The first movie Soderberg directed (of those I've seen) that I think is really good is The Limey. And it might be surprising I like that one so much because, on paper, it has a lot of elements that tend to make me skeptical.
It's very stylized, with flashbacks and flash-forwards and flash-waybacks, sometimes-often!-all in the same scene. The plot-in four words, a man seeks revenge-could have been made into the kind of "thriller" we've all seen 10 times over.
And Lem Dobbs, the screenwriter, has complained about Soderbergh making changes that he-Dobbs-thought eliminated important character information. (He makes a few of these complaints on the more-acid-than-usual commentary track he shares with Soderberg on the DVD, a must-listen).
All these things together sound like they should add up to a movie which at best, I just wouldn't "get." But I do. I've watched it three times within the past four days-and I'd seen it twice a few years ago.
I think it's Roger Ebert who says, though he may have been quoting somebody, that the way a movie is about what it's about is more important than what it's about. I'm not sure that's always right, but it's definitely right about this one.
Without its star actor (Terence Stamp), or a different director and writer, the same movie could have so much style it simply skated away. With them, it's always tethered to a momentum which climaxes in an emotional train wreck that is quite simply unforgettable.
Getting back to Soderberg's career, Erin Brokovich is a movie that, as I said about Garden State, is good...but not that good. When the first things you remember about a movie are the clips played in ads nauseaum-they're called boobs, Ed-it can be a bad sign.
On the other hand, I'm almost as big a fan of Ocean's Eleven as I am of The Limey-which in a way it's the lighter side of. Less stylized in its direction but much moreso in its performances and setting.
The film has a seemingly effortless perfection-even though I know I lot of effort went into making it seem that way-so much so that I've avoided seeing the sequel. I simply don't want the balancing act, that the first accomplishes so gracefully, flawed.
(Plus, I'm convinced, the only way the climax of the first one works is if most of the crew never see each other again.)
Finally there's Bubble, Soderberg's most recent film to date, which I wrote about in passing here.
For the first time in my experience, a film with, apparently, almost totally improvised dialogue worked for me. Why? I think because unlike movies like The Anniversary Party, this one wasn't cast with actors looking for an excuse to emote.
I've been reading a collection of interviews with Soderberg. One of the best is also archived at Salon:
When I see people who I think have become either cynical artistically or just competitive to the point of self-destruction, what they share is the loss of appreciation for anything that anybody else is doing. Seeing something good should make you want to do something good; if you're not careful, you can lose that. And that can hurt you. I still get a charge out of seeing a really good movie or reading a really good book or watching "The Sopranos" on TV.
But be warned! That interview contains spoilers for The Limey, so I strongly urge you to see that film before you read it.
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