She is one of the very few female directors involved in science fiction films. Although she has only made one science fiction film, the film has been ranked among the top 50 dystopian films in foreign media; she is the first female Oscar director in film history; she Her ex-husband is the movie god James Cameron, but now when people mention Cameron, they often say "this is the ex-husband of the best female director at the Oscars"; her recent work "Hunting Bin Laden" won the 85th Oscar 5 Nomination, but unfortunately I didn't get the little golden man again (more regrettably, this time I was not nominated for best director). This Catherine Bigelow has now become a famous film director, but the science fiction film "The Last Century Riot" she shot 18 years ago is rarely mentioned. The most elegant female director Catherine Bigelow’s films are completely different from ordinary female directors. They are full of male masculinity. They are all about action, science fiction, police, war, rock music, etc. The language style of the lens is also very different. Realistic coldness.
Bigelow was born in sunny California on November 27, 1951. His father was the manager of a paint factory and his mother was a librarian. She is their only child. Bigelow graduated from Columbia University, majoring in art theory and criticism. Her teachers include famous female theorist Susan Sontag and contemporary art and architecture master Vito Acconci.
"I never thought that I could do anything other than painting until I listened to a lesson from Gunvor Nelson." Catherine Bigelow has always been fond of painting, and the Swiss experimental film artist inspired Bigelow. . "I think art and film are two intersecting mediums. Film is very close to art: it is a canvas with a sound layer." "Perhaps because of my background in art," Bigelow said. "You You have to train yourself to make your work instinct. What all kinds of movies have in common is probably an artistic challenge, or a linguistic challenge, or a stimulating and unique image. If you shoot The film’s decision and reasons are pure, so your staying power will be unlimited.” Perhaps it is this background of learning art that makes Bigelow completely different from other female directors-in the field of art, many female artists are Avoid emphasizing their female identity and thinking style, and try their best to create works that are not particularly different from male artists; in terms of movies, most of the works of female directors have a clear femininity. Bigelow’s first short film is very unique. This 17-minute "The Set-Up" (The Set-Up, 1978) is as follows: Two men violently fight each other in a dark alley. The background soundtrack is The two professors are analyzing the meaning of philosophy. What the film wants to express is "why violence is so tempting in this form of film"... Her first feature film "The "Loveless" (1982) is about the Moto Party, much like Marlon Brando's "The Speeding Party"; the next "Blood Corpse Night" (1987) is a pretty ethereal and even melancholic vampire movie, which can be seen as an alternative youth film It’s not as scary as the Chinese translation; "The Blue Angel" (1989) tells the story of a policewoman looking for her missing gun, which fully demonstrates the problem of gun violence; the action starring Keanu Reeves in 1991 In the film "Breaking Point", Bigelow combines extreme sports with bank robbing, and a parallel shot of a chase through the streets of Koshihoku is quite stunning; "The Last Century Riot" (1995) is even more mixed with the end-of-century complex. , Rock music, electronic drugs (you can think of it as Internet addiction), etc., are full of pornography, violence, decadence, and horror. As for the subsequent thriller "The Weight of Water" (2000), the war film "K-19 Widowmaker" (2002), "The Hurt Locker" (2008), and "The Assassination of Bin Laden" (2012) often Let the fans think that Bigelow is a pure man director. In 2007, Bigelow filmed the commercial "Mission Zero" for Lamborghini cars: Uma Thurman drove a yellow Lamborghini all the way through, making people think that he was watching Quentin Tarantino's work. Full of stylization-never before has a female director able to control action films, science fiction films, thrillers, horror films and war films so skillfully and uniquely... In 1988, Cameron first met Bigelow not long after he Martini Ranch, the band that helped his queen actor Bill Paxton, made a music video called "Reach". This is a mixture of the styles of "Mad Max" and "Sunset Sands". Catherine Bigelow guest-starred as a silent and hot Mexican female gunfighter, leading a group of sisters to fight against the men. It was so sexy! This tall woman seems to be born with guns rather than dolls-but Jeremy Reynolds, the protagonist of "The Hurt Locker," said: "If you eat with her, she may be very talkative, but you can I feel that she is very gentle. In formal social situations, Bigelow may be quite shy." Ranch shot a MV, the song is called "Reach". This is a mixture of the styles of "Mad Max" and "Sunset Sands". Catherine Bigelow guest-starred as a silent and hot Mexican female gunfighter, leading a group of sisters to fight against the men. It was so sexy! This tall woman seems to be born with guns rather than dolls-but Jeremy Reynolds, the protagonist of "The Hurt Locker," said: "If you eat with her, she may be very talkative, but you can I feel that she is very gentle. In formal social situations, Bigelow may be quite shy." Ranch shot a MV, the song is called "Reach". This is a mixture of the styles of "Mad Max" and "Sunset Sands". Catherine Bigelow guest-starred as a silent and hot Mexican female gunfighter, leading a group of sisters to fight against the men. It was so sexy! This tall woman seems to be born with guns rather than dolls-but Jeremy Reynolds, the protagonist of "The Hurt Locker," said: "If you eat with her, she may be very talkative, but you can I feel that she is very gentle. In formal social situations, Bigelow may be quite shy."
