Talking to director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal about their war film The Hurt Locker was more than an honor. Bigelow is responsible for some of the most fast-paced films such as Strange Days and Point Break. She is terrific director and this is her best film yet. It isn’t the run-of-the-mill preachy Iraq war film that we have seen so many times over, but rather a character-driven war film. Make sure you see this film in theaters and don’t wait to rent it – this needs to be seen on the big screen. With that said, it was quite an experience to talk to the duo behind this truly great film. It’s initial release date is June 26th, exapnding in the weeks following.
Since just about everyone thinks the film is great, how happy have you guys been with the film’s reception?
Kathryn Bigelow: Pretty happy! Its a pretty extraordinary reaction.
Mark, how much research did you do for the script?
Mark Boal: Uh, well a lot. I went to Iraq and I hung out with bomb squad soldiers. I watched them disarm bombs and I went out on missions with them. I lived their life for a while so that was the beginning of the research. I talked to a bunch of other soldiers when they came back from the war. Yeah, so at the end of the day I had many notebooks filled with information. We looked at videos, photographs, and listened to more stories from soldiers. Then we went to Kuwait and I talked to soldiers there and we also went to some bases around the U.S. So quite a lot of research went into the movie.
How accurately did you portrayal the average life of a soldier?
Mark Boal: Well look, it’s a movie and it’s meant to be entertaining. It’s meant to be engaging, artful and all of that. Uh, but in that context I think it’s pretty faithful to the kind of situations that men face in Baghdad.
