SANTA BARBARA: Bigelow honored as Outstanding Director of the Year

As if another accolade was necessary at this point, Kathryn Bigelow was in town this evening to accept SBIFF’s Outstanding Director of the Year award.  The one-two punch of Bigelow here and James Cameron for the fest’s Modern Master honor made for, again, quite the prescient choices from festival director Roger Durling in the fall.

The retrospective was emceed by Durling, which was endearing.  Two incredibly shy personalities on the stage at one time.  Lots of “ums” and “uhs,” but they caught their rhythm some time around the “Near Dark” discussion, which is when Durling said Bigelow first caught his attention.  He said he was fascinated by how Bigelow would take genres and deconstruct them, paint with different, darker shades.  Like melding a biker film with film noir in “The Loveless,” or attempting a western through the tools of the horror genre in “Near Dark.”

Of course, Bigelow’s big achievement this year is no exception to this feature of her work.  It has long been a point of discussion that “The Hurt Locker” isn’t a typical war film, but a combination of suspense, action and, indeed, deep dramatic hues.  And like all of her work, an intense focus on character is at the fore.

As a fan who picked up on Bigelow beginning with 1991’s high octane “Point Break,” I was most interested to hear anything she had to say about that.  Of course, with the tragic passing of Patrick Swayze earlier this year, it was all the more noteworthy, and Bigelow shared a story I’ve heard before, only slightly different, that illustrated Swayze’s commitment as an actor.

Swayze was an avid skydiver, but the insurance company on the film wouldn’t allow the production to shoot him jumping from a plane.  Heaven forbid something happen to the lead actor during the middle of shooting a studio production such as this.  But Swayze had a solution.  He was planning to go skydiving out of a local airfield and told Bigelow to grab a camera and come shoot it.  That way it’s not on the studio’s time or dime and no one can stop him from jumping.

The “Adios” scene in the film, shooting Swayze back-flipping out of a small plane, that was the result.

As far as “The Hurt Locker” is concerned, I perked up when Bigelow began describing both her approach to casting and to sound design.  First and foremost, as has been made mention before, the casting of Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes, recognizable actors who have extremely limited screen time due to what happens to their characters, was meant to reflect the disorientation and randomness of war.  You never know who’s going to be left standing and often times, it might not be who you thought it would be.

Second, on sound design, she said she worked with sound mixer Paul Ottosson to create a “360 sound environment” on the film, another attempt at immersion (of a sort) for the viewer.  But I’ll dig more into that in tomorrow’s Oscar Guide.

Action film director Andy Davis was on hand to present the award to Bigelow, offering a brief but eloquent speech about how closely their work is intertwined based on the cast and crew they’ve shared over the years.

It was a lovely evening and just one more feather in a veritable headdress of honors for Bigelow this season.  Next stop: Oscar’s stage (surely).