A string of commercial failures drove Soderbergh into what he recently referred to as "the Schizopolis grace period". It was one part spirit journey and one part a plunge into the mind of Spalding Gray.
Soderbergh would then jump into the bigger-budget movies, with the one-two punch of an Elmore Leonard adaptation and one of the best revenge pictures I've ever seen.
Spalding Gray in Gray's Anatomy
8: Schizopolis (1996)
quantum narrative feature meditation of mass deconstruction
96 min
on disc (USA/R1) || 2003 Criterion Collection DVD (~$25 on Amazon)
streaming (USA) || unavailable
best way to watch || the Criterion DVD, especially thanks to Maximum Busy Muscle!, a Soderbergh self-interview commentary, and another track with John Hardy, David Jensen, Mike Malone, and Paul Ledford
“A White House spokesman said, ‘At least we didn’t sell it to the fucking Chinese’.”
“No more of this mayonnaise, this shit. I’m outta here!”
Elmo Oxygen: hero, villain...God.
The original home video release synopsized Schizopolis thusly: “All attempts at synopsizing the film have resulted in failure and hospitalization.” In keeping with that, I won’t try harder than this:
Soderbergh plays dual roles in his only acting performance. His soon to be ex-wife plays dual roles as well. There are no credits, and the movie opens with Soderbergh telling the audience that they are about to watch the most important motion picture in history.
Here's the trailer:
There are scenes where characters greet each other by saying things like:
ACTOR 1: “Generic greeting”
ACTOR 2: “Generic greeting returned”
Like so:
Schizopolis twists your brain in delightful knots, and it is probably one of the most important pieces of culture in the history of existence.
It’s completely nuts, illogical, and absurd. It’s the experimental student film he never made as a student, and it’s infinitely more entertaining than any of your friends (or your) student films. Eddie Jemison, whom most people recognize as “the computer guy” from Ocean’s Eleven, has a supporting role as "Nameless Numberhead Man".
Soderbergh regular (and Casting Director) David Jensen plays Elmo Oxygen, his most substantive role to date. It’s more loopy than a bag of David Lynch movies mixed with Kafka and Phillip K. Dick books. Richard Lester is one of Soderbergh’s biggest influences, to go off what he’s said in various interviews. That influence is more obvious here than anywhere else.
Different scenes are related and unrelated, and touch on the concepts of consumerism, false prophets, and the maddening mundanity of "normal" life. Schizopolis makes you question the idea that there is such a thing as normal, or if it as just as incepted and invented an idea as money, or power. It is an earnest, fine-tuned plunge into the absurd.
The Criterion Collection released a DVD that includes a commentary wherein Soderbergh interviews himself and has fun with the audience by “answering the phone” and “leaving the room”, and other things that could be found, but not as put-ons, in loads of really lousy commentaries. The second commentary includes Jensen, sound mixer Paul Ledford, and actor Mike Malone (who pops up briefly as a prison guard in Out of Sight). Also on the disc is a few minutes of unused footage called “Maximum Busy Muscle!”
I'm convinced that the introspective renewal offered by this and his other 1996 feature transformed him. They turned Soderbergh into the unstoppable, kaiju-like monster of creative output that he would continue to be throughout the rest of his sadly soon-to-be-ended cinema career*.
*I really don't believe he'll never make another feature movie, it may just be a long while**.
**I hope for an eventual rebootquel*** of Schizopolis.
***I sanction this cinematic practice. It is just as pure and holy as the un-businesslike art**** that is the movie industry.
****Commercial and profit-seeking in the most blessed and sanctified way.
9: Gray's Anatomy (1996)
enhanced documentary performance narrative feature
80 min
on disc (USA) || 2012 Criterion Collection Region A Blu-ray (~$25 on Amazon), R1 DVD
streaming (USA) || unavailable
best way to watch || the Blu-ray: new interviews with Soderbergh and Gray's first wife Renee Shafransky, all of Gray's A Personal History of American Theater (1982), and 16 minutes from Gray's macular surgery
Spalding Gray and Steven Soderbergh have both had "similarly prolific" bodies of work, as Amy Taubin puts it in the Criterion edition's essay booklet. I'm very convinced that working with Gray at this point helped spur the unrelenting drive to create seen in Soderbergh's career to this day. Where they differ is that Gray continued using the same form of delivery, whereas Soderbergh has constantly railed against the constraints of the linear, narrative mainstream.
Soderbergh had utilized Spalding Gray as an actor in King of the Hill. The question of whether to direct Gray's Anatomy came down to how he would do a "Spalding Gray monologue film" differently than Jonathan Demme's Swimming to Cambodia and Nick Broomfield's Monster in a Box.
