Since 1929 — the year of the very first Academy Award ceremony — only one woman has ever won the Academy Award for Best Director (Kathryn Bigelow The Hurt Locker). As of 2018, only five women have ever been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director:

Lady Bird helmer Greta Gerwig became that fifth nominee this year. She joined Lina Wertmüller (Seven Beauties), Jane Campion (The Piano), Sofia Coppola (Lost in Translation) and barrier buster Kathryn Bigelow in the exclusive club.

Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins didn’t make the cut even though she was widely regarded in the press as a contender. The film was a commercial and critical hit. It grossed $821 million worldwide and was predicted as a serious contender for a Best Picture nomination, having received one of 11 nominations for the Producers Guild of America’s Darryl F. Zanuck Award. No dice.  That the film was listed as one of the American Film Institute’s Top Ten Films of 2017 didn’t make a difference.

Perhaps there’s only room at the table for one woman at a time.  So here’s a modest proposal– Let’s split the award in two.
One award for Best Female Director and one award for Best Male Director.  That would level the playing field. Arguments about “diluting the award” are irrelevant and really only apply to men (since women have been by-and-large excluded).  Its Awards are divided in sports and in the Actor categories. If the difference is between women being excluded or recognized for their ability among their peers, I say split the category.

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In Zero Dark Thirty, written by Mark Boal and directed by Katherine Bigelow, a young CIA operative called Maya, played by Jessica Chastain, is obsessed with finding and killing Osama Bin Ladin, a terrorist.

She is involved in morally reprehensible torture and criminal violence to track down and have her quarry killed.  She is driven and relentless, so much so that when she is successful she has no idea what to do next. And we have to ask, what does her immoral activity make her? Hero or war criminal?

Bigelow explains in an interview:

“I think what’s so interesting and so poignant for Jessica, myself, for all of us, is this idea that this woman (Maya) has spent the last ten years exclusively in the pursuit of one man and yes, at the end of the day, she triumphed, but it’s not a victory because finally, at the end of the day, you’re left with much larger questions like, where does she go from here? Where do we go from here? Now what?” Chastain adds, “I find that to end the film on that question is far more interesting than providing an answer.”

Power of Conscience characters wrestle with how far they should go in seeking justice or in standing up against evil or wrongdoing.  The question is: what is the higher duty and what exactly is required of them in response. In their Dark Side, these characters believe the ends justify the means (evil behavior for a good or moral purpose).  Maya is involved in terrible activities, but she does get her man. Can she live with herself?  Or is she willing to do even worse things for the next right cause?

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Kathryn Bigelow has a new film, Detroit, being released now.  The biggest criticism of the film so far is the lack of a strong central protagonist. Full disclosure: I haven’t seen the film yet myself but will write about it soon.

In her previous film, The Hurt Locker, Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is a memorable Power of Idealism protagonist.  He has a cocky, shoot-from-the-hip, iconoclastic style in defusing roadside explosives.  These deadly bombs are hidden in the sand, in cars, and in the occasional corpse.  He has techniques that are all his own as he travels through the gutted terrain of Iraq ravaged by war, poor planning policies, and the smash-and-burn fury of local insurgents.

Characters driven by the Power of Idealism want to stand out from the crowd, to be extraordinary, unique and special.  They are rebels, iconoclasts, mavericks, and artists of all kinds.

Power of Idealism characters are intense, passionate and rebellious. Everyone in the story immediately recognizes and acknowledges that their role is somehow heroic or “larger than than life.”  They don’t play by anyone else’s rules.

Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) in The Hurt Locker is a quintessential Power of Idealism character.  He is intense, cavalier and is moving swiftly toward becoming a legend.  In this exchange, his reputation grows:

Colonel Reed: You the guy in the flaming car, Sergeant James?

Staff Sergeant William James: Afternoon, sir. Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: Well, that’s just hot shit. You’re a wild man, you know that?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: He’s a wild man. You know that? I want to shake your hand.

Staff Sergeant William James: Thank you, sir.

