Mark Kermode on… Kathryn Bigelow, a stylish ruffler of feathers

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From vampire noir to Bin Laden, Point Break to Detroit, the first woman to win an Oscar for best director has never pulled her punches Watching new Jeff Nichols release The Bikeriders , starring Austin Butler and Tom Hardy as 60s Chicago greasers, I was reminded of two other movies: László Benedek’s 1953 Marlon Brando vehicle The Wild One , explicitly cited as an inspiration, and The Loveless , the 1981 feature debut of Kathryn Bigelow , the American film-maker (b.1951) who would go on to become the first woman to win a best director Oscar with her 2008 war drama The Hurt Locker . A symphony of leather-clad posing (with just a touch of Kenneth Anger ), The Loveless was a staple of the late-night circuit in the 80s, often on a double bill with David Lynch’s Eraserhead . Sharing directing credits with Monty Montgomery, Bigelow playfully deconstructed masculinity and machismo in a manner that was one part wry to two parts relish. I remember seeing The Loveless at the Phoenix in East
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Kristen Stewart says Hollywood’s self-congratulation over gender equality ‘feels phony’

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The actor said that making movies by a small number of female film-makers was not cause for celebration. ‘You’re like, OK, cool. You’ve chosen four’

Kristen Stewart has chastised Hollywood’s efforts at gender equality, saying that the industry clapping itself on the back for an embrace of female film-makers “feels phony”.

Speaking to Porter magazine for the release of Love Lies Bleeding, a violent romance set in the world of female bodybuilding, Stewart said much of the high-profile greenlighting of female stories was lip service.

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