escape patriarchy. Out perceptions are immersed in it, our politics live or die on it. It's the same for movies, at least any with enough cachet to win an oscar.

My favorite sci-fi author, C.J. Cherryh, in her Union-Alliance universe, deals with politics and war and even gender (although she's not a feminist author per se)doesn't remove gender as much as she removes most, but not all of patriarchy. (Although an argument can be made that all wars stem from a perverted male sex dynamic and subsequent territory taking) Her 'merchanter' space ships are all matrilinial, regardless of who is in actual command. These small contained worlds avoid inbreeding by the females having complete choice off ship, often on space station 'sleepovers'. Permanent arrangements exist, but aren't necessary or even the norm. The ship is family, the name of the family matters.

She also has written about clone cultures, birth labs and in one of her most honored books, Cyteen, the main protagonists are a pair of homosexual men. Here, too, in the fantasy that is sci-fi, the actual sexuality of these men isn't an issue, whereas the impact of sex itself, on anybody, is. She has made gender statements in her books, many of them.

From her wiki article;


"Her protagonists often attempt to uphold existing social institutions and norms in the service of the greater good while the antagonists often attempt to exploit, subvert or radically alter the predominant social order for selfish gain. She uses the theme of the outsider finding his (or her) place in society and how individuals interact with The Other. A number of Cherryh's novels focus on military and political themes. An underlying theme of her work is an exploration of gender roles. Her characters reveal both strengths and weaknesses regardless of their gender, although her female protagonists are portrayed as especially capable and determined.

In addition, many of her male characters are mentally damaged in some manner, having been through a physical, emotional, or mental trauma, generally as a result of intentional abuse: Josh Talley in Downbelow Station was mind-wiped and sexually abused; Sandor in Merchanter's Luck had his entire family killed and often pushes the limits of exhaustion and the use of tranks for jumps; Ramey (also known as NG, or No Good) in Rimrunners was sent through jump without his tranks, as was Tully in the Chanur series. Paul Dekker, the protagonist in Heavy Time went crazy after witnessing the murder of his close female friend, and is further abused in the sequel Hellburner. Several characters, including the main character, Thomas, in Tripoint have been psychologically and physically abused. Justin in Cyteen was repeatedly drugged and psychologically violated."


Note that second paragraph? If Cherryh's female characters suffered the same degree of abuse,(and some have)I firmly believe no one would mention a thing. The wiki writers have missed the point. In Cherryh's world, gender and sexually isn't erased, but how we view what happens to who is skewed toward a possible future, a different attitude, but this type of analysis from wiki sees in terms of now.

...many of the wiki writers lack critical thinking skills. some believe the ability is developed at the college/university level. unfortunately, i know of far too many college grads lacking in this ability---so i have my doubts.

excellent points about science fiction. a genre i resisted a long time, but i sincerely think i'll enjoy it, and need to read more of it. i recall the excitement around princess leia after the release of the initial star wars trilogy. she was less damsel in distress, and more, "you aren't shooting right...give me the damned weapon, i'll do it myself!"

though i'm still bitter w/lucas for sexing the character up for the final installation, by chaining her to a giant lump and placing her in a steel bikini bra number....and little else. :eyes: (sigh)

but yes, dudes reign supreme in hollywood. things are changing,....slowly.