Early leaders fade as aliens and Iraq vie for Oscars
February 3, 2010 by John McKie · 1 Comment
Scene from The Hurt Locker
The main one is that the previously hotly-tipped Precious and Up in the Air are on the slide – it looks to be a two-horse race between James Cameron’s 3-D blue and green epic Avatar and Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, each nominated nine times.
You can bet on “This time it’s personal” headlines. Cameron used to be married to Bigelow, and co-wrote and produced her 1995 movie Strange Days, starring Ralph Fiennes. Cameron remains friends with his third wife – he read The Hurt Locker script as a courtesy before she made it. Mercifully, he did not suggest she make it in 3-D or insert of the line “I’m flying, Jack”.
There have been a few Iraq movies which have (if you’ll pardon the term) misfired, from In the Valley of Elah to Rendition, but The Hurt Locker works, primarily because it is without an agenda. It’s been called “an action movie” but unlike Bigelow’s previous most famous movie Point Break with Keanu Reeves and the late Patrick Swayze, it’s more about taut suspense more than men jumping off exploding buildings – even if there are plenty of explosions.
The conflict in The Hurt Locker lies not just in the conflict of war but the pull of it. The film opens with the quotation “war is a drug.” It is a quotation taken from Pulitzer-Prize winning New York Times war correspondent Chris Hedges’ book, War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning.
The film is explained through that book’s title. The performances from the three male leads, particularly Jeremy Renner, are stunning but any headlines about the film will belong to its director. Mainly for one reason. She could well be the first woman to win Best Director. She’s only the fourth to be nominated after Lina Wertmuller (Seven Beauties, 1976) Jane Campion (The Piano, 1993) and Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation, 2003).
The omens are good. Bigelow’s win at Saturday’s Directors Guild Awards is seen as a useful guide to ascertaining who will lift the wee gold bloke next month. The last winner of the DGAs not to win the Best Director Oscar was Rob Marshall for Chicago in 2002.
The Academy may wish to trumpet a Bigelow win as a breakthrough triumph for women, a sign that the Oscars represent what’s going on in the world. (They might not shout that message from the rooftops if Cameron and his blue aliens triumph). You might however fancy them to downplay it. It’s a bit embarrassing for them that it’s taken until 2010 for a female director to win the top prize. Nearly as embarrassing, in fact, as the last Best Director winner not to win the Directors Guild award – Roman Polanski.
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It’s quite a comeback after “K19: The Careerender”. Cameron took 7 years to make Avatar – their marriage lasted 2!
The Oscar noms got it pretty much right this year. Sad their was nothing for The Hangover and Star Trek deserved more than nominations in the minor categories, but the fact “In The Loop” was recognised makes up for a lot.
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