I don't want to be made pacified or made comfortable. I like stuff that gets your adrenaline going.If you don't know of Kathryn Bigelow, then you totally should. She is a painter. She has works in MoMA's permanent collection. Oh, and she was the first woman in Oscar history to win Best Director for The Hurt Locker. Learn more about her bad self here.
-Kathryn Bigelow
Initial Reaction: I had seen The Hurt Locker the year it was released, and I remember thinking that it was easily one of my favorite war movies. I felt like I was on edge the entire film and didn't ever really get a rest. The aesthetic techniques she uses to portray war, violence, and death received some criticism, as some believed that she perhaps glamorized war by making some of the scenes too "beautiful." I personally don't agree, and while she does uses techniques that break the "realness" of war, I thought that the film was gritty, powerful, and sure to leave you breathless.
Haven't seen it? Find the summary here.
Question posed for screening: How does the film portray war, violence, and death through visual aesthetic techniques? I wanted to explore a few instances in which Bigelow could have been accused of making war too "beautiful."
Moment 1. Staff Sergeant Matt Thompson's death
A series of slow motion shots show the explosion that kills Guy Pierce's character. In slow motion, we watch a cloud of dust and smoke form and dirt off a nearby car and the ground fly into the air.
More than just the slow motion effect, this same event is shown from varying points of view, almost as if we get to see the explosion from all the soldiers' and civilian witnesses' vantage points. The different points of view come in a variety of forms. Bigelow chooses to juxtapose raw, documentary-like footage (that looks as if taken with a video camera or cell phone) with her crisp, clear, slow-motion shots. The end product is truly breathtaking.
In this still from the film, James' figure is in shadow in the foreground as the fire in the background provides a kind of backlighting. He is posed as if for a portrait/staged photograph. You may say, but Danielle, of course it looks like a photograph when you take a still from a film- because it is. Yes, of course. But what's interesting is that this shot lasts for a good bit of time, the only discernable movement coming from the fire. That's what leads me to believe that photography is the medium that Bigelow was drawing from for this shot.
This staging, I believe, perpetuates an idealized image of the heroic soldier. A soldier looks into destruction, clearly upset at what he sees. We see a soldier so close to danger, and yet he doesn't look afraid. A hero. But as the film develops, we quickly realize that the same character that is shown as a hero in this shot is a deeply disturbed, complicated character.
***
Rating: I really can't put into words just how much I enjoy and admire this movie. I've talked about a few of the visuals that make this movie stunning, and of course there's many, many more. But this film is not only pretty to look at. How Bigelow chooses to handle the controversial subject of war- and this current one in particular- is really something to be respected. She doesn't take sides, but instead tries to provide a film that shows the oftentimes ambiguous feelings associated with war and the military.
On the one hand, she shows the camaraderie and fraternity amongst soldiers. With genuine feeling, she shows the soldiers as human beings with all the fears, anxieties, loyalties, and bravery that we know is required by those who protect us. There are scenes- such as the one that shows James feeding Sergeant JT Sanborn his last Capri Sun so he doesn't get dehydrated- that strike your heartstrings so directly that you would are probably a robot if you didn't shed a tear.
On the other hand, she uses the character of James to explore some of the morally ambiguous decisions and actions of war. What kind of personality does it take to be the person in the bomb suit? What drives Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldrige to not-so-jokingly talk about killing James in an "accident"? What is it about war that makes James unhappy when he is at home with his family and alive when he's on the battlefield?
Guh. It's just too good. Go see it!
A series of slow motion shots show the explosion that kills Guy Pierce's character. In slow motion, we watch a cloud of dust and smoke form and dirt off a nearby car and the ground fly into the air.
More than just the slow motion effect, this same event is shown from varying points of view, almost as if we get to see the explosion from all the soldiers' and civilian witnesses' vantage points. The different points of view come in a variety of forms. Bigelow chooses to juxtapose raw, documentary-like footage (that looks as if taken with a video camera or cell phone) with her crisp, clear, slow-motion shots. The end product is truly breathtaking.
Moment 2. Sergeant First Class William James assesses bomb damage
In this still from the film, James' figure is in shadow in the foreground as the fire in the background provides a kind of backlighting. He is posed as if for a portrait/staged photograph. You may say, but Danielle, of course it looks like a photograph when you take a still from a film- because it is. Yes, of course. But what's interesting is that this shot lasts for a good bit of time, the only discernable movement coming from the fire. That's what leads me to believe that photography is the medium that Bigelow was drawing from for this shot.
This staging, I believe, perpetuates an idealized image of the heroic soldier. A soldier looks into destruction, clearly upset at what he sees. We see a soldier so close to danger, and yet he doesn't look afraid. A hero. But as the film develops, we quickly realize that the same character that is shown as a hero in this shot is a deeply disturbed, complicated character.
***
Rating: I really can't put into words just how much I enjoy and admire this movie. I've talked about a few of the visuals that make this movie stunning, and of course there's many, many more. But this film is not only pretty to look at. How Bigelow chooses to handle the controversial subject of war- and this current one in particular- is really something to be respected. She doesn't take sides, but instead tries to provide a film that shows the oftentimes ambiguous feelings associated with war and the military.
On the other hand, she uses the character of James to explore some of the morally ambiguous decisions and actions of war. What kind of personality does it take to be the person in the bomb suit? What drives Sanborn and Specialist Owen Eldrige to not-so-jokingly talk about killing James in an "accident"? What is it about war that makes James unhappy when he is at home with his family and alive when he's on the battlefield?
Guh. It's just too good. Go see it!
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