Contagion (Soderbergh)

[Irish]

A useful way of thinking about it is to take the directors out of the equation. Soderbergh doesn't have a film that has enjoyed the kind of cult following films like Memento, Pulp Fiction, Magnolia, and Fight Club have, that's to say nothing of their directors.

I think you're confusing, in some cases, fans of specific cult films with fans of specific directors.

That is, mistakenly believing the people loved Fight Club because of Fincher and not because its subject matter hit a cultural nerve or because of Palaniuk's twisty story. (Somehow I doubt this subset of fans were eagerly awaiting The Game when it hit theaters or running to Blockbuster to rent Alien 3. For one, they were to busy punching each other in crab grass filled backyards, much to the delight of local news crews across the country).

It's similar, to me, as universally conflating Star Wars fans with George fanboys. Or thinking that everyone who loves Indiana Jones rabidly follows the career of Steven Spielberg.

I say Soderburgh disappeared for 10 years because he pretty much did. From 89 to 98 he made a string of movies that nobody saw. His career, and his name, had faded from public view when he came out with The Limey and Out of Sight at the end of the 90s.

I say he's more mainstream because he doesn't do small art house stuff like Punch Drunk Love. He does big budget studio Oscar bait crammed with A-listers and in between experiments with the commercial market. He's also, afaik, the only one who has done multiple sequels to his own work, which is a huge indicator as to where his interests lie. (And no, you don't get to sneak in Nolan. Without one of the biggest, most famous franchises in the world, Nolan would be a footnote in an Intro to American Independent Film textbook at a community college.)

While Soderburgh had a 10 year head start on the other guys, he's also made 3 times as many movies, and produced nearly a dozen others. By comparison, Anderson has made what? Six? Fincher about the same? They're a lot more careful about the stuff they put out there.

I call them artistically rigid because I can almost guarantee you these guys will rarely, if ever, deviate from their established styles and fields of interest (can you imagine Taantino attempting something like Age of Innocence or Kundun?).

Their work has become so codified they operate almost like their own brands, like Woody Allen does and Martin Scorcese and Spike Lee used to.

[Winston*]

I find your post confusing. What's an "experiment with the commercial market" and how does that differ from "small arthouse fair"? Also how is There Will Be Blood for example not a deviation?

[Irish]

I find your post confusing. What's an "experiment with the commercial market" and how does that differ from "small arthouse fair"? Also how is There Will Be Blood for example not a deviation?

A few years back Soderburgh got a lot of press by making a small budget picture and simultaneously releasing it in theaters, on pay per view, and DvD. That's what I mean by commercial experiments.

He's also big on improv in mainstream projects, with huge chunks of K Street, Full Frontal & the Girlfriend Experience being done off the cuff (and, I suspect, parts of Ocean's 12). That's more artistic experimentation, & given the precise nature of their work, I don't believe it is something Fincher or Anderson would ever do.

Art house stuff isn't experimental at this point, at least not in the US, either commercially or artistically. It's really just a euphemism for a form that's aimed at a very specific, narrow audience with appropriately sized budgets, cast, & expectations.

I don't think of There Will Be Blood as any kind of deviation, outside the obvious trappings of its setting. Tonally and thematically, it fits very nicely with the rest of Anderson's work.

Deviation would be more doing Midnight Express and following it up with Fame, or doing Casino and then Kundun.

[Boner M]

Sodaburger

[Dukefrukem]

Oceans 12 is awful.

Yeh it's bad compared to the first movie, but not as bad as 13.

What is the word that describes an event that takes place in a movie that is completely out of the realm of the synopsis? An example of this is the War of the Worlds ending… That’s how I feel 12 took advantage of their audience.

[TripZone]

I thought Twelve was hugely enjoyable and very stylish when I saw it at cinemas.

[Izzy Black]

I think you're confusing, in some cases, fans of specific cult films with fans of specific directors.

That is, mistakenly believing the people loved Fight Club because of Fincher and not because its subject matter hit a cultural nerve or because of Palaniuk's twisty story. (Somehow I doubt this subset of fans were eagerly awaiting The Game when it hit theaters or running to Blockbuster to rent Alien 3. For one, they were to busy punching each other in crab grass filled backyards, much to the delight of local news crews across the country).

