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Reality bites; Kathryn Bigelow
Year: 1995

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Bigelow, Kathryn

The cinema of Kathryn Bigelow : Hollywood transgressor
Authors: ---
ISBN: 1903364426 1903364434 9781903364437 Year: 2003 Publisher: London : Wallflower,


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Kathryn Bigelow : interviews
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ISBN: 1299759254 1621039412 1617037745 9781621039419 9781617037757 1617037753 9781617037740 Year: 2013 Publisher: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi,


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Near dark
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ISBN: 9781911239277 Year: 2020 Publisher: London : Bloomsbury,

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"First released in 1987, Near Dark is a vampire film set in the contemporary American Midwest that tells the story of Caleb, a half-vampire trying to decide whether to embrace his vampire nature or return to his human family. The film, an early work of the now-established director Kathryn Bigelow, skilfully mixes genre conventions, combining gothic tropes with those of the Western, road movie and film noir, while also introducing elements of the outlaw romance genre. Stacey Abbott's study of the film addresses it as a genre hybrid that also challenges conventions of the vampire film. The family of vampires who lure Caleb into their nocturnal existence is a central element of the film's innovative power: defined by a nomadic lifestyle, anarchic behaviour, a passion for violence, ambition for eternity, intense family bonds, and a gritty visual appearance. The vampires are morally ambiguous and undermine the class structures that have historically defined stories of the undead. These are not aristocrats but instead they capture the allure and horror of the disenfranchised and the underclass. The film is sumptuous in its aesthetic design, offering a nuanced and haunting presentation of its monstrous protagonists who stalk the Midwestern backroads and desert landscape. While it remains Bigelow's only foray into horror to date, its innovation showcases the creativity and artistic richness of the genre without sacrificing its visceral qualities. As Abbott describes, Near Dark was crucial in consolidating Bigelow's standing as a director of significance at an early point in her career, not simply because of her visual art background, but because of the way in which she would from Near Dark onward re-envision other traditionally mainstream genres of filmmaking"--

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