Kathryn Bigelow: Interviews

An Interview with Kathryn Bigelow

172 An Interview with Kathryn Bigelow Peter Keough / 2009 From the Boston Phoenix website, July 4, 2009. Transcript of the full interview condensed in “Big Bang Theory” in two parts. © 2009 by the Boston Phoenix. Reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. July 4, 2009 Happy Fourth of July, all. On this holiday celebrated with fireworks perhaps it is appropriate to talk about those heroes who put their lives on the line to prevent things from exploding. Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker tells the story of the demolition experts in Iraq whose dangerous duty involves defusing the lethal improvised explosive devices (IEDs) set by insurgents and which have been responsible for a frightening death toll, both military and civilian. Plus, it’s the best film so far this year. But don’t let that dissuade you. True, Transformers opened with about $200 million last weekend and The Hurt Locker, which was released in only four theaters, made somewhat less (it will be expanding to more screens and cities on July 10, including Boston). But it did score about 91 on Metacritic. So I asked Bigelow how she might compare her film to the competition. A good question for Bigelow, no doubt, but when I spoke to her Friday, she seemed to have something else on her mind, as you will see. PK: How are you today? KB: Fine. Other than the plane was hit twice in midair by lightning. Did you ever have that happen? PK: Not that I’ve been aware of. KB: Oh, you would be! It was like a bullwhip snapped the whole plane. Bam! It was very intense. So I’m very happy to see you. peter keough / 2009 173 PK: What an adrenaline rush. That’s probably as close as you’ll get to defusing a 155 [an artillery shell used in IEDs]. KB: Let me knock on wood. PK: The second time was probably already boring. KB: Just old hat. PK: After the screening of The Hurt Locker another critic said that this makes Michael Bay look like a wimp. What is the key to making a powerful action movie? KB: Emotional investment with the characters. Smart stories. If you’re not emotionally engaged cinematic prowess can’t invent what is not there. And then there are so many other factors so I don’t want to be reductive. Like keeping the audience oriented, making sure the geography is very clear. Especially in a movie like The Hurt Locker where the audience’s relation to an improvised explosive device is the key to your understanding of what a bomb tech does on a daily basis in Baghdad in 2004. And so I’d say emotional engagement with carefully crafted characters and a great script. PK: So, no Autobots. KB: No tricks. You put the camera low and you dutch the angle and you hit the side of the magazine when you turn the camera over. But if the intrinsic investment is not there, you can’t invent it out of whole cloth. PK: And easy on the rapid fire editing so people can follow what’s going on? KB: And geography. So people can be oriented geographically. If you’re creating excitement purely from an editorial standpoint it has to be intrinsic to the story and the subject; it doesn’t come from form, it comes from content. PK: Intensity and clarity. KB: Exactly. And the intensity comes from, one hopes anyway, emotional investment in the characters. You are worried for them or you break down the fourth wall and become them. PK: Was the point-of-view camera something you started using after Strange Days? KB: I did some p.o.v. in Near Dark and I think . . . it’s a really successful 174 kathryn bigelow: inter views tool if the story needs it and demands it. Total immersion and experiential cinema—I know I’ve talked about it in other interviews—where film and literature, not that literature can’t be experiential, it is more reflective . But film is experiential. It can transport you to the desert basin of Baghdad in 2004 and put you up close and personal. PK: Kind of like the SQUIDs [Superconducting Quantum Interference Devices, which record and replay personal experiences] in Strange Days? KB: Kind of like that, but it’s more literal. In the case of The Hurt Locker it’s looking at a...