If you're new to Anne Marie's 'Women's Pictures' it's a weekly series that takes on a new female director each month. Previously covered: Ida Lupino, Jane Campion, Sofia Coppola and Agnes Varda. - Editor
Kathryn Bigelow & Andy Warhol in 1981. Photo: Philippe LedruWelcome to Kathryn Bigelow month!
Considering that July is traditionally one of the bigger blockbuster months, it seemed like the perfect time to delve into the career of one of the most famous female directors currently working. Undoubtedly, Bigelow is most famous for being the only woman to win an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2008, she and The Hurt Locker unexpectedly became the symbols of art "fighting back" against bloated CGI behemoths represented by Avatar, directed by her ex-husband, James Cameron. The irony of this is that before making smaller, serious war movies, Bigelow had made her name (occasionally working with Cameron) on action flicks. So, pop some jiffy pop, lie back in your recliner, and let's get ready for some gun fights!
...But maybe not just yet. Surprisingly, 1981's The Loveless is virtually devoid of any explosions, catch phrases, car chases, or fun. Co-directed and co-written by Monty Montgomery (who would eventually produce Jane Campion's The Portrait of a Lady), The Loveless is a biker movie that falls into genre cliches even as it tries very hard to shed them.
Willem Dafoe (in his first credited film role) plays Vance, one of a gang of bikers who stop in a small town to fix a bike on the way to Daytona in the 1950s. The presence of the oversexed, understimulated bikers sends violent ripples through the stifled town, but the movie takes a long time to build to its climax. First, there are scenes of nearly shirtless Dafoe staring moodily into the distance while smoking. There are homoerotic knife games between gang members. There are downright voyeuristic shots of the biker boys as they leer at women. It's a sex-obsessed movie, is what I'm saying. Just not in the way I expected.
There is either a lot going on in this movie, or nothing at all...
The Loveless is either a sex-crazed rejection of the late 70s/early 80s nostalgia for "simple" 1950s America, or it's a stylish excuse to show off how good Willem Dafoe looks in leather. With Magic Mike XXL coming out this week, a lot of thinkpieces are reappearing about the camera's gaze and "new" objectification of men onscreen. The Loveless is proof that this was happening long before 2012. Kathryn Bigelow's camera is active and unembarrassed. Often, a scene is set up - such as the opening shot - so that Dafoe will simply be required to lean against his bike while the camera pans around him, taking in boots, legs, belt, abs, jacket, neck, cheekbones, eyes, before pulling back for a full view.
As subversive and fun as it is to watch a bunch of sex-crazed bikers get sexualized themselves, this particular pleasure does not extend to the script. While Bigelow and her co-director show confidence in handling of the camera, they have no such confidence in their handling of character or dialog. Everyone speaks in 50s slang so uncomfortably that it might be centuries-old, instead of just a few decades-old. The characters are never given much life or individuality; one biker is easily mistaken for another. The women are better differentiated from each other. The climax of the film actually centers on them. Ultimately, though, it's a film no better than the sum of its parts.
Its very pretty man parts
As a first effort, The Loveless doesn't give much indication of where Bigelow's career was headed. It wasn't until six years later that Bigelow would get another chance to direct, with a vampire film called Near Dark. The relative success of Near Dark led to her next film Blue Steel, a cop thriller starring Jamie Lee Curtis. So it was that ten years after her first feature film, Kathryn Bigelow made a name for herself as a director of thrillers. And she was about to make an even bigger splash.
This month on Women's Pictures...
7/9 - Point Break (1991) - The ultimate surfer/cop movie, starring Patrick Swayze as a surfer-thief, and Keanu Reeves as the cop sent to take him down. (Amazon Prime)
7/16 - Strange Days (1995) - Bigelow directed this LA-based cop thriller written by her ex-husband, James Cameron. (Amazon Prime) (Netflix)
7/23 - K-19: The Widowmaker (2002) - Hands down the most requested film after Point Break, this film follows Harrison Ford racing to prevent a nuclear holocaust via submarine. (Amazon Prime) (Netflix)
7/30 - The Hurt Locker (2008) - The film that put Bigelow's name down in history as the first female director to win the Academy Award is a thriller about a bomb squad in the Iraq War. (Amazon Prime)