The star-studded crime caper that’s shaking up Hollywood

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The star-studded crime caper that’s shaking up Hollywood

As his new film makes its way to the small screen, the veteran filmmaker is philosophical about the challenges facing filmmakers.

By Michael Idato

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh’s new film is releasing direct to streaming in Australia.

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh’s new film is releasing direct to streaming in Australia.

At first flush, Hollywood is a town of dreamers and magic makers. But it is also a city of ticket sellers and accountants. And director Steven Soderbergh, whose filmography clocks in at $US2.2 billion in box office receipts, is realistic about how to keep those numbers ticking over as the pandemic plays havoc with traditional cinema.

Soderbergh’s new film, No Sudden Move, is something of a poster child for the new Hollywood paradigm, releasing to streaming in parts of the world but in traditional bricks and mortar cinemas in others (it will now stream in Australia, after its planned cinema release was nixed by national lockdowns).

“Now as we talk about streaming platforms, there are other metrics involved [other than box-office success] that involve cultural chatter and what a certain project means for that platform at that moment in time,” Soderbergh says. “Its assessment won’t strictly be on how many people got eyeballs on it, but how did it accrue to the whole thing that we’re trying to do? You can’t quantify those, but I think they’re real.”

No Sudden Move is a crime caper film set in 1950s Detroit, in which gangster Curt Goynes (Don Cheadle), fresh out of jail and in need of fast cash, agrees to a standover job holding the family of a high-powered car company executive hostage. The film also stars Benicio del Toro, Jon Hamm, Brendan Fraser, Kieran Culkin and Ray Liotta.

Benicio del Toro and Don Cheadle in Soderbergh’s crime caper No Sudden Move.

Benicio del Toro and Don Cheadle in Soderbergh’s crime caper No Sudden Move.Credit: Claudette Barius/Warner Bros. Pictures

But Ed Solomon’s script pushes for something more ambitious in the storytelling, transforming it into an illuminating snapshot of the changing landscape of mid-20th century America, and the economic disenfranchising of African-Americans. In one telling scene Curt says: “There’s a piece of land out there. A man took it from me. I want it back.”

Without explicitly stating it, Curt might be referring to Black Wall Street, the Greenwood business district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that was destroyed in the Tulsa race massacre in 1921. That story, seemingly lost to history for decades, is now being retold as America wrestles with a sort of 21st century racial reckoning.

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No Sudden Move also seems to talk to the displacement of large segments of the African-American population, particularly in cities such as Detroit. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956, for example, was designed to clear slums to build highways but was instead used to raze the Paradise Valley African-American business district of Detroit.

Soderbergh wants the film to bring a texture of truth to the discussion. “The question of how to prevent events like Tulsa or the destruction of these vibrant neighbourhoods in Detroit in the ’50s, how do we keep that from continuing, is one lane of conversation,” he says. “But it has to be built on establishing the truth of these events. We have to acknowledge what happened because I don’t know how you begin to address them and to change them if there isn’t some clear understanding of what the truth is,” he adds. “You’re dealing with human beings, so absolutes are difficult to come by, but I do feel like there’s a certain core truth we can agree upon.

“The movie’s primary desire is to entertain you; I’m making a pulpy crime film. But I think it’s good value if the viewer, or a certain kind of viewer, gets these other layers that are percolating underneath. This seemed to really provide a wonderful opportunity to be a Trojan horse for some of these other, more complex ideas.”

Another central story note in No Sudden Move is infidelity: to spouses, to business partners and to employers. Such betrayals are of course part of the transactional business of the criminal enterprise, but their use as a trope suggests something deeper, either in the work, or in human nature itself.

“There’s no question in my mind, betrayal is at the heart of every story,” Soderbergh says. “Every story is built on it. It’s just a question of scale, really. But I’m as fascinated by the micro betrayals that potentially portend a bigger betrayal as I am in the state level, corporate level betrayals. It’s all connected to me.”

The result is a distorted (and sometimes hilarious) reflection of ourselves. This is fiction, obviously, but laid out meticulously on a mosaic of historic details and human truth. You’re watching not wanting to admit the truth of the characters, but if they are passing judgment on us all, the verdict is that we’re driven by a disturbing base instinct.

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“There’s a lot of evidence to support that,” Soderbergh says. “When we look around and see as a species how we behave, the fact that there has never been a time when we have not been at war in one form or another ... suggests, unfortunately, that somehow this is wound into our DNA.”