Colonel Reed: Yeah. How many bombs have you disarmed?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, I’m not quite sure.

Colonel Reed: Segeant?

Staff Sergeant William James: Yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: I asked you a question.

Staff Sergeant William James: Eight hundred seventy-three, sir.

Colonel Reed: Eight hundred! And seventy-three. Eight hundred! And seventy-three. That’s just hot shit. Eight hundred and seventy-three.

Staff Sergeant William James: Counting today, sir, yes.

Colonel Reed: That’s gotta be a record. What’s the best way to… go about disarming one of these things?

Staff Sergeant William James: The way you don’t die, sir.

Colonel Reed: That’s a good one. That’s spoken like a wild man. That’s good.

A. O. Scott, writing for the New York Times describes James like this:  “Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is something else, someone we recognize instantly even if we have never seen anyone quite like him before. He is a connoisseur, a genius, an artist.”

The artistic temperament— and the yearning to be “something more extraordinary” creates a white hot intensity of feeling in these characters.  In contrast, long-term relationships and the comfortable companionship that committed loving couples (and families) share seem suffocatingly pedestrian.

Power of Idealism characters, operating in their Dark Side, are unprepared to make the ordinary, small, everyday sacrifices real long-term every-day love requires, especially when there are children involved.

In this exchange James explains to his infant son:

Staff Sergeant William James: You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don’t ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older… some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you’ll realize it’s just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it’s only one or two things. With me, I think it’s one.

Staff Sgt. William James wants to live fast, die young, and leave a legend behind. He simply cannot find the extraordinary in ordinary family life. He must follow the adrenaline rush, upping the level of risk, and taking ever more dangerous chances.

For more information on how to create a powerful, dynamic Power of Idealism character, click HERE.

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Last night I went to the DGA program honoring Kathryn Bigelow for her achievements as a director.  I went with my friend Sister Rose Pacatte, who writes a popular blog on cinema and spirituality.

She was a VIP guest, having been on the first jury to make an award to The Hurt Locker, Bigelow’s break-through multi-Oscar-winning film.  The Ecumenical Jury at the Venice Film Festival was the first to launch the critical acclaim that would carry the film to an historic win for Bigelow as Best Director at the DGA and the Oscars.

The reception was lovely and the program was heart-felt and was a wonderful tribute to an amazing woman.  But I couldn’t help remembering a Women in Hollywood article I had read the week before.  It recounts the rather dismal reality in the aftermath to Bigelow’s stunning achievement.

Let’s look at the last couple of winners:

Danny Boyle – 2008 winner – is back in the running with 127 Hours ($18 Million budget) and is also the artistic director for the London Olympics opening ceremony.

Joel and Ethan Coen – 2007 winner – are back in the running this year with True Grit ($35 Million budget).

Martin Scorcese – 2006 winner – released Shutter Island this year ($100 Million Budget).

There are two women still in the major discussions for possible Oscar nods — Debra Granik and Lisa Cholodenko.  Though it would be another huge deal if another woman gets a nomination for best director this year, the truth is that women directors still have little commercial power.  As LA Times said: “nearly all of the beloved indy female directors are unemployable at major studios…”

Okay– So am I incredibly small minded for not just enjoying the evening?  But the truth is all this wonderful director could line up after her win was an HBO movie.

As far as my search revealed her next film (at a low $10 million dollar budget) may or may not be financed a year after taking home the Oscar.  Reports are conflicting.

Two of the most talked about characters in Oscar-nominated pictures this year are emotionally damaged men deployed to handle bombs in people’s lives.  Their approaches to this assignment are very different.

In Up in the Air, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) uses platitudes and a smooth, calm, professional manner to defuse the explosive news that employees are being fired or laid off.  He travels through the gutted terrain of corporate America, ravaged by the financial down-turn and the corporate slash and burn policies of downsizing.

In The Hurt Locker, Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) uses a cocky, shoot-from-the-hip, iconoclastic style that is all his own to defuse roadside explosives hidden in sand, cars and the occasional corpse.  He travels through the gutted terrain of Iraq ravaged by war, poor planning policies and the smash and burn fury of insurgents.

