Kathryn Bigelow facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Kathryn Bigelow
Bigelow in 2010
Born	Kathryn Ann Bigelow (1951-11-27) November 27, 1951 (age 73) San Carlos, California, U.S.
Education	San Francisco Art Institute (BFA) Columbia University (MFA)
Occupation	Film director producer writer
Years active	1978–present
Spouse(s)	James Cameron ​ ​ (m. 1989; div. 1991)​

Kathryn Ann Bigelow (born November 27, 1951) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. She has won many important awards, including two Academy Awards (also known as Oscars), two BAFTA Awards, and a Primetime Emmy Award. In 2010, Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

Bigelow directed her first full-length movie, The Loveless, in 1981. She became well-known for directing exciting thrillers like Near Dark (1987), Blue Steel (1990), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), and K-19: The Widowmaker (2002). For directing the war movie The Hurt Locker (2008), Bigelow made history. She became the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director. After that, she directed the spy movie Zero Dark Thirty (2012) and the crime movie Detroit (2017).

She also directed episodes of the TV show Homicide: Life on the Street (1998–1999). She won a Primetime Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking for her work on the Netflix film Cartel Land (2015). Bigelow is known for working often with writers Eric Red and Mark Boal.

Early Life and Education

Bigelow was born in San Carlos, California. She was the only child of Gertrude Kathryn, a librarian, and Ronald Elliot Bigelow, a paint factory manager. Her mother had family from Norway. Kathryn went to Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, California.

Becoming an Artist and Filmmaker

Bigelow first started her creative journey by studying painting. She joined the San Francisco Art Institute in 1970 and earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in 1972. While studying there, she was also accepted into a special program at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. For a while, Bigelow lived as an artist without much money. She even lived with famous painter Julian Schnabel in another artist's loft.

Bigelow later joined the graduate film program at Columbia University. There, she studied film theory and criticism and earned her master's degree. She learned from well-known professors like Vito Acconci and Susan Sontag. She also worked with a group called Art & Language. Bigelow even taught at the California Institute of the Arts. During her studies, she made a short film called The Set-Up (1978). This film was liked by director Miloš Forman, who was teaching at Columbia at the time. Bigelow later used this film as part of her master's degree work.

Directing Career Highlights

Early Films and Action Thrillers (1981–2002)

Bigelow's short film The Set-Up was about violence in movies. It showed two men fighting while experts talked about the meaning of the images. Bigelow even asked her actors to really hit each other during the all-night filming! Her first full-length movie was The Loveless (1981). It was a biker film that she directed with Monty Montgomery. This movie was one of the first starring roles for actor Willem Dafoe.

Next, she directed Near Dark (1987), which she also helped write. With this movie, she started to explore how to change common movie styles and genres. The film starred three actors who had also been in the movie Aliens. That same year, she directed a music video for the band New Order called "Touched by the Hand of God". This video made fun of the look of glam metal music. Bigelow's next movies, Blue Steel, Point Break, and Strange Days, mixed her thoughtful style with the needs of popular filmmaking.

Blue Steel starred Jamie Lee Curtis as a new police officer. She is hunted by a dangerous killer played by Ron Silver. Bigelow also co-wrote this movie. The film was shot in New York City because it was cheaper and because Bigelow likes movies that look real. Bigelow then directed the popular movie Point Break (1991). It starred Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent who pretends to be a surfer. He tries to catch a group of bank robbers called the "Ex-Presidents." These robbers wore masks of former presidents when they robbed banks. Point Break was Bigelow's most successful studio film, earning about $80 million worldwide.

In 1993, she directed an episode of the TV show Wild Palms. Bigelow's 1995 movie Strange Days was written and produced by her ex-husband James Cameron. Even though some people liked it, the movie did not do well at the box office. Many people thought James Cameron was more responsible for the movie's ideas, which made Bigelow's role seem smaller. She directed three episodes of Homicide: Life on the Street in 1997 and 1998. In 2000, Bigelow directed The Weight of Water, a movie about two women stuck in difficult relationships. In 2002, she directed K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson. This movie was about a group of men on the Soviet Union's first nuclear submarine. The film did not do well and got mixed reviews from critics.

Award-Winning Success (2008–Present)

Bigelow speaking at the Seattle International Film Festival in 2009

Bigelow's next movie was The Hurt Locker. It was first shown at the Venice Film Festival in 2008 and released in the US in 2009. The movie is set in Iraq after the invasion. It received great reviews from critics. The film stars Jeremy Renner, Brian Geraghty, and Anthony Mackie. Bigelow won the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. She was the first woman to win this award. She was also nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Director. In 2010, she won the award for Best Director, and The Hurt Locker won Best Picture at the 63rd British Academy Film Awards.

She made history by becoming the first woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director for The Hurt Locker. She was only the fourth woman ever nominated for this honor. One of her competitors was her ex-husband, James Cameron, who directed the science fiction movie Avatar. When she accepted her Oscar, Bigelow did not mention being the first woman to win Best Director. In the past, Bigelow has said she does not want to be called a "woman filmmaker" or a "feminist filmmaker."

Bigelow's next movie was Zero Dark Thirty. This film showed the American efforts to find Osama bin Laden. Critics praised Zero Dark Thirty, but it also caused some debate. Some people criticized it for how it showed certain events. Bigelow won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director for this film. She was the first woman to win this award twice, having won before for The Hurt Locker. She was also the first woman to receive the National Board of Review Award for Best Director.

