Kathryn Bigelow.

Kathryn Bigelow became the first woman to win an oscar for directing. But her new thriller about the hunt for Osama Bin Laden stands accused of endorsing torture.


When Osama Bin Laden was killed by special forces two years ago, Kathryn was in deep preparations for a new movie, about the failure to capture him during the early stages of the war in Afghanistan.
They has scouted locations in Kazakhstan and were preparing to helicopter in to Bagram and Jalalabad to see the terrain they'd be trying to replicate.


When the news of his death came in, it blew apart the project. When news of the death came in Bigelow said that " I think our first thought was, well at least we have a third act."


Bigelow and Boal, who has successfully collaborated on The Hurt Locker three years earlier realised that it was not a third act, but in fact the entire story. Not even its harshest critics dispute that Zero Dark Thirty is a beautifully made film. There is almost no back story for the characters, just the grinding sense of mission that propels people working in extraordinary circumstances.

Bigelows approach to the film has been clearly influenced by her experiences on the Hurt Locker. Bilgelow justifiably won the 2010 oscar for best director , the first woman to win that category. She is firmly of the belief that commenting excessively on womens restrictions in hollywood only compounds their ghettoisation. " If there's a specific resistance to women making movies, i choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons , i cant change my gender and i wont stop making movies."




She says Zero Dark Thirty is " A real tribute to the men and women in the intelligence community who obviously have to, by the nature of their job, work in complete secrecy. it's a nod of respect and great gratitude." The difficulty here is that expressing respect and gratitude to those involved in controversial interrogation techniques is not quite the same as expressing gratitude to those in the relatively neutral field of bomb disposal. 


Bigelow's first big hit, Point Break, starring Keanu Reaves and Patrick Swayze established a certain musclarity of style, which bigelow consolidated with Blue Steel, Strange Days and in 2002, K-19: The Widowmaker.

Occasionally there's no avoiding it,. The morning of  the interview, the novelist Brett Easton Ellis tweets that Bigelow 'would be considered a mildly interesting film maker if she was a man, but since shes a very hot woman, shes really overrated."


She says " Women i think are sort of the unsung heroes, i was first of all surprised to learn that women are at the centre of the hunt. And i was sort of surprised that i was surprised, you don't think of a young woman being a terrorist hunter."

Does she think women should be able to serve on the frontline? " You know, i don't know, i can't imagine why not."


Making Zero Dark Thirty took Bigelow a year. Making the film was like an epic puzzle. and she sheepishly confesses that that's one of the things she likes best " Logistics - i know it sounds crazy but i do enjoy it because ifs like finding order out of chaos."


When she gives any thought to the vastness of the story and to the racdioactive sensitivity of so many of it's elements, she reassures herself that "As a film maker, its a responsibility to engage with the time i live i. You're kind of creating as imagistic version of living history."