Although equally emotionally closed, these two characters are very different.  This is an object lesson in the importance of understanding why a character does or refuses to do what he does.  Although neither man has close intimate family or personal relationships (and in fact both flee from them) these two men represent very different approaches to life and love.  The end result might be the same but their motivations and psychological profiles are very different.

Up in The Air – Power of Reason

Characters driven by the Power of Reason are most often the expert, technician, scientist or professional observer in a story.  They have an excellent grasp of details and often have terrific memories and great powers of recall.

In Up in The Air, Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) is an expert at what he does— firing people.  He is a consummate professional, calm, skillful and dispassionately pleasant.

He displays an amazing ability to recall the contents of his subjects’ personnel files.  He surprises his colleague Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick) by remembering a person took cooking lessons earlier in his career and uses that information to terminate a highly charged interview successfully.

Power of Reason characters dominate a story situation by force of their special expertise, independent thinking, superior knowledge, keen analysis and cool self-containment.

Here Bingham displays his mastery of the airport security line:

Ryan Bingham: Never get behind old people. Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left. Bingo, Asians. They pack light, travel efficiently, and they have a thing for slip on shoes. Gotta love ’em.

Natalie Keener: That’s racist.

Ryan Bingham: I’m like my mother, I stereotype. It’s faster.

Power of Reason characters don’t believe in getting personally involved or emotionally entangled.  They always try to maintain a sense of professional distance.  They value their independence and their self-sufficiency above all else.

Here Bingham lectures on “How to Empty Your Backpack of Needless Relationships”:

Ryan Bingham: How much does your life weigh? Imagine for a second that you’re carrying a backpack. I want you to pack it with all the stuff that you have in your life… you start with the little things. The shelves, the drawers, the knickknacks, then you start adding larger stuff. Clothes, tabletop appliances, lamps, your TV… the backpack should be getting pretty heavy now. You go bigger. Your couch, your car, your home… I want you to stuff it all into that backpack. Now I want you to fill it with people. Start with casual acquaintances, friends of friends, folks around the office… and then you move into the people you trust with your most intimate secrets. Your brothers, your sisters, your children, your parents and finally your husband, your wife, your boyfriend, your girlfriend. You get them into that backpack, feel the weight of that bag. Make no mistake your relationships are the heaviest components in your life. All those negotiations and arguments and secrets, the compromises. The slower we move the faster we die. Make no mistake, moving is living. Some animals were meant to carry each other to live symbiotically over a lifetime. Star crossed lovers, monogamous swans. We are not swans. We are sharks.

At the end of the movie, Bingham abandons his lecture and makes a leap of faith to connect emotionally and romantically with Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a woman he meets on the road.    She tells him early on that “she is him only female”.

Bingham falls for her, shows up at her door and has his heart crushed by this cool, detached and emotionally unavailable woman who strictly compartmentalizes her life.  She has a box for home and family as a busy working wife and mother and another box for her life on the road as an unattached high-powered female executive.  She coldly calls Bingham “a parenthesis” in her life.

Beneath their superior or distant exterior Power of Reason characters, like Ryan Bingham, are actually quite sensitive and deeply fear being overwhelmed emotionally.  These characters experience the rush and intensity of personal emotion as annihilating.  This response is the exact opposite of Power of Idealism character’s reaction.

The Hurt Locker – Power of Idealism

Characters driven by the Power of Idealism want to stand out from the crowd, to be extraordinary, unique and special.  They are rebels, iconoclasts, mavericks and artists of all kinds.

Power of Idealism characters are intense, passionate and rebellious. Everyone in the story immediately recognizes and acknowledges that their role is somehow heroic or “larger than than life.”  They don’t play by anyone else’s rules.

Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) in The Hurt Locker is a quintessential Power of Idealism character.  He is intense, cavalier and is moving swiftly toward becoming a legend.  In this exchange, his reputation grows:

Colonel Reed: You the guy in the flaming car, Sergeant James?