The beginning of his solution to that problem is that in Anatomy, there is no live audience.
Instead, Soderbergh uses rear projection, silhouette, and assorted other compositional design devices. In so doing, he creates something altogether different, and fully engrossing. After the movie had been edited, Soderbergh found it was too short, so he shot monochromatic interviews on infra-red film, which bookend the movie.
The trailer, courtesy of The Criterion Collection:
My favorite story is the core of the monologue, where Gray goes to The Phillipines to seek treatment for the macular pucker in his eyes. He just so happened to seek this treatment from a “rock star doctor” who did surgical operations with his hands, instead of traditional implements. The doctor performed procedures in rapid succession. He did them in front of an audience, as if it were the lightning round of a game show. The staging in the movie is fun and pairs well with Gray's delivery style.
Amy Taubin points to the nature of what Gray does here and throughout his career of monologues (monologs to him): he filtered the continuing experiences of his life through a specific set of childhood memories.
I like the Demme and Broomfield movies very much, but I love this one. It's a reduced, edited down version of the monologue as performed on stage, but it loses none of the spirit or core of the story that Gray was trying to tell.
I'm glad Gray's Anatomy is back in print for the first time in many years.
On the set of Gray's Anatomy
notes from the Blu-ray extras || The monologue covers the period of time that Gray was married to his first wife, Renée Shafransky. They were a few years divorced by the time Gray's went into production. She doesn't mince words about how disappointed she was that the original ending of the monologue, her marriage to Gray, was not included in the movie. Soderbergh didn't find it relevant to this piece. Gray had an entire monologue dedicated to that marriage, and in my estimation, Soderbergh's talent for editing was well-employed in this case.
intra-connections || Soderbergh made a second Spalding Gray film 14 years later: 2010's And Everything is Going Fine, something of a "self-eulogy" for Gray featuring footage of only him, edited together from performances and home movies.
I've skipped over some minor entries Soderbergh's known filmography, including his work as an editor on 1985 sports/variety series Games People Play, EPing 1993's Suture for McGehee & Siegel (who would make Bee Season years later), and directing a couple of Fallen Angels episodes in the mid-90's.
Going forward, I'm plugging in little bits like this as I find them relevant or interesting. There are some important landmarks that bear mentioning for context or in some cases for mere trivia value.
The Daytrippers (1997)
producer
87 min
on disc (USA) || 2000 Pan and Scan DVD that isn't worth the $24 it costs
streaming (USA) || is occasionally available on Hulu Plus (requires subscription)
best way to watch || Hulu, if/when it's available
Before moving on to making Out of Sight, Soderbergh produced Greg Mottola's first feature, The Daytrippers. I had forgotten about this until I did this fresh pass on the series.
Daytrippers stars Hope Davis as Eliza, who thinks her husband (Stanley Tucci) is having an affair. She decides to drive from Long Island to New York City to confront him, and brings along her sister Jo (Parker Posey) and Jo's fiancé (Liev Schreiber), as well as her parents (Anne Meara and Pat McNamara).
Famously used in the Universal sizzle reel on loads of late-90's DVDs
10: Out of Sight (1998)
Leonardian narrative feature
80 min
on disc (USA) || 2011 Blu-ray (~$10 on Amazon), 2006 DVD that isn't worth the money
streaming (USA) || Amazon/iTunes/etc for rent or purchase
best way to watch || the Blu-ray costs less than the compressed HD digital download options and includes commentary with Soderbergh and writer Scott Frank, deleted scenes, and a featurette
best title translation || A tie between Brazil (Irresistable Passion) and Perú (A Dangerous Romance)
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not gonna take any more of your shit!”
Soderbergh turned down directing Charlie Kaufman's script for Human Nature (which didn't get made until years later) to take on his first of many collaborations with George Clooney.
After the personal and box office failure of The Underneath, Soderbergh had dipped back into the indie world. After re-calibrating, he realized that he was just as capable of making polished studio movies like his friends and contemporaries were. So he did, and the movie turned out to be one of his best of its type. He returned to the world of the heist, which he certainly didn't leave behind.
A con (George Clooney) breaks out of prison, a job comes up, and a fed (Jennifer Lopez) crosses his path. Things get more complicated, funny, and fun from there.
Plenty of Soderbergh trademark devices come into play, from flashbacks to intentionally rough handheld shots.
