Commanding Bigelow adds Oscar to her locker

KATHRYN BIGELOW played field commander to bring her raw, relentless Iraq War thriller The Hurt Locker to the screen.

After her film triumphed at the Academy Awards with six prizes and made her the first woman ever to win the directing Oscar, she graduated to diplomat with her deft handling of some uncomfortable personal questions from reporters after the show.

Bigelow’s rivals included a man from her past – ex-husband James Cameron, whose science-fiction epic Avatar also was nominated for the best picture and director awards that she won.

Backstage, Bigelow judiciously handled reporters’ queries about Cameron.

Asked what she might say to Cameron about winning over him, Bigelow gave a big laugh and shrugged off the question.

“You left me speechless,” Bigelow said. She and Cameron were married from 1989-91, and Cameron won best director and picture for his 1997 blockbuster Titanic.

First-time winners took all four acting prizes: Sandra Bullock as best actress for The Blind Side; Jeff Bridges as best actor for Crazy Heart; Mo’Nique as supporting actress for Precious, and Christoph Waltz as supporting actor for Inglourious Basterds.

Bullock’s win came a day after she won worst actress for her romantic comedy flop All About Steve at the Razzies, a spoof of the Oscars that mocks Hollywood’s low-points of the year.

The Oscar marks a career peak for Bridges, a beloved Hollywood veteran who had been nominated four times in the previous 38 years without winning.

The Hurt Locker scored a victory for war-on-terror dramas, which until now had found little favour with audiences shell-shocked by nightly news coverage of the action in Iraq and Afghanistan. The film stars Jeremy Renner as the ace leader of a bomb-disposal unit in Iraq.