Blue Steel

Director: Kathryn Bigelow
Screenwriters: Kathryn Bigelow, Eric Red

Institute History

  • 1990 Sundance Film Festival

Description

Blue Steel stares down the barrel of exploding urban violence and doesn't blink. This new film by Kathryn Bigelow (The Loveless, Near Dark) is a powerhouse of action, suspense and character, driven by the sensual glint of gunmetal and a chilling fascination with violence. In by far her best performance to date, Jamie Lee Curtis stars as a rookie New York City cop, Megan Turner, who falls in love with the perfect man, only to learn that he is a psychopathic killer. The man she once pursued for love she must now stalk for murder. Megan pursues the killer with a vengeance, drawn deeper and deeper into his perverse game, and into a deadly contest of wits which can have only one winner.

Like Robocop and The Terminator, Blue Steel transcends the parameters of its genre. A tour de force of cinematic style, it is also a woman's action film, putting to the test Megan's will to survive when facing a killer who has come to dominate every aspect of her life.

An enormously talented filmmaker of exacting craft and muscular creative verve, Kathryn Bigelow is as fascinated with the psyche of the city—Manhattan—as she is with the characters who inhabit it. Like the blue steel oft he gun, the towering metal structures of the city can be viewed as both objects of power and instruments of terror. Along with such films as Taxi Driver, Blue Steel, produced by Edward Pressman and Oliver Stone, is one of the great films depicting New York City, in all its maelstrom and menace, as an "infernoscape" that shapes and determines the destiny of its characters.


Friday, January 26 7:00p.m.
Egyptian Theatre

Saturday, January 27 10:00 a.m.
Prospector Square Theatre

$10.00

— Tony Safford

Screening Details

As you use our Online Archives, please understand that the information presented from Festivals, Labs, and other activities is taken directly from official publications from each year. While this information is limited and doesn't necessarily represent the full list of participants (e.g. actors and crew), it is the list given to us by the main film/play/project contact at the time, based on the space restrictions of our publications. Each entry in the Online Archives is meant as a historical record of a particular film, play, or project at the time of its involvement with Sundance Institute. For this reason, we can only amend an entry if a name is misspelled, or if the entry does not correctly reflect the original publication. If you have questions or comments, please email [email protected]