Bigelow worked with Mark Boal again for the movie Detroit. This film is set during the 1967 Detroit riots. Detroit began filming in 2016 and was released in July 2017. This was around the 50th anniversary of the riots and the Algiers Motel incident, which is shown in the film. The movie starred John Boyega, Hannah Murray, Will Poulter, Jack Reynor, Anthony Mackie, and Joseph David-Jones.

She was also an executive producer for Triple Frontier. She was originally going to direct this film but chose to focus on other projects. Bigelow also directs commercials. She has directed ads for the Army National Guard, Budweiser, and AT&T. Some of these commercials were shown during the Super Bowl. In 2022, Bigelow was nominated for an award for her commercial work for Apple.

In May 2024, Netflix announced that Bigelow would direct a new movie for them. This movie is about White House officials dealing with an incoming missile attack. The cast includes Idris Elba, Rebecca Ferguson, Tracy Letts, Greta Lee, and Jared Harris.

Film Style and Themes

Bigelow is known for her unique way of making movies. Her films often mix exciting action with deeper ideas. She has been successful using both traditional Hollywood filmmaking and her own special style. She often includes social issues like gender, race, and politics in her movies, no matter the genre.

While her movies are often called action films, she describes her style as exploring how movies can be "kinetic," meaning full of movement and energy. Her action scenes are special because she uses custom camera equipment. This allows for unique, moving shots that show the physical action very well. In many of her films, like The Hurt Locker, Point Break, and Strange Days, she has used cameras that are held by hand or move freely.

Bigelow is also known for showing a lot of violence in her films. Violence has been a part of her movies since the start of her career. In her first short film, The Set-Up (1978), two professors discuss two men fighting. For this film, Bigelow asked the actors to actually hit each other. This interest in violence continued in her first full-length movie, The Loveless. This film follows a 1950s motorcycle gang and the violence that happens when they visit a small town. Her next film, Near Dark, is about a young boy who falls in love with a vampire. The movie was originally planned as a Western, but Bigelow changed it. She still used violent parts of the Western genre, like shoot-outs and chases. This film is known for mixing Western and horror styles. It also explores ideas about "homosexuality and 'white America's illusion of safety and control'". The film became a cult classic among horror fans.

Blue Steel was her first movie in the action film genre. She has stayed with this genre throughout her career and found much success. Like Near Dark, Bigelow changes typical action movie rules by having a female main character. The film explores feminist ideas and is often studied by film scholars. Her next film, Point Break, starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze, was her big breakthrough in mainstream success. The movie follows a detective who goes undercover with a group of surfers who rob banks. This was the first time Bigelow used long, smooth camera shots. It was also her biggest financial success, earning $83.5 million worldwide.

The movie Strange Days explored the connections between media, sex, race, class, and technology. Even though it had a budget of $42 million, it only earned about $8 million. However, for this film, Bigelow and her team spent over a year creating a camera that tried to copy human vision. The scenes filmed with this camera are seen as very new and surprising, even though the movie itself was not a big hit.

After Strange Days, Bigelow had a few movies that did not do well with critics or at the box office. Her films The Weight of Water and K-19: The Widowmaker received negative reviews and were not very popular. However, she made a big comeback with her independent film The Hurt Locker. This movie marked her move into political and historical films. The Hurt Locker follows members of a bomb squad during the Iraq War. It was Bigelow's first time using a style similar to a documentary, with quick cuts and shaky camera work. Her next film, Zero Dark Thirty, is seen as a direct follow-up to The Hurt Locker. It goes deeper into historical events and discusses geopolitics and American foreign policy. This film is her most debated movie, with strong criticism about how it showed certain events.

Throughout her career, Bigelow has been known for going to great lengths for her films. For Point Break, she was on the airplane with a parachute while filming the skydiving scene. During surfing scenes, she would paddle on a longboard or lean far over a boat to get shots of Keanu Reeves. For the start of Strange Days, she controlled a crane that dropped a cameraman off a tall building. For The Hurt Locker, Bigelow filmed in Jordan in very hot weather, up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit (54 degrees Celsius).

Other Work and Personal Life

In 1976, Bigelow appeared in a political film called "Struggle in New York." In the early 1980s, she modeled for a Gap advertisement. She also acted in Lizzie Borden's 1983 film Born in Flames as a feminist newspaper editor. In 1988, she played the leader of a cowgirl gang in the music video for Martini Ranch's "Reach," which was directed by James Cameron.

Bigelow was married to director James Cameron from 1989 to 1991.

Filmography

Film

Executive producer

• Cartel Land (2015)
• Triple Frontier (2019)

Television

• Wild Palms: "Rising Sons" (1993)
• Homicide: Life on the Street: "Fallen Heroes" Parts 1 & 2 (1998)
• Homicide: Life on the Street: "Lines of Fire" (1999)
• Karen Sisco: "He Was a Friend of Mine" (2004)

Other works

Awards and Nominations

See also

In Spanish: Kathryn Bigelow para niños

• Kathryn Bigelow's unrealized projects
• List of Academy Award records
• List of female film and television directors
• List of accolades received by The Hurt Locker
• List of accolades received by Zero Dark Thirty