There's only one Stephen Soderbergh. The filmmaker who broke out huge in the late 80's with Sex, Lies and Videotapes, fell into near obscurity with Kafka and Underneath, then climbed back to prominence with Erin Brockovich. He even found Hollywood respectability with the Oceans series. Soderbergh has made a lot of movies. And some of his best work hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.
If you want a masters-level course in film adaptation, study Soderbergh's Out of Sight, the 1998 film version of the Elmore Leonard novel of the same name. Scott Frank's adaptation improves on the novel in a hundred different ways. The biggest change is the substitution of Leonard's mostly liner storytelling with a more non-linear, flashback based structure that turns what were predictable or even pedestrian moments in the novel into delightful surprises
The robbery goes wrong, and Foley ends up in prison, from which he promptly breaks out. A complication during the break-out gets him locked in a trunk with Karen Sisco, a federal marshal played with stone-cold toughness by Jennifer Lopez. Despite being natural enemies, Karen can't resist Jack's charm, the two bond, and a quiet love story develops as Jack tries to both elude the authorities and pull off a major score with the help of his friend Buddy (Ving Rhames) and not-so-friendly Maurice (Don Cheadle.)
Elmore Leonard is famous for the rich, engaging characters he draws and Out of Sight brings them to life on the screen with a vibrancy unmatched, even by decent adaptations of other Leonard novels (Get Shorty, Jackie Brown.) Or not so decent adaptations (Freaky Deaky, Be Cool.)
The film's unique approach all comes together in the key romantic scene between Foley and Sisco. Music, lighting, editing, acting, dialogue, and directing turn what might have been an ordinary love scene into something haunting, romantic, melancholy, erotic and beautiful.
As a cinematic cherry on top, Clooney and Lopez are both given moments where they cold-cock larger, stronger opponents with style and panache. Out of Sight may just be the coolest movie ever made.
Written by Lem Dobbs (Kafka, The Hard Way,) The Limey is a gritty revenge film in the mold of Mike Hodges' Get Carter. The Limey stars Terence Stamp as Wilson, a hard-as-nails British hood who travels to Los Angeles to find and kill the man who murdered his daughter. The film takes the flashback structure of Out of Sight, pushes it to the limit and, yes dare I say it, walks along the razor's edge.
The unique structure (which combines flashbacks, flashbacks within flashbacks, flash-forwards and inner-fantasy) creates questions in the audience's mind, questions answered later for one who is paying attention. Like Tony Gilroy's jaw-dropping Michael Clayton (executive produced by Soderbergh,) it's a puzzle the viewer slowly puts together. There's something about a movie where you have to work to follow that makes it more satisfying than a Pacific Rim. Having to connect the dots gives you a sense of satisfaction, makes the viewer a participant more than an observer. It's one of the strategies Soderbergh uses to suck you in and keep you in.
Peter Fonda, Leslie Ann Warren, Luis Guzmán, Bill Duke and Joe Dallesandro (!?!) round out a great cast. Special props have to be thrown to Nicky Katt who gives the best performance as a cynical, sarcastic killer-for-hire in cinema history.
If there's a creepier location to set a movie than a run-down doll factory, I haven't seen it. That doll factory is a central location in what may be my favourite Soderbergh movie, Bubble.
Bubble doesn't have the charming cool and start power of Out of Sight, or the grit of The Limey, but it has more balls than both of those films (and a hundred Hollywood machine pictures) put together. For Bubble, Soderbergh shot on digital video (with himself as DP, under the pseudonym Peter Andrews) and cast non-actors in every role.
The film tells the story of a tragic love triangle between three workers at a doll factory on the Ohio/West Virginia border, smack in the rotting rust belt of what was once industrial America.
The film takes its quest for realness to an extreme, using all real locations, non-actors who were allowed to improvise their lines, and (except for one notable scene) no additional lighting. As Soderbergh explains in the DVD commentary, for a critical dialogue scene he had the choice between turning on the ceiling light or turning on a table lamp. He went with the table lamp.
The rawness of it, the power of these real people playing out a story that easily could have happened to them, all contribute to elevating a simple story into one that is both surprising and surprisingly profound.
Following in the footsteps of Bubble and Traffic, Contagion plays it real. Totally and unflinchingly real, depicting the effect a deadly worldwide pandemic would have on characters ranging from doctors and scientists working for the CDC and WHO to ordinary people struggling to survive.
The film shows us the highest grace to which humanity can aspire, as well as the lowest debasement.
And like previous films, Contagion uses a unique structure (albeit in a very simple way when compared to The Limey) to chilling effect.
Again, Soderbergh gives us an amazing cast. (I have to assume that like David Cronenberg, actors love to work with him.) Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Lawrence Fishburn, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Jude Law, Elliot Gould, Jennifer Ehle, and even Demetri Martin, all give terrific performances. But what makes the film so riveting is the gut-punch reality. There's no over-blown heroics, no sense of escapism here. This is more or less how it would go down. And that makes for very uncomfortable, but powerful, viewing indeed.
In a widely publicized speech, Soderbergh declared cinema under assault and hinted that his days as a film director might be coming to an end. With recent hits Side Effects and Behind the Candlebra, Soderbergh is still defining cinema with bold and evocative films. Given the richness of his resume, I can only hope that declaration is as rock solid as Stephen King's vow to stop publishing.