Perhaps too easily pigeonholed as the female filmmaker with a flair for traditionally masculine genres, Bigelow entered the cinema by way of the art world. Hailed as one of the preeminent stylists of contemporary Hollywood filmmaking, she has proven her mettle and placed her distinctive stamp on several male-dominated arenas. Bigelow has crafted a languorous biker flick ("The Loveless" 1981), a Country & Western-flavored vampire movie ("Near Dark" 1987), a distaff crime drama ("Blue Steel" 1990), a surfing-oriented heist picture ("Point Break" 1991) and a would-be millennial sci-fi thriller