PRESENT TENSE:EVEN PEOPLE WHO haven't seen The Hurt Lockerwill know three things about it:
1. It was directed by James Cameron's ex-wife Kathryn Bigelow, giving the whole Oscar showdown a nice War of the Rosesedge to proceedings.
2. It’s set in Iraq.
3. It was made on a low budget.
Regarding the first thing, the most notable aspect to their relationship at Sunday night’s Oscars was the way Cameron was first with the applause and the deep, exaggerated, there’s-a-camera-up-my-nose, nod of approval when his ex-wife won.
As for the second, while The Hurt Lockermay be physically set in Iraq, in reality it is straight out of Hollywood. It is often overwrought and lacking subtlety. Its central character is only the latest version of the no-nonsense, no fear, no regard for authority, bomb-disposal guy of 1,000 movies before him. He is only just short of encountering a blue wire/red wire conundrum.
It has been followed by the usual criticisms about a lack of accuracy, especially from internet military nuts with a mouse in one hand and a high-powered rifle in another (the sniper sequence is considered especially ridiculous). None of which mattered to many reviewers, so that its average score on the aggregator site Metacritic is 94/100. It has, though, always been very much a critics' movie. Yet, it had already been trumped by Generation Kill, the TV drama from the makers of The Wire, that tracked a reporter and unit through the early days of the Iraq War. That was subtle, unflinching and far less interested in following a pattern of boom and cliché – although, like The Hurt Locker, it doesn't look through Iraqi eyes.
And finally, to point three: The Hurt Locker's low budget. This was the predominant narrative on Monday morning's news bulletins. The film was the David to Avatar's Goliath; the George to its dragon. Of course, anything would have been low-budget compared with Avatar. Kathryn Bigelow could have blown up Iraq, rebuilt it, blown it up again and then bailed out Anglo Irish Bank – and only then would she have come close to matching Avatar's budget.
But it still cost $15 million to make, depending on which figures you believe, although the world’s media settled on the lowest estimate. This was its production cost, before marketing threw a few dollars in on top of it. At one level this does make it relatively low budget, given that one study estimated major studios spend an average of $100 million per movie once they’ve counted everything from film stock to billboards to Johnny Depp’s hairspray.
And yet, it was not even the lowest budget film among those nominated. It spent twice as much as An Education, and a few million more than the genuine sleeper hit Precious. And beyond that, to describe it as low budget is to ignore one tiny issue: that if you gave $15 million to most film-makers in any part of the globe they'd probably go blind with shock.
It was interesting to see just how ubiquitous this view of The Hurt Lockeras "low-budget" became. There is not a single Oscars news report that doesn't mention it – so there must be a great many semi-interested but mildly baffled people out there who now presume that the Best Picture prize went to a film called "Low-Budget Hurt Locker". The phrase became pernicious in other Oscar reports, so that you could find one widely circulated piece describing how in 1977 "when Star Warswas the breakthrough movie, it lost best picture to Woody Allen's low-budget comedy Annie Hall". As if Woody Allen might have thrown in a car chase if he'd just had a fatter wallet.
In the context of this year's Oscars, The Hurt Lockerwas cast – willingly – in the popular and recurring role of Oscar underdog. Last year this was played by Slumdog Millionaire(whose production budget was also €11 million but was aided by being set and made in India) and before that by Little Miss Sunshine.
Everybody likes an underdog story. It offers a simplicity that is addictive, regardless of the context. This year, The Hurt Locker, as a genuine awards contender, earned that role beforehand and cemented it by beating the big spenders. And a movie that was directed by one of the best action directors in Hollywood history, featured cameos from Guy Pearce and Ralph Fiennes and had a global release became The Little Movie That Could.