Strange Days found couple before Oscars

When it came down to either James Cameron or Kathryn Bigelow for best director at last month’s Academy Awards ceremony, what is usually a formal battle between multiple talented directors became something quite personal. Not only are the two directors former husband and wife, but they have also collaborated on more than one film within the past 20 years, most notably 1995’s Strange Days — probably one of the best films of the 1990s.

Set on New Year’s Eve 1999, the approaching millennium finds the city of Los Angeles in utter turmoil as the city has devolved into a brutal police state. As more and more people resort to violence, drug-like Superconducting Quantum Interference Device (“SQUID”) recordings — imprints of sensory experiences taken directly from the cerebral cortex that allow for a completely immersive experience at a later date — are in urgent demand, and former-cop-turned-street-hustler Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is the city’s top supplier.

What makes SQUID recordings so valuable and illegal is their ability to record life in complete and perfect details and, thus, provide the user with the ultimate sensation of actually experiencing situations such as an armed robbery or sex with an incredibly beautiful woman.

Lenny describes this sensation to a customer by proclaiming, “This is not ‘like-T.V.-only-better.’ This is life. It’s a piece of somebody’s life. It’s pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex. I mean, you’re there, you’re doing it, you’re seeing it, you’re hearing it, you’re feeling it.”

The film’s plot reveals an array of corrupt and deviant characters that Lenny finds himself either doing business with or fearing for his life from as the dawn of the new millennium draws near and the city of Los Angeles decays.

Strange Days, which passed almost unnoticed after its initial release, benefits from an enormously talented supporting cast including Angela Bassett, Juliet Lewis, Vincent D’Onofrio and Tom Sizemore, but most importantly it was edited, co-written and co-produced by James Cameron along with director Kathryn Bigelow.

Though they were already divorced by the time they began the collaboration, both filmmakers were able to combine their talents to produce a film that is just as feverishly intense as The Hurt Locker and every bit as visually stunning as Avatar — with proper adjustments to account for inflation of audience expectations since the 1990s, of course.

What makes Strange Days such an incredible motion picture is its harmonious combination of the distinct styles that both directors have now become so well known for.

Cameron’s invention of the original story and his work with Jay Cocks on the actual script is the best screenwriting Cameron has ever done. The plot’s conspiracy unfolds into something deeply haunting, and it presents a ruthless narrative and even more ruthless characters who slowly corrupt the already sleazy existence of the film’s hero.

And like Avatar, Strange Days showcases some very elaborate special effects that were also developed by Cameron’s production company Lightstorm, the most impressive being a camera system that was used to capture the film’s many point-of-view sequences to depict the action of “wire-tripping,” letting the audience experience the SQUID recordings. The technology took Cameron and his team over a year to develop.

The opening sequence showcases this state-of-the-art camera technique as the process of wire-tripping is portrayed in a three-minute shot that puts the audience right into the action of an armed robbery. Although Cameron created the technology used to capture the action, Bigelow deserves sole credit for the pure adrenaline present in this particular scene.

As she did with her award-winning film The Hurt Locker, Bigelow produces pure intensity through direction, camera work, editing and sound design to accurately express what a rush wire-tripping must be for the characters who experience it. Like the characters using SQUID recordings, those watching the film are also drawn in the action and — by virtue of Bigelow’s immersive direction — truly able to feel as though they are in the moment, experiencing it completely, rather than just watching it.

There are few directors that can capture this kind of total immersion sensation better than Bigelow.

Having her direct a script that was written by Cameron and produced and developed by his one-of-a-kind production team makes for a film that is at once visually stunning and intellectually stimulating.

That was in 1995. It’s hard not to wonder what would happen if the two directors teamed up again now, after all they have both accomplished. With Cameron producing, writing and designing all of the special effects while Bigelow directs, the result would almost certainly be a film that is at once greater than both Avatar and The Hurt Locker.

Strange Days is proof of exactly what can happen when two dedicated and talented directors combine their efforts and effortlessly change the momentum and capability of motion pictures. The film is so good, it is a shame it has not received more attention.

It certainly deserves it — after all, in it is all the masterful technique that would eventually resurface into two of the best films of 2009.

Christopher Byars is a senior majoring in English (creative writing). His column “Cinerama” runs Fridays.