Filmmaker Profile: Kathryn Bigelow

Amid the heated controversy over the lack of diversity in the 2016 Academy Award nominations, it would seem that the time is ripe to reassess the career of Kathryn Bigelow, who remains the only woman to have won a Best Director Oscar. Indeed, no woman has been nominated in that category since Bigelow's win. While most of the criticism of the 2016 awards has been rightfully levelled at the lack of non-white nominees, it is also worth noting that Bigelow's The Hurt Locker (2008) is still the only film directed by a woman to win the coveted Best Picture award. The Hurt Locker represents the culmination of the kind of relentless, fast-paced action cinema that Bigelow has honed for much of her directorial career, but she began her life on a very different path, pursuing an early interest in the visual arts. Bigelow studied at San Francisco Art Institute and New York's Whitney Museum, and completed her Master's at Columbia University's School of Arts. Various sources list an impressive array of instructors: visual artist Vito Acconci, cultural theorists Susan Sontag and Peter Wollen, and influential film critic Andrew Sarris.