Speaking of Bigelow and Cameron’s sci-fi movie "The Last Century Riot", we must talk about their love story: in 1989, Cameron Gang and his second wife Gail Anne He De divorced. He went to the scene where Bigelow was filming "The Blue Angel". He wanted to see if there were any suitable actors, but he recruited his third wife. Catherine Bigelow is tall (1.82 meters!), a perfect match with Cameron of 1.88 meters! She is completely beautiful with thick eyebrows, big eyes and a long face. More importantly, Bigelow is very talented and very hardworking. Mark Shapiro, author of Cameron's biography, said: Cameron felt that he had found "a female version of himself." In August of this year, Cameron married this woman who was three years older than him. At that time Bigelow had just finished filming "Blue Angel" and was preparing to shoot "Breaking Point"-Cameron later became the producer of the film.
But marriage is really not suitable for two workaholics, especially when both of them are directors! In 1991, after only two years of marriage, Bigelow and Cameron amicably agreed to divorce (I bet that in the two-year marriage, the two will spend less time together than when they were separated). After Bigelow never married again, Cameron became the only man who officially entered her life. Cameron dedicated herself to the movie, and Bigelow is actually too: she lives with a cat and two dogs (her current boyfriend is the screenwriter of "The Hurt Locker" and "The Assassination of Bin Laden". She is much younger), art and movies have become everything to her. Science Fiction Cult: Last Century Riot "Last Century Riot" is a very bizarre science fiction movie with a thrilling and complicated plot. The chaotic and decadent apocalyptic landscape of Wing Runner.
The story happened on the last day of 1999, which is the end of the 20th century. Lenny, a retired police officer in Los Angeles, makes a living by privately selling other people's memories. This is an FBI technology that has illegally flowed into the black market. People experience the lives of others from these clips: it can be erotic, it can be warm, and the user can even experience the death of others! Linney got a disk of memory fragments that the prostitute Alice (the actor who recorded the pornographic memory clips for him) panickedly gave him. Then he found out that he was being followed by two strangers, and someone even gave Linney the memory of raping and killing Alice! Linney panicked and found that the memory clip was a record of a black singer and a black leader being shot and killed by the police! If it is made public, it may cause riots in the entire city. Linney's long-loved ex-girlfriend Faith is also involved. Time is about to enter the new century. How can he escape the police chase and save Faith, himself, and even the world? James Cameron had been divorced from Bigelow for four years, but the relationship between the two was still very good. Cameron is the screenwriter and producer of the film-after having the idea for this story, Cameron has not had time to direct it, because he just finished filming "Terminator 2", he was also busy preparing for "True" "The Lies" and "Spider-Man" (yes, Cameron wanted to shoot this, but he didn't get it in the end), so he thought it was best to let others shoot it quickly, because after the millennium, the story would be meaningless. And Bigelow is undoubtedly the most suitable director candidate.
The most prominent sci-fi concept in "Last Century Riot" is the device SQUID, which can experience the memory and feelings of others. It records the information that people see, hear and feel on a magnetic disk, and other people can enter the experience at any time with a portable crab shell device! The appearance of the installation in the film is derived from the popular Sony MiniDisc at the time, but now Google Glass is far less magical than SQUID. Many people in the film are obsessed with this (the protagonist Linney is immersed in the memories of his girlfriend all day, unable to extricate himself), can't distinguish between reality and memory, some people become demented because of it. Some people even search for weird, pornographic and even death clips to obtain huge profits and sell them to heavy-tasting customers. All of this is similar to people's dependence and even indifference on the Internet, mobile phones, and electronic products. But in 1995 when the film was shot, even the Internet was just emerging. In order to express the realism of SQUID equipment, "Last Century Riot" has a number of very amazing POV shots (that is, the perspective that the audience sees through the eyes of a certain character). We know that there are many subjective games (FPS), such as "Doom", "Quake" and CS, etc., but subjective movies are difficult to shoot because they are limited by the camera. Generally, DV is used to simulate POV lens in movies, but it still seems not realistic enough. Director Catherine Bigelow is a technical school like Cameron. In order to shoot the POV shots of the first episode of the film where everyone robbed and accidentally jumped off the building, Bigelow and the crew spent a year preparing, designing and rehearsing. In order to be able to shoot real subjective feelings, she specially asked Cameron's Light Storm Company to develop a 35mm camera weighing only 8 pounds to facilitate follow-up shots (keep in mind that there was no popular portable digital camera at the time).