It's similar, to me, as universally conflating Star Wars fans with George fanboys. Or thinking that everyone who loves Indiana Jones rabidly follows the career of Steven Spielberg.

I could indeed be making such a mistake, but it's not obvious to me that I am, or that the distinctions here are so fine. I imagine that those cult fans of Fight Club are also fans of Fincher and at least some of his other films. Fanboys tend to be pop culturally literate - they're movie buffs and sophisticated enough to be aware of the importance and impact of the director on a film. I find no trouble in thinking that fans of Fight Club also sought out and own S7even on DVD (and perhaps The Game) on the basis of the director. You will also see no trouble in finding fanboys of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight are also Chris Nolan fans with a copy of Memento on DVD. Likewise, you'll find that fanboys of the Matrix are also often fanboys of Wachowski. Fanboys typically use their intimate knowledge of the director of a film as a means of vindicating their obsessive love for that given film.

Let's push this further. I have stated that fanboyism finds its early roots in the response to Pulp Fiction and Clerks. These films have a cult following, and to say that the cult following of fans that formed around these films at the time of their release are not also cult fans, in some sense, of the directors, I think is a mistake. That doesn't imply that early fans of Tarantino and Kevin Smith are also cinephilies of the kind we find here on MC, but it's also not to deny that these directors didn't enjoy a cult following of fans that might be described as a "fanboy" audience.

I say Soderburgh disappeared for 10 years because he pretty much did. From 89 to 98 he made a string of movies that nobody saw. His career, and his name, had faded from public view when he came out with The Limey and Out of Sight at the end of the 90s.

I don't really agree. He was still part of the indie culture in the 90s, and many film publications covered his work and activity. I remember this first hand. Kafka, King of the Hill, Schizopolis, and Gray's Anatomy, released in 1991, 1993, and 1996 respectively (and perhaps less notably he made Underneath in 1995), are some of his finest films. If you look at the poster for Gray's Anatomy (1996), the New York Times gives the film four stars and describes the film as "... a wild, whimsical philosophy from America's master of monologue." Indeed, Soderbergh had a very strong cinematic identity in the 90s, largely connected to his work on Sex Lies and Videotape, emphasizing talky characters in quirky experimental roles. In truth, Soderberg's work in the 90s is most properly compared to the likes of Noah Baumbach, Richard Linklater, Gus Van Sant, and Jim Jarmusch. He was a part of this entire 90s indie New Wave movement, of which Smith and Tarantino were also a part, but who generated bigger cult followings, in many ways, than these other guys did.

I say he's more mainstream because he doesn't do small art house stuff like Punch Drunk Love. He does big budget studio Oscar bait crammed with A-listers and in between experiments with the commercial market. He's also, afaik, the only one who has done multiple sequels to his own work, which is a huge indicator as to where his interests lie. (And no, you don't get to sneak in Nolan. Without one of the biggest, most famous franchises in the world, Nolan would be a footnote in an Intro to American Independent Film textbook at a community college.)

Again, the dark shadow of the 90s you assume reflects Soderbergh's hiatus from film was actually when he was very involved in independent cinema and was actively building the foundations of his entire career. By the time he made Ought of Sight and Erin Brockovich, he was considered a consummate professional who had finally paid his dues. That's how he was able to get big budget films like that. You also don't seem to realize that he's as much an experimenter at the box office as he is on the art-house circuit (i.e., non-commercial markets). Solaris was a bold adaptation of a challenging novel and Soviet arthouse filmmaker that was essentially marketed as big budget arthouse cinema. He paid the price for it too, hence why it wasn't a box office success. You can't fault the man for working with a big budget and all star cast no more than you can Robert Altman or PTA for doing the same.

While Soderburgh had a 10 year head start on the other guys, he's also made 3 times as many movies, and produced nearly a dozen others. By comparison, Anderson has made what? Six? Fincher about the same? They're a lot more careful about the stuff they put out there.

Dubious. Soderbergh is prolific but that says nothing about his artistry. Woody Allen and Hitchcock were also extremely prolific, but we don't gain any insight about their careers by leaving it at that. Secondly, Soderbergh didn't really have a 10 year head start. If his career really begins in '89/'90, then PTA and Anderson are only a couple years off, and Tarantino, of course, is right there with him. The fact is Soderbergh isn't best classed with these guys, especially not his 90s work, as much as he is with the other filmmakers I mentioned from the 90s (who are no less talented).

