War Stories Part 2: The Hurt Locker
If you haven't heard already THE HURT LOCKER is a 2009 American war thriller directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Hello, Oscar nominations -- you heard it here first! Ok, I admit I like the fact that it is a woman director directing a war movie. Sorry, guys, women can blown things up too.
Shot in Jordan, the film is based on recently declassified information about a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) (bomb squad) team in present day Iraq. From Indiana Jones to Iraq, Jordan is one of those places that sets up well on the big screen. Dusty, exotic, stark and threatening -- the perfect heated background for suspense.
THE HURT LOCKER is written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded within an actual bomb squad. Now this is where it gets interesting. The director and the editor take you, not only inside your character's mind, but his visual and visceral movements. "When you see it, you're gonna feel like you've been in war", is a quote from the lead actor Jeremy Renner. The actor was also trained by the real EOD for the lead part of the crackerjack bomb demolition expert. He has gotten inside the mind of the real EOD team expert.
Watching this film uses every non-linear trick in the editing book to tell its story. You begin to breathe with the actor inside his scorching hot helmet as he approaches garbage laden streets looking for clues. You can feel the weight of that helmet as the camera moves herky-jerky over the landscape. Nothing flows in traditional storytelling and you feel like you are registering moments in time -- split seconds of information -- to condense itself into a whole picture of information. This is right-brain thinking at its best. There is no logic here -- just a sense of what is happening. Just like a classic thriller, the viewer gets to tell the story by filling in the blanks. And the editing just keeps you moving forward, while you follow that "dotted line" of suspense.
Shot in Jordan, the film is based on recently declassified information about a U.S. Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) (bomb squad) team in present day Iraq. From Indiana Jones to Iraq, Jordan is one of those places that sets up well on the big screen. Dusty, exotic, stark and threatening -- the perfect heated background for suspense.
THE HURT LOCKER is written by Mark Boal, a freelance writer who was embedded within an actual bomb squad. Now this is where it gets interesting. The director and the editor take you, not only inside your character's mind, but his visual and visceral movements. "When you see it, you're gonna feel like you've been in war", is a quote from the lead actor Jeremy Renner. The actor was also trained by the real EOD for the lead part of the crackerjack bomb demolition expert. He has gotten inside the mind of the real EOD team expert.
Watching this film uses every non-linear trick in the editing book to tell its story. You begin to breathe with the actor inside his scorching hot helmet as he approaches garbage laden streets looking for clues. You can feel the weight of that helmet as the camera moves herky-jerky over the landscape. Nothing flows in traditional storytelling and you feel like you are registering moments in time -- split seconds of information -- to condense itself into a whole picture of information. This is right-brain thinking at its best. There is no logic here -- just a sense of what is happening. Just like a classic thriller, the viewer gets to tell the story by filling in the blanks. And the editing just keeps you moving forward, while you follow that "dotted line" of suspense.
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