The Hurt
Locker is an American war film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, centered around
an explosive disposal specialist during the war in Iraq. Bigelow's distinctive dissimilarities from
the majority of war-related films is how she portrays the characters in the
narrative. Rather than caricaturing the
protagonists as some sort of war hero in a time of need, Bigelow illustrates a
more humane and realistic side of the characters. She shows the brashness, the compassion, the mistakes,
the regrets, and the flaws of the characters.
Instead of trying to immortalize the lead by ingraining moments of
selflessness, courage, and heroism into the memories of the audience "forever",
Bigelow's unsung interpretation of the lead leaves an familiar yet odd
encounter with a stranger (MacAdam).
Perhaps Bigelow's different approach towards
war films is correlated with her past being an artist and Linda Nochlin's claim
that female artists tend to make works that are "ephemeral"
(MacAdam). By depicting the protagonist
as a flawed person, the spectators is able to experience a grander viewpoint of
wars that incorporates not a single distinguished individual, but all the rest
of the persons involved in the war as well.
Bigelow's "conceptual" standpoint emphasizes the war itself in
lieu of parading a war hero (NYTimes).
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Another
possibility that vindicates Bigelow's deviation from the standard approach is
the author's "gender" (Humm). Humm
states the very "signature" of an literary film is pliable by the director
that interprets it (Humm). Corresponding
to the auteur theory, the unique adaptation of a literary work is associated in
respect to each individual. However, the
cause that digresses a work's signature from the norm isn't simply influenced
by the factor of gender or pre-occupation, but a collective history of the
interpreter's life. Despite not being
the lone manipulator to the film's distinctive presentation, it is undeniable
that gender plays a large role in affecting it; for the dichotomy of genders of
male and female have certain common narratives shared only amongst the same
gender.
Despite
Bigelow's attempt to paint the lives of individuals at the scene of the war
being well-received by the general audience, veterans and military personnel
critiques the film being "inaccurate" (Susman). Viewers with a military background argue the
film uses incorrect devices and military protocols. The screenwriter for the film, Mark Boal,
retorts the shortcomings are due to not having a large enough budget for
"battlefield re-creations" (Salcido).
Regardless of the verbal oppositions in making the film, The Hurt Locker offers a conceptual
grasp of all the unsung heroes of
war.
Bibliography
Where the Great Women Artists Are Now by Barbara A.
MacAdam, http://www.artnews.com/2007/02/01/where-the-great-women-artists-are-now/
Kathryn Bigelow by NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/81836/Kathryn-Bigelow/biography
"Author/Autor:
Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film" by Maggie Humm
Veterans Fact-Check "The Hurt
Locker"
by Gary Susman, http://news.moviefone.com/2010/02/17/veterans-fact-check-the-hurt-locker/
Veterans say "The Hurt Locker" gets
a lot right and wrong by Joel Salcido, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2010-02-17-hurtlocker17_CV_N.htm
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