I call them artistically rigid because I can almost guarantee you these guys will rarely, if ever, deviate from their established styles and fields of interest (can you imagine Taantino attempting something like Age of Innocence or Kundun?).

Their work has become so codified they operate almost like their own brands, like Woody Allen does and Martin Scorcese and Spike Lee used to.

I've already agreed that Soderbergh's polystylism helps ward off that kind of attention. For one, his style was (slightly) more contained in the 90s. By the 2000s, he had fully evolved into a kind of filmmaker that consciously engages different styles and approaches to film (like Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater, all of which might be described as polystylists at various points in their career based on this experimental independent movement in the 90s). He's an intellectually curious filmmaker, and that's why he has gotten the attention of critics, even if not fanboys. But I don't think this tells the whole story. I also think he lacks an iconic fanboyish film that these other filmmakers have. That's why he ought to be classed more with the other filmmakers I cite.

[Izzy Black]

That's the key point, I guess. Soderbergh has not made a film as good as Magnolia, Boogie Nights, Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Seven or Fight Club. Out of Sight is his closest, and I love it, but it is a rung lower than those other films.

I don't agree.

I think it is cute how much Irish hates PT Anderson. Artistically rigid? Sucks the air out of the room? That shit doesn't even make sense. But I admire the forthright, consistent way he peddles this nonsense.

I thought he was defending PT. I don't think he means artistically rigid in a bad way. He's trying to say he's an auteur of sorts and Soderbergh lacks this sort of consistent artistic identity. Although I personally don't think his inconsistency in style disqualifies his status as an auteur. To the contrary, even.

[Izzy Black]

A few years back Soderburgh got a lot of press by making a small budget picture and simultaneously releasing it in theaters, on pay per view, and DvD. That's what I mean by commercial experiments.

He's also big on improv in mainstream projects, with huge chunks of K Street, Full Frontal & the Girlfriend Experience being done off the cuff (and, I suspect, parts of Ocean's 12). That's more artistic experimentation, & given the precise nature of their work, I don't believe it is something Fincher or Anderson would ever do.

How you are able to describe The Girlfriend Experience and Full Frontal as "mainstream projects" entirely escapes me. The Girlfriend Experience was produced on a shoe-string million dollar budget and Soderberg cites Bergman and Antonioni as inspirations for the film. It casts a non-professional actor in pornstar Sasha Gray and has a nonconventional structure. It screams low-budget, experimental independent cinema, and you describe it as, I guess, improvisational mainstream. Full Frontal, shot on two million dollar budget is practically French New Wave exploitation cinema. Similarly, Bubble was shot on a million dollar budget, without a script, and was one of the early forays in feature-length HD video, and Soderbergh was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for it. In fact, as you well note, neither Fincher, Tarantino, nor Anderson take these kind of risks as A-list filmmakers. Soderbergh does. Again, Soderbergh is much more like Gus Van Sant, his true contemporary, who went from mainstream success with Good Will Hunting to low-budget experiments like Elephant. The idea, then, that these other filmmaekrs are "less mainstream" seems totally alien to me. Quentin Tarantino, David Fincher, and Paul Thomas Anderson are as Hollywood as you can get. The difference is that Soderbergh isn't afraid to risk his A-list celebrity on some risky, experimental low-budget projects.

Art house stuff isn't experimental at this point, at least not in the US, either commercially or artistically. It's really just a euphemism for a form that's aimed at a very specific, narrow audience with appropriately sized budgets, cast, & expectations.

So, Gust Van Sant, Richard Linklater, Harmony Korine, Jim Jarmusch, David Lynch, and Stan Brakhage aren't art-house? And I'm not sure how much attention you've been paying to the film festival circuit, but certainly there's some very experimental American cinema going on out there. And if this isn't art-house, fine, but it's becoming very mysterious to me as to what it is you want to say. You want to say Soderbergh is more mainstream, I guess, because he's experimental and has the tendency to venture into low-budget cinema? I'm not following.

[number8]

What is the word that describes an event that takes place in a movie that is completely out of the realm of the synopsis? An example of this is the War of the Worlds ending… That’s how I feel 12 took advantage of their audience.

I read this several times and I still don't know what you were trying to refer to. How is the WotW ending an example of this thing you're thinking of?

