Ever since his debut feature “Sex, Lies and Videotape” established him as an important director in 1989, Steven Soderberg Have been busy with the secrets that people keep and the lies they tell – both to others and themselves. It has been a recurring theme in everything from heist films (“The Undeath”Ocean’s 11“Logan Lucky“) To real stories that use different tones and styles (” Che “,” Informant “,” Behind the Kandelabra “) and idiosyncratic comedies (” Schizopolis “,” Full frontal “).
After 36 years of filmmaking and over 30 functions, you may think that Soderbergh has said everything he has to say about the subject. He is now back with ”Black bag“A spy thriller that can be his smartest and beautifully directed meditation on secrets, lies and storage so far – it is really one of his most entertaining. Screenwriter David Koepp’s Story of a British intelligence agent (Michael Fassbender) who examines five of his colleagues – including his wife (Cate Blanchett) – to find out which of them is a traitor that is complicated, exciting and deeply romantic in his portrayal of a married couple whose mutual affection is perceived by others.
Koepp’s script is so tailor -made after Soderbergh’s obsession, and so in line with the director’s skill to create intelligent and stylish entertainment for adults, so you may think Soderbergh was an unredred co -author, but Soderbergh says the script came to him quite a lot ready to go. “The only request I made was to change the script from the United States to the United Kingdom,” Soderbergh told IndieWire. “He had lived in London for four or five years and was pleased to do that gear, and it didn’t require much more than changing the snail lines in the script, as intelligence agencies in the Western countries share many attitudes and approaches to their work.”
The British environment cannot help but induce memories from previous spy films from the “The IPCress file” (an important influence on “Black Bag”) and “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” to the James Bond films, and Soderbergh and Koepp take advantage of the genre beautifully to give their film an impressive narrative economy. It clocks in for just over an hour and a half, but has the density in a great novel thanks to the filmmakers’ ability to use the genre as a kind of brevity. They assume you have seen enough other spy films to understand the context so that they do not waste time on things that can be established with a quick shot or a gesture.
The film quickly sets up its premise, as Soderbergh and Koepp trust that an audience was weaning on espionage -thrillers does not need hand holding when it comes to the basics – even if Soderbergh admits to filmfirst clip, he and koepp moved things forward a little for Quickly.
“You want people to reach the movie without feeling outside their grip,” he said. “Based on feedback we got from shows, David and I felt that in a couple of cases we were too oblique and released information. And it is really the main problem with a movie like this: what the audience knows and when.”
To help adapt the audience, Koepp and Soderbergh added a scene where four of the five agents Fassbender’s character will investigate Get Together for a drink before a dinner where he unofficially begins his interrogations. That dinner is, in the film’s final form, a writing, director and actor Tour de Force, a beautiful shot and cut dialogue sequence that drives the story forward and sucks the viewer to both the espionage and the nature of the marriage in the core of the film. Soderbergh knew that he was in the danger of feeling either static or too awful, depending on how he shot it.
“My main concern was that no one moved,” he said. “It’s bad enough to have a 12-page dinner scene, but the fact that no one moved or even stood was really pounding on. It’s Certainly not something the screenwriting gurus would encourage you to do, to anchor your movie with two. In which people are stuck in their chairs. But David’s good at that stuff, so my job was to just come up with a directorial approach that masked the fact that people were not moving around without being beautiful. ”
The answer to Soderbergh’s problems was largely found when designing the images with an eye against editing, where rhythms would change according to the diverse power dynamics in the stage. It is a drastic change from Soderbergh’s previous film, “Presence”, a horror movie told from a ghost where each scene is an unbroken tag; Here, scenes like dinner are chopped up to very accurate, nice pieces to find dramatic emphasis.
“It just meant to think about it, plan and preview what the shots were and where the cut comes and when moving the visual approach in a way that mimics the change that happens in the text,” Soderbergh said. “I just brought everyone in on a day off and used a viewfinder app to document all the different compositions I felt belonged to in the movie. Then I pushed them out and sat down with the script to multiply what angles would come at what time.” Soderbergh then wrote the pictures down on a large whiteboard on set and crossed them when he got them.
