“Violence in a cinematic context can be, if handled in a certain way, very seductive" - Kathryn Bigelow
"There is that saying, 'There is no politics in the trenches,' and I think it was important to look at the heroism of these men." - Kathryn Bigelow
“Fear has a bad reputation, but I think that’s ill-deserved. Fear is clarifying. It forces you to put important things first and discount the trivial.” - Kathryn Bigelow
“The Jordanian royal family was very supportive of this production.” - Kathryn Bigelow
"The most important thing in life to me? Size, baby! -- Jenna Jameson
One watches the annual "Oscar ceremony" for the same reason one marries again: the triumph of hope over experience. The presentation of March 7, 2010 offered little in the way of hope, so let's say one watched out of fascination with a culture gone totally depraved. And speaking of depraved, how about that Kathryn Bigelow?
Of course, the best reason to watch the Academy Awards is for the insight provided into that final outpost of total irrelevance: 21st-century Hollywood. From last night's results, one can clearly see the social process which is taking shape: as the US prepares for wider war in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen (and who knows where else), and prepares for eventual Israeli/US airstrikes on Iran, the "elite" layer of US liberalism is accomodating itself quite comfortably to Obama-style aggressive war, justifying its new attitude by claiming the "progressive" adminstration in Washington is conducting a different kind of intervention, for different aims. Different in what way, no American movie can quite explain, as the corpses continue to pile up.
Hence Kathryn Bigelow. What exactly is The Hurt Locker? Its "story" is non-existent, and what does exist between the dribs and drabs stolen from the movie violence pallettes of Peckinpah, DePalma, Anthony Mann, Malick, Walsh, Ford, Kubrick, Coppola etc. is the rankest male bonding swill via (of course) violent, drunken, macho horseplay in the barracks and the trenches. The "Iraqis" (actually Jordanians, but a raghead is a raghead) are portrayed as either faceless, darkly-clad terrorists or cliches worthy of Butterfly McQueen. . . who are also terrorists. So what is the point of this completely unnecessary movie? And why did it win last night?
Regarding the point, one can look to its very nasty ending when Johnny (or in this case Jimmy) Comes Marching Home: Bigelow actually celebrates the idea of a dedicated, fearless military caste, permanently on call. Nothing here to upset the likes of Heinrich Himmler, Roberto D'Aubuisson, Papa Doc Duvalier, Dick Cheney, David Petraeus or Stanley the Manly McChrystal. Why did it win? George Packer of the New Yorker points to it:
Above all, The Hurt Locker is an Iraq movie with a modest agenda and no obvious political views. That, more than anything, is the source of its strength.... Perhaps, with the departure of the Bush administration, the withdrawal of American combat units from Iraqi cities, the attention of the new President shifted to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran...Iraq can start to become a real war, not a symbol of all-consuming evil—the subject of movies that try to be good movies rather than major statements.Right. So it is a good thing that one of the great crimes of modern history -- the US invasion, destruction, and occupation of Iraq -- is treated "neutrally" with no politics. But of course to treat this
A million Iraqi casualties minimum."neutrally" is as aggressive a political statement as one can make. (Perhaps Bigelow's next project will be her version of Helter Skelter, sort of an updating of Only Angels Have Wings with Charles Manson in the Cary Grant role.)
Five million displaced from their own nation.
Complete destruction of Iraq's infrastructure: roads, bridges, telephone systems, oil refineries, gasoline storage tanks, power plants, water-pumping stations and sewage treatment plants, even village water tanks.
Total destruction of what was once among the best education systems in the world, targeting in particular the university system and university professors. (Over 300 professors have been murdered by US sanctioned death-squads.)
Extermination of the oldest culture in the world, beginning with the mass theft of some of the most precious artistic treasures in world history.
The targeting and assassination of archaeologists, writers, painters, calligraphers, and singers. (100 singers have been murdered to date!)
Per the World Health Organization, 70% of Iraqi children have suffered nervous breakdowns.
Aside from being a talented huckster, and a talented. . . well, let's turn to Mailer and The Deer Park:
Tentatively, she reached out a hand to finger his hair, and at that moment Herman Teppis opened his legs and let Bobby fall to the floor. At the expression of surprise on her face, he began to laugh. "Don't you worry, sweetie," he said, and down he looked at that frightened female mouth, facsimile of all those smiling lips he had seen so ready to serve at the thumb of power, and with a cough, he started to talk. "That's a good girlie, that's a good girlie, that's a good girlie," he said in a mild little voice, "you're an angel darling, and I like you, you're my darling darling, oh that's the ticket," said Teppis.
What otherwise might be the interests of Kathryn Bigelow? The Widowmaker is little but pre-nuke worship of all things martial. There's the by-the-balls calculation and Nieztchean babble of Strange Days. (How stupid can one be about a city, in the face of Angela Bassett's greatness?) The imbecilic Blue Steel somehow mistakes Jamie Lee Curtis for Maria Falconetti. Bigelow finds some memorable images (and the very sexy Jenny Wright) as backdrop for the video version of Tangerine Dream's Near Dark. But it is Point Break -- her 1991 remake of Buck Angel's Sea Food, Part XIV -- which may be key.Vampires, surfers, serial killers, cops, drug dealers, Russian spys, and most recently male racist murderers who travel to distant lands for sport. Not a cookie-baker or a mommy in the bunch. Well, hee-haw ~ how butch of you, Kathie. The list reminds me of my old school buddy Ed Bray, who wanted to be liked so much by girls that he became the Mayfair High version of George Constanza (before there was a Seinfeld): he would enlist in whatever he thought would bring him closer to them: ballet class, piano, home economics and fashion courses; Bray even volunteered to be assistant coach on the girls' track team. Didn't work, of course.
So let us congratulate Ms. Bigelow on figuring out how to be close to as many he-men as possible. And let us drink a toast to her no doubt seething sexual life. Now put down the camera.
Let us end with the man who should have directed The Hurt Locker ('though I hear his sex life wasn't so great):
"I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents." -- General Smedley Butler