[number8]

By the way, I don't know what you guys are arguing about anymore, but I'm pretty sure the correct answer is still Julia Roberts.

[Raiders]

She's pretty good in the first two Ocean's films, in particular the second when she is playing someone playing herself. Love her scenes with Bruce Willis.

There are times I wonder why the film even bothered with a plot. It's gotta be the most casual mainstream film ever.

[Sven]

Yeah, the idea that Soderbergh was "gone" in the 90s is one of the most hilariously incorrect things I've read on this site, let alone by Irish.

Also, I don't know in what world Punch Drunk Love is "small art house" cinema and The Girlfriend Experience is not. Punch Drunk Love played in multiplexes around the country within weeks of its release, to much buzz and fanfare and mainstream confusion surrounding Sandler.

Also, props, Israfel, for propping up Kafka, which I've always loved.

Also, Ocean's Twelve FTW.

[Dead & Messed Up]

This movie was very good.

I wish there would've been a bit more time devoted to the death in the movie. For a film about a worldwide virus that kills tens of millions of people, we never get a sense of scale. I'm not talking about enormous scenes of ruined cities and crowds, some sort of Emmerichian vistapocalypse, but more than one small-scale body-dump would be appropriate. And I also felt that the Jude Law subplot was poorly-handled. It's a plausible circumstance, but he lays the conspiratorial lunacy on a bit too thick.

Having whined about those elements, I thought all the character actors did a great job, and, as mentioned by Barty, the almost casual way that people die was haunting...

[

Show Spoiler

Kate Winslet reaching to give a man a blanket stands out.

]

The score bubbled with the same fast-paced bleeps and bloops that made The Social Network feel like a boiling pot of computer code. I guess that, for film composers, the drama of scientific discovery will forever be associated with Atari-era video game noises. There's also pleasure in how the film never quite hits a climax - even the turning point with a smiling monkey feels like just another development. If there are high points, they occur in the first five minutes of the film and the last five, where Soderbergh demonstrates how effortlessly the contagion spreads...

[

Show Spoiler

and how it spread in the first place.

]

One of the better films of last year, for sure.

[number8]

WTF, they're making a sequel.

[DavidSeven]

I thought Jude Law's character was a bit over-the-top and unconvincing. He struck me as a caricature. It didn't jive well with the film's overall sense of realism. Aside from that, I really liked this picture.

It’s funny - I would’ve really agreed with this in 2012. Turns out that the film may have actually underplayed the prevelance of grifters like Jude Law’s character and the conspiracy theory enthusiasts who will eat up their unsupported nonsense. I’m giving the film full points for presciently touching on this, though. The only thing that would’ve been more accurate is making Law a politician (even a President!) rather than a blogger.

Great film and (obviously) well researched.

[Yxklyx]

Thanks for bringing this back up - there's some good reading on this last page!

[[ETM]]

Well, to be fair, no one had any clue just how far the internet craziness would overload our daily lives. 2012 was such a quaint time in comparison. Anti-vaxxers and flat-Earthers were barely a blip on the radar.

[Mysterious Dude]

Definitely a movie worth thinking about, these days. I've often thought about the movie's vaccine rollout, and I wonder if we'll have to institute a similar type of lottery. It would probably be better to prioritize more vulnerable people, and the movie didn't predict that so many people would refuse to be vaccinated.

[[ETM]]

It has shown an incredibly deadly virus with high contagiousness.By contrast, even with so many dead everywhere there are people still claiming Coronavirus is a hoax.

Sent from my Mi 9 Lite using Tapatalk

[Yxklyx]

What got me in this thread was the Alan Parker reference, and he just died...

[Dead & Messed Up]

And I also felt that the Jude Law subplot was poorly-handled. It's a plausible circumstance, but he lays the conspiratorial lunacy on a bit too thick.

WELP

[DavidSeven]

Well, to be fair, no one had any clue just how far the internet craziness would overload our daily lives. 2012 was such a quaint time in comparison. Anti-vaxxers and flat-Earthers were barely a blip on the radar.

All the more reason I’m impressed that the filmmakers chose to make the conspiracy nut angle such a prominent part of the story. Even before the rise of the current lunacy to the online mainstream, the film pretty much nailed that this would be a huge element of a global pandemic, particularly in the U.S.