It says something when you make a movie that becomes known for a sequence where two people are locked in a trunk, on top of everything else it has going for it. Lopez relaxes into her part instead of trying too hard (see Anaconda). Clooney piles on the charm as the dashing bad boy thief, one of his signature types going forward. Ving Rhames, Albert Brooks, and Don Cheadle tear it up respectively, and sakes alive, the great Nancy Allen puts in a cameo toward the end, on top of another cameo that shouldn't be spoiled for those who haven’t seen this one yet.
I love that Michael Keaton reprises Ray Nicolette, the role he played in Jackie Brown.
Out of Sight is so good, in fact, that people forget that it was a box office disappointment upon initial release. It was, however, a big critical success, did well on home video, and got two Oscar nominations (Adapted Screenplay and Editing).
Pleasantville (1998)
producer
124 min
on disc (USA) || 2011 Region A Blu-ray (~$10 on Amazon), R1 DVD
streaming (USA) || unavailable
best way to watch || the Blu-ray: new interviews with Soderbergh and Renee Shafransky, Gray's A Personal History of American Theater (1982), and 16 minutes from Gray's macular surgery
Semi-concurrent to or just after directing Out of Sight, Soderbergh produced friend and collaborator Gary Ross’ Pleasantville. The movie deserves some renewed affection if you ask me. Where else can you find a movie where Reese Witherspoon sleeping around unravels the delicate fabric of existence?
That aside, it's an interesting lens through which to look at the late 90's.
It’s crazy to think that the color grading tech they used to do the black and white to color effects is something a schoolkid could do on a phone these days. For me, Soderbergh’s legacy as a producer is in work like this, where he helped push truly creative and visionary projects into existence that might not have happened or had the support they needed otherwise.
11: The Limey (1999)
hard revenge narrative feature
89 min
on disc (USA) || 2001 DVD (~$9 on Amazon)
streaming (USA) || $10 purchase-only (no rentals) on Amazon/iTunes/etc for rent or purchase
best way to watch || the DVD, for now: the "extras" include technical notes from Larry Blake, who has become something of a personal hero for me at this point. More on him soon.
best title translation || Estonia, where it is called London Avenger
“Wouldn’t you watch a show called Big Fat Guy? I’d watch that fuckin’ show.”
The Limey is probably my favorite film by Soderbergh. I can't put my finger on why, other than that I can't change the channel when I've found it on cable, nor turn the DVD off or so much as pause it while watching. This is piled on top of it being one of my favorite revenge movies (alongside Vigilante, Vengeance is Mine, and others). Terence Stamp is alternately captivating, hilarious, and utterly terrifying as Wilson. The plot is deceptively simple, but the joy of the film is in the nuance of motivations at play. You keep thinking it’s more complex than it is.
Wilson is a thief recently out from prison. Wilson’s daughter Jenny is dead, and he wants to know why. She was shacked up with a sleazebag hippie named Terry Valentine (Peter Fonda), and Wilson knows there’s more things than the reported auto accident.
In the production notes on the disc, Fonda is quoted saying “He’s this great, smarmy character, a real son of a bitch” about his character, and it couldn’t be more true. Supporting turns from Luis Guzman, Lesley Ann Warren, and Nicky Katt are all note-perfect. Bill Duke pops up ever so briefly as a straight-talking DEA agent. We even see brief fantasy sequences similar to those in Schizopolis, and Limey also includes a cameo from Clooney. That's a stretch, but it's true.
The whole movie is lean, mean, and burns smooth like a good single malt whisky.
Soderbergh bought the distribution rights to Ken Loach’s first film (Poor Cow), which features one of Stamp’s earliest film roles. This was in the interest of being able to re-use footage of the young Stamp, who also plays a thief named Wilson in the earlier film. That would be brilliant on its own, even if the movie weren’t so good.
In a manner of speaking, he leveraged his own money to make this script into the pseudo-sequel of a movie he really liked. Those who decry "fan films" or reboots of movies (or remakes in general) who like The Limey should salt their hats for eating. There were once rumors of a sequel to this movie, updated as recently as 2009. I wonder at what could have been.
Up Next in Soderberghopolis
The awards season double-punch of Traffic and Erin Brockovich, and more producing work.
Soderberghopolis is an open-ended, chronological career retrospective series looking at the work of Steven Soderbergh in moving pictures: cinema, TV, installation art, whatever fits.
Essential sources include (but are not limited to): various interviews (linked where applicable) and the various commentaries, booklets, and featurettes produced by The Criterion Collection.
If sharing or discussing this article or series on Twitter, please use hashtag #Soderberghopolis
New to Soderberghopolis? Start at the beginning.