The film title "Strange Days" comes from the second album of the famous band The Doors, and the whole story is in the style of "Post-Noir" (Neo-Noir): the down-and-out protagonist, the unpredictable Femme Fatale, and the fall The police, the chaotic city. Here, the contradictions between blacks and whites have intensified, and people are both hopeful and inexplicably panic about the new century; religious sentiments are spreading everywhere, and everyone does not know whether they are waiting for the doomsday or the final salvation.
There is a theory that human history actually always develops under the influence of two emotions: the triumphant advance at the beginning of the century and the confusion and decadence at the end of the century. In the 1960s and 90s of the last century, there were many films that showed the end-century complex in science fiction films. "Last Century Riot" was particularly good in this regard. Bigelow portrayed people's confusion, panic, and crazy in the film. Emotions, the ending of a millennium carnival scene is very realistic and impactful: confetti in various colors in the sky is like flying snow, people are watching the big screen on the street, laughing, kissing, drinking, fighting each other...Science fiction writers Yang Ping was deeply affected after watching the film that year. A scene in his famous work "Mud Hacker Incident" is quite similar to the end of the film. Interested friends may wish to find a comparison. "Last Century Riot" has a very fascinating and thrilling story as the outer shell. At the beginning, it seems that there are many conspiracies behind the story, but at the end it only falls back to the self-salvation of the protagonist Linney, which will inevitably make some viewers feel unsatisfied. In fact, the film has a huge amount of information, and the subject matter is very rich. In addition to the end-of-the-century complex and the metaphor of electronic drugs mentioned above, the film also involves thought control, racial contradictions, religious salvation, and so on. But when it comes to the most exciting performance, it is the problem of "seeing and being seen" brought by the SQUID equipment in the film.
The reason why SQUID equipment is a rare item in the film is that it satisfies people's desire to experience the lives of others and their desire for selfishness. The reason why the film is so attractive is that it not only allows the audience to immerse themselves in the viewing situation, but also the audience can realize that there is a distance between themselves and the image. The pleasure brought by watching, or peeping privately or voyeuristically, lies in the simultaneous existence of "bringing in" and "distance". The setting of "Last Century Riot" is a step further than the current "movie". There are many times in the film that the character takes SQUID to experience the scene when another person is looking at the mirror. At this time, it is easy to be confused between bringing in and distance: A experiences B’s memory, and what he sees in the mirror is also B's face, he will have a feeling that he is B. The boundary between “seeing” and “being seen” has been blurred. What is even more shocking is the rape and murder of Alice in the film: the murderer puts Alice on the SQUID device so that she can experience the feeling of the murderer when he does evil. He also sent Linney the memory clips recorded when Alice was raped and killed. When Linney experienced this memory, he first viewed it from the perspective of the murderer, then experienced the pain when Alice was raped and killed, and finally returned to the memory of the murderer. As a result, the murderer, Alice, and Linney (and other viewers) have formed a multiple mirror image relationship. The murderer can repeatedly experience the two feelings of himself and Alice, while Linney and others are in three aspects: the murderer, the victim, and the bystander. Switch back and forth. All third parties who have experienced this memory in the film are extremely painful. In such a sci-fi action film with erotic and violent content, men experience the painful passage of women being raped and killed. This method is completely Destroyed the audience's peeping pleasure that might be produced by realistic techniques (including naked footage). The audience no longer keeps a distance from the content of the movie, he can't just "watch" or stay out of the matter. In the end, Catherine Bigelow, with a completely masculine approach and content, actually fulfilled the feminist aspirations! This alone makes me admire.
Complicated and interesting plot, fast and violent action scenes, weird and unique style, interesting implications, and extremely nice music (I listened to the ending song Fall in the Light a hundred times) ...All of this makes "Last Century Riot" one of my favorite sci-fi movies. It certainly doesn't reach the height of "2001: A Space Odyssey" or "Blade Runner", but it is enough to be called a sci-fi cult movie! Tips: The movie starring includes Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Lewis, Angela Bessett and more. In the film, Faith, played by Juliette Lewis, threw the towel to Ralph Fiennes and said to him: "Dry me dry."-This scene is almost exactly the same as the one in Blade Runner. The ending says for Gertrude, this is because the starring Ralph Fiennes and the British actress Francesca Annis have a 11-year romance with their brothers and sisters. In 1994, they played Hamlet and the other in the stage play "Hamlet". Gertrude. They broke up in 2006. It is said that this film is one of Takashi Kashiwahara's favorite movies (please praise his taste!).
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