Kathryn Bigelow: Director, Screenwriter, Painter, Activist, Producer, founder of The Last Days of Ivory and the only woman to receive an Academy Award,
Here is another woman of whom I did not know much about however now I am mesmerized by her voice, vision and work. Besides being the only woman director to receive the coveted academy award for Best Director, I wanted to feature her during my National Women's History Month's postings because of her assertion that she would like to be thought of and celebrated as a film maker, not a female film maker.
This is an important distinction to think about, especially during this tumultuous time of the women's movement and women's rights. My hope is that women, and men, can follow their passions, make their best contributions to the world, excel, explore and learn, regardless of their gender.
The rub is that women have not always been given that opportunity, so there is a disadvantage ...
A very talented painter, Kathryn spent two years at the San Francisco Art Institute. At 20, she won a scholarship to the Whitney Museum's Independent Study Program. She was given a studio in a former Offtrack Betting building, literally in an old bank vault, where she made art and waited to be critiqued by people like Richard Serra, Robert Rauschenberg and Susan Sontag. Later she earned a scholarship to study film at Columbia University School of Arts, graduating in 1979. She was also a member of the British avant garde cultural group, Art and Language. Kathryn is the only child of the manager of a paint factory and a librarian. www.imdb.comThis is an important distinction to think about, especially during this tumultuous time of the women's movement and women's rights. My hope is that women, and men, can follow their passions, make their best contributions to the world, excel, explore and learn, regardless of their gender.
The rub is that women have not always been given that opportunity, so there is a disadvantage ...
At the Directors Guild of America Awards, where she also won the top honour, Bigelow said: "I suppose I like to think of myself as a film-maker", rather than as a female film-maker.www.theguardian.com www.imdb.com
There is so much to learn and read about this multitalented woman, so enjoy the below excerpts about Bigelow as well as some articles about her work and the animated short that she directed for her foundation, the Last Days of Ivory. VF
It was a conversation with Andy Warhol that moved Bigelow's attentions from painting to film:
"Andy was saying that film is way more populist than art—that art’s very elitist, so you exclude a large audience," Bigelow tells TIME Magazine in its new cover story. Walking into an art museum around the same time provided a similar realization."A Malevich or a Mondrian requires that you come to it with a certain amount of information, a context," she explains. "And you don’t necessarily need that with film. A movie is accessible, available. That was exciting to me from a political standpoint." www.hollywoodreporter.com
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| link to entire TIME article: http://content.time.com |
While low budget and foreign language films are somewhat more equitable, major Hollywood movies are almost always directed by men. The exceptions can be counted on one hand. And that hand's tallest, most defiant middle finger is the great Kathryn Bigelow. http://www.biography.com/
On Monday, February 8, 2010, SBIFF presents "A Celebration of Kathryn Bigelow." A director not afraid to push the envelope in the cinematic world, Kathryn Bigelow has the eye for the picture she wants to present and then does so, with an expertise that is both gracious and bold. Having studied art, she takes her vision and presents it to her audience all the while telling a tale that evokes various and intense emotions. Bigelow graduated from Columbia's Film School and started a career, gaining experience in numerous genres - such as music videos, television and film, showing us once again the depth of her creativity and talent.Commented SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, "Kathryn's custom of the first person perspective throughout her films, as seen in Point Break and Strange Days, had always made her films visceral and favorites of mine, but the culmination of this is The Hurt Locker - her crowning achievement. The fact that I'm able to honor a fellow alumnus of the Columbia Grad School is icing on the cake."
On Monday, February 8, 2010, SBIFF presents "A Celebration of Kathryn Bigelow." A director not afraid to push the envelope in the cinematic world, Kathryn Bigelow has the eye for the picture she wants to present and then does so, with an expertise that is both gracious and bold. Having studied art, she takes her vision and presents it to her audience all the while telling a tale that evokes various and intense emotions. Bigelow graduated from Columbia's Film School and started a career, gaining experience in numerous genres - such as music videos, television and film, showing us once again the depth of her creativity and talent.Commented SBIFF Executive Director Roger Durling, "Kathryn's custom of the first person perspective throughout her films, as seen in Point Break and Strange Days, had always made her films visceral and favorites of mine, but the culmination of this is The Hurt Locker - her crowning achievement. The fact that I'm able to honor a fellow alumnus of the Columbia Grad School is icing on the cake."
Kathryn Bigelow named Outstanding Director of the YearSBIFF presents a retrospective of Bigelow's \www.emol.org
The previous female nominees were Sofia Coppola for Lost in Translation in 2003, Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993, and Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1975. www.theguardian.com
In the end of 2014, Bigelow and others created the organization, the Last Days of Ivory:
Last year we were made aware of the very real connection between elephant poaching and terrorism. For us, it represented the diabolical intersection of two problems that are of great concern - species extinction and global terrorism. Both involve the loss of innocent life and both require urgent action.
http://www.lastdaysofivory.com
interesting article about the backlash of making a raw political filmWhy Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar Snub Is a Symptom of a Larger Problem in Film CriticismHuffintonPost, Scott Mendelson, 01/11/2013 11:20 am ET | Updated Mar 13, 2013
another article from GWToday:
Kathryn Bigelow Joins SMPA for Conversation Series Academy Award-winning director discusses career, filmmaking process and the role of women in the movie industry. Julyssa Lopez, October 30, 2013 gwtoday.gwu.edu/
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If there's specific resistance to women making movies, I just choose to ignore that as an obstacle for two reasons: I can't change my gender, and I refuse to stop making movies. It's irrelevant who or what directed a movie, the important thing is that you either respond to it or you don't. There should be more women directing; I think there's just not the awareness that it's really possible. It is. Kathryn Bigelow
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interesting article about the backlash of making a raw political filmWhy Kathryn Bigelow’s Oscar Snub Is a Symptom of a Larger Problem in Film CriticismHuffintonPost, Scott Mendelson, 01/11/2013 11:20 am ET | Updated Mar 13, 2013
another article from GWToday:
Kathryn Bigelow Joins SMPA for Conversation Series Academy Award-winning director discusses career, filmmaking process and the role of women in the movie industry. Julyssa Lopez, October 30, 2013 gwtoday.gwu.edu/
