The Hurt Locker: A poignant portrait of the work of an sapper. Oscar movie

The story tells the story of Sergeant William James (Jeremy Renner), who joins a squad that collects and disarms explosives during the Iraq War. The group members, who are in mourning for their leader, are unable to get along with the newcomer. James often disobeys orders, does not communicate with anyone, and takes unnecessary risks. However, he is an effective explosives expert who can defuse any shipment.

“pain locker” The idea was born in the mind of Marek Boal, a freelance journalist who in 2004 accompanied for two weeks a unit tasked with collecting and defusing unexploded ordnance. During this time he kept in touch with him Kathryn Bigelow. They met when the director was trying to produce a series, “The Inside” based on his 2002 article (the project was eventually taken over by others).

The past few years have not been good for her. In 2002, the drama K-19 was shown in cinemas, and it is about a Soviet submarine that breaks down off the coast of the United States. If the crew doesn’t fix it, the situation could even escalate into a nuclear war. The cost of the film is 100 million dollars. He earned only 65 million. To pay the bills, Bigelow started doing commercials.

Although she has stopped working on The Inside, Bigelow has remained in touch with Boal. When he told her he was going to Iraq, they both thought it was a good starting point for a new movie. According to Bigelow, the war in Iraq was viewed only on a political level. Few people focused on the soldiers who were there under constant pressure. “I thought if viewers saw a man in a hundred-pound suit hesitantly approach wire sticking out of a pile of rubble and try to act quickly to avoid being targeted by a sniper, they would forget their beliefs,” Bigelow told the Los Angeles Times. The Angeles Times.” Boal began writing the script upon his return from Iraq. The director advised him to stick to the format of the report as much as possible.

Bigelow planned to finance the film without major studio involvement. So it became clear that the highest paid actors in Hollywood could not play the main roles. According to her, this would also affect the reception of the story – viewers could not be sure who would live and who would die. “If a famous actor appears in a role, it gives the impression that his character can’t die, and if he dies, it’s just a heroic death. With us, after twenty minutes, that’s obviously not going to be the case. You’re dead,” the director said in an interview with the magazine. Vanity Fair: “I Have No Idea Who’s Coming Out and Who Doesn’t.” The role of Sergeant James went to Jeremy RennerWho started his career more than 15 years ago. “Catherine wanted new faces, so I’m a beginner with more than ten years of experience,” the actor joked to Reuters.

The author of “On the Wave” wanted her film to look as realistic as possible. This is why I decided to shoot the film in Jordan, as close to the border with Iraq as possible. She was offered to move to Morocco, but she felt that the locations there were not at all like Baghdad and its suburbs. The director wanted to film part of the material in Iraq until the end. It was rejected for security reasons – no one could guarantee the security of the film crew there. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Boal stated that during filming he was impressed by Bigelow’s strength and stamina. The implementation was accompanied by a temperature exceeding 45 degrees Celsius. And at the end of the day, when everyone was exhausted, she looked like she had just woken up and was getting ready to get back on camera. Boal joked: “He’s got the genes of a Viking. Seriously, people like that are immortal. Viking genes and lots of salmon.”

Temperatures weren’t the only difficulty the filmmakers faced. Producer Tony Mark described the 44 days of filming as a battle zone soaked in blood and sweat. Renner was one of the most tired people. Once he found worms in his food. Soon, he developed severe food poisoning. As he mentioned in an interview with The Times, in just three days he lost nearly seven kilos of weight. When he recovered, during one of the scenes, he fell down the stairs and sprained his ankle. Shooting stopped for a week, and part of the crew wanted to quit and go home.

Pyrotechnician Richard Stutzman was injured while preparing one of the charges. Because of Jordanian explosives regulations, he was only allowed to use Chinese gunpowder. And one day, because of the heat and a single spark, everything exploded in his face. Fortunately, his injuries were not serious and he returned to work two days later. Barry Ackroyd, the film’s cameraman, also encountered problems on set. In the first week of filming, he suffered a heatstroke due to the sudden heat wave.

According to Bigelow, her mission was to show the history of the sappers without unnecessary flashiness that would only spoil the tension. She told the Los Angeles Times, “I remember being on set watching Jeremy Renner rummaging through the trash and looking for wires. I was staring at the screen, and I was standing about 25 feet away from him — and yet I was scared for him.” At the same time, she was aware that she was making a cinema of a special kind, not to say entertaining. “We managed to create an interesting balance of tone: something catchy – after all, a day in the lives of the characters is very interesting – but also with another. . We have drawn attention to a little-known side of the conflict,” she revealed in Vanity Fair. According to her, the work of sappers determined the war in Iraq.

The Hurt Locker premiered September 4 at the Venice Film Festival, where it was submitted as part of the main competition. The premiere ended with a ten-minute standing ovation. The film was also shown at the Toronto Film Festival. Despite the great interest in it, major distributors were reluctant to purchase it due to the poor financial performance of previous works on the Iraq war. Until the end of 2008, Bigelow’s film was shown at other events, including Camera Polish. Its official distribution in the United States began only in the middle of 2009.

Although the film was not a box office success, forgotten by many reviewers since its critical reception in Venice, it proved unbeaten during the 2010 Academy Awards season. The film received nine Academy Award nominations, including Production of the Year, Direction and Screenplay. The original and the leading role (Rainer). The nomination of Bigelow, who was only the fourth woman to have a chance at an award in her category in history, was commented particularly loudly. She presented the Academy Award for Directing Barbra Streisand. When she opened the envelope, she said, after a short pause, “It’s about time.” Bigelow became the first director to win an Academy Award. A moment later, her film won the Grand Prix. In total, he has six statues.