Staff Sergeant William James: Afternoon, sir. Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: Well, that’s just hot shit. You’re a wild man, you know that?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: He’s a wild man. You know that? I want to shake your hand.

Staff Sergeant William James: Thank you, sir.

Colonel Reed: Yeah. How many bombs have you disarmed?

Staff Sergeant William James: Uh, I’m not quite sure.

Colonel Reed: Segeant?

Staff Sergeant William James: Yes, sir.

Colonel Reed: I asked you a question.

Staff Sergeant William James: Eight hundred seventy-three, sir.

Colonel Reed: Eight hundred! And seventy-three. Eight hundred! And seventy-three. That’s just hot shit. Eight hundred and seventy-three.

Staff Sergeant William James: Counting today, sir, yes.

Colonel Reed: That’s gotta be a record. What’s the best way to… go about disarming one of these things?

Staff Sergeant William James: The way you don’t die, sir.

Colonel Reed: That’s a good one. That’s spoken like a wild man. That’s good.

A. O. Scott, writing for the New York Times describes James like this:  “Staff Sgt. William James (Jeremy Renner) is something else, someone we recognize instantly even if we have never seen anyone quite like him before. He is a connoisseur, a genius, an artist.”

The artistic temperament— and the yearning or longing for or to be “something more extraordinary” creates a white hot intensity of feeling in these characters.  In contrast, long-term relationships and the comfortable companionship that committed loving couples (and families) share seem suffocatingly pedestrian.

Power of Idealism characters, operating in their Dark Side, are unprepared to make the ordinary, small, everyday sacrifices real long-term every-day love requires, especially when there are children involved.

In this exchange James explains to his infant son:

Staff Sergeant William James: You love playing with that. You love playing with all your stuffed animals. You love your Mommy, your Daddy. You love your pajamas. You love everything, don’t ya? Yea. But you know what, buddy? As you get older… some of the things you love might not seem so special anymore. Like your Jack-in-a-Box. Maybe you’ll realize it’s just a piece of tin and a stuffed animal. And then you forget the few things you really love. And by the time you get to my age, maybe it’s only one or two things. With me, I think it’s one.

James’ character reminds me of another Power of Idealism character addicted to the drug of violence, the Narrator (Edward Norton) in Fight Club.  He feels dead in his ordinary every-day life and must witness extreme pain in support groups to find release, catharsis and peaceful sleep.  Soon, even that isn’t enough.

The Narrator (with disgust):  “This chick Marla Singer did not have testicular cancer. She was a liar. She had no diseases at all. I had seen her at Free and Clear my blood parasite group Thursdays. Then at Hope, my bi-monthly sickle cell circle. And again at Seize the Day, my tuberculous Friday night. Marla… the big tourist. Her lie reflected my lie. Suddenly I felt nothing. I couldn’t cry, so once again I couldn’t sleep.”

He must then inflict pain on himself and others, through brutal beatings in Fight Club in order to feel anything or even seem alive.  However horrific, this violence has an intensity he finds satisfying.  Better to feel this than nothing at all.

In Trainspotting, Power of Idealism character, Renton (Ewan McGregor), recounts his Dark Side experience with heroin.  The drug’s effects are also intense but horrific.  The adrenalin rush of  Staff Sergeant James’ work seems much like Renton describes heroin:  “Take the best orgasm you’ve ever had… multiply it by a thousand, and you’re still nowhere near it.”

Kenneth Turan sums up this feeling writing about The Hurt Locker in The Los Angeles Times:  “The film starts with a celebrated quote from the book War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges: “The rush of battle is often a potent and lethal addiction, for war is a drug.” It’s easy to understand this thought intellectually, but by the time this remarkable film (The Hurt Locker) comes to an end, we feel it in our souls.”

Power of Reason characters withdraw from the intimacy of love and family because they are afraid they will feel too much.  Power of Idealism characters withdraw from the intimacy of love and family because they are afraid they won’t feel enough.