Knowing was the cuts in advance allowed Soderbergh to prevent their actors, who were never expected to perform more than two pages at a time. The director broke down the stage in small sections and received every coverage he needed – maximize his time by shooting with multiple cameras – before moving on to the next piece. “It helps when you have actors so skilled, and you are not worried about whether people know their lines,” Soderbergh said, referring to one of the most important pleasures in the dinner sequence: It is a chance to see six incredible actors (Fassbender, Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris and Regris) in their games.
The casting is another SLU way in which Soderbergh gives his film added resonance in its relationship with other spy films, which Harris appeared in several James Bond films, and Pierce Brosnan, a former Bond himself, plays like The Spies’ Boss.
“This movie does not avoid the fact that it is on the shoulders of many other spy films,” Soderbergh said. “I was hopeful that Pierce, in particular, would lead to the idea of playing the other side of the Bond character, the guy who would basically send Bond out in the field. He seemed to like that idea, and I think he liked the idea to torture his employees.”
“Black Bag” finds Soderbergh again serves as his own cinematic (under the pseudonym Peter Andrews) which he has on every project since “Traffic” 2000. Soderbergh famous likes to move quickly and avoid, as he puts it, “takes lamps from the truck”, which makes the visual elegance “Black Bag” more and more Aston. It is one of the more purely beautiful films that Soderbergh has ever made, and if there was no bias among cinematographers against directors who make double tulls like DPS, photography would be a shoo-in for prices. For Soderbergh, the key to creating beautiful images is without relying on film lights a close collaboration with the production designer.
“When it comes to the house (where the married couple lives) I had conversations with Philip Messina about how I wanted the set to be lit, and it affected how he sets up the set,” Soderbergh said. “I said, look, I want you to build these sofits that I can have light inside the bounce on the ceiling to give a kind of environmental filling that has a different color than what I should use as my primary source. And then he came up with this type of light wells in the apartment which during the day gave lighting.”
From that point, Soderbergh and Messina the fork brought into the conversation to discuss the practical lamps and how they would look in terms of intensity, color and temperature so that the set would be completely lit by light that was part of the set’s decor. “It’s about preparing the look in advance,” Soderbergh said, “so that when we actually shoot, if you went on the set, you would not see any movie lights anywhere. It was built -in.”
Part of the visual pleasure of “black bag” comes not only from the soft, flattering lighting but from the lavish surroundings where many of the characters live; Soderbergh freely acknowledges that the house where Fassbender and Blanchett live is a “movie house” more expensive and glamorous than what real spies may afford. Yet he also insists that the house expresses character.
“It shows that all their disposable income and time away from work are spent on making their house as they want it. This is their safe space. They work in a company with a lot of uncertainty and instability and a certain risk, and their home is really their cocoon.”
“Black Bag” is just one of several gifts for Steven Soderberg Fans coming out this year; In January, “Presence” was released, and this month two of his previous features, “The Informant” and “The Good German” will be released on 4K UHD. “Especially the good German,” deserves re -evaluation, especially since Soderbergh says no one has ever said a kind word to him about it.
“”The good German“To this day remain the most malignant I have ever done,” he said. “Other things that I have done that had mixed receptions when they came out have been looked at more friendly over time. It is not the case with” the good German. “People hated it when it came out, and there has been no one who is willing to wear the torch for that movie 20 years. It is puzzling because I was so happy with it and remains satisfied with it.” defense From the film Soderbergh Wryly replied: “Well, they say if you can reach a person …”
No one who spends time looking back, but Soderbergh is already hard at working with his new function, a two -hand called “The Christophers” who reunites him with “no sudden trait” and “Full Circle” manuswriter Ed Solomon. It is his fourth movie in a row in London, which he says has been a matter of chance. “It’s just one thing after the other continues to happen here,” Soderbergh said. “I like this. But I will end this movie soon, so I guess I have a big decision in front of me – if they let me come back.”
“Black Bag” is now available to rent or buy on all digital platforms. “The Good German” and “The Informant” will be released on 4K UHD on April 15.
