Were I a betting man I’d place money on Kathryn Bigelow winning the Best Director Oscar for The Hurt Locker. Not only is the direction often astonishing, she’d be the first woman to ever win one. And beyond politics, it’s hard to argue that anyone deserves it more than she does this year.
If she wins the Oscar she may be taking that little gold statue back to the desert. She’s circling a movie based on the true story of New York Times’ David Rohde’s experience as a prisoner of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The film, based on Rohde’s five part Times series Held By The Taliban, has Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall ready to produce. While Bigelow isn’t officially attached, she’s shown plenty of interest.
But also showing interest is Terence Malick, who could maybe get the movie done in time for the end of our engagement in the Middle East in 2040. Actually, Malick only wants to produce the film, but his project would be in competition with Kennedy and Marshall’s.
It’s interesting that Bigelow would go back to the Middle East after the pounding drama of The Hurt Locker barely got audiences involved. Nobody wants to go see a movie set in our current wars, it turns out, even a really good and exciting one. I’m sure this is making Universal real squirmy with Green Zone, Paul Greengrass’ kick-ass action movie… that happens to be set in Iraq. Anyway, Held by the Taliban is sure to be a low-grosser, but after spending an extraordinary amount of time in director jail, maybe Bigelow is looking for low cost, low return stuff so as to not violate her parole.