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh’s new film is releasing direct to streaming in Australia.

Oscar winner Steven Soderbergh’s new film is releasing direct to streaming in Australia.

Soderbergh’s filmography seems defined by crime caper films, such as Out of Sight, with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez, and the franchise that kicked off with Ocean’s Eleven, starring Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon and Cheadle.

Many of his films might sit on the thriller shelves of the now-mythological video store, but because of choices he makes as a filmmaker – at the baseline, his injection of dry humour – they slide across the shelf into comedy.

“I think on a purely physical level, what happens to your body and your brain when you laugh is a positive thing, or at least being occasionally in a place of chuckling or laughing at something or finding something amusing, I think, chemically speaking, is a good thing for your body,” Soderbergh says. “But also, I think it comes from a place of acknowledging certain people in certain situations who really believe in what they’re doing, say shit that’s really funny if you are not in that situation. Their conviction becomes funny. Or if you have a certain character who’s going another way, their absolute lack of conviction and their total fear becomes something that’s funny.”

George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven.

George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt in Ocean’s Eleven.Credit: Bob Marshak

Recreating Detroit in the 1950s for No Sudden Move was not difficult, although Soderbergh wanted the truthful essence of the city and its people, not the romanticised architectural or cultural mythology that has slowly built up around mid-century American life.

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“The story really didn’t lend itself to a lot of romanticisation,” Soderbergh says. “This family live in a resolutely middle-class neighbourhood. Curt’s navigating what used to be a thriving neighbourhood and has been driven into a lower economic strata. Then you have scenes at General Motors that feel like you’re in a spaceship from 1954. So, it has its own ... set of aesthetics.

Soderbergh on the COVID-era set of No Sudden Move.

Soderbergh on the COVID-era set of No Sudden Move.

“From a selfish filmmaking standpoint, aesthetically, it’s a very cinematic era,” he adds. “The way things look, the way things are shaped, the colours. I was excited about the fact that this is a very visually attractive period and place to be working. That stuff matters.”

Like me, Soderbergh was reared listening to soundtracks on vinyl. We discuss composers such as Charles Fox and Jerry Goldsmith. “My dad turned me on to movies at a very young age and my first records were soundtracks,” he says. “Music is so important and so powerful, [but] it is also, I think, often the most abused tool that a filmmaker has to employ.”

For his 10th collaboration with composer David Holmes, the first piece of the musical jigsaw was the title track to the 1962 Blake Edwards film Experiment in Terror, a neo-noir suspense-thriller starring Glenn Ford, Lee Remick and Stefanie Powers. The music, which was the key to unlocking the acoustics of No Sudden Move, was composed by Henry Mancini.

“I had seen the movie before, and I remember liking the score, but I didn’t remember the score to that level of specificity,” Soderbergh says. “When David sent me his first bucket of music to consider, and I saw that [Experiment in Terror was in it], I got back to him immediately and said ... that’s the sound of this movie.”

Jon Hamm in No Sudden Move, which captures the feel of mid-century Detroit.

Jon Hamm in No Sudden Move, which captures the feel of mid-century Detroit.

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For some filmmakers, returning to their earliest work often involves coming face to face with unformed ideas, skills still in their infancy and an end result that for various reasons of economics or experience, struggles to hold up to scrutiny. For Soderbergh a walk back to the beginning takes us to 1989’s Sex, Lies, and Videotape. When the film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, Soderbergh was given the festival’s top award, the Palme d’Or. At 26, he was the youngest solo director to win the award.

He last rewatched the film “a few years ago”. “It was interesting to look at it as though somebody else made it and kind of judge it on those terms, but then also split it off into another tributary, which is my young self at that point,” he says.

“The things that I felt worked about it were its emotions. What I was struck by was, wow, this thing right out of the gate, the emotions of the characters are right in your lap. It’s all about these characters, and you parachute right into [Andie MacDowell’s] emotional life.

Andie MacDowell in Sex, Lies and Videotape.

Andie MacDowell in Sex, Lies and Videotape.Credit: Miramax Films

“Directorially, there are some things in it that I find deeply problematic, or just not as good as they ought to be, but they’re disguised by the performances, which is fine,” he adds. “[If] I went and made that movie today, it wouldn’t work the way it worked back then. Its strengths are so tied into my inexperience and my hubris of my first film, [the idea that] I can do whatever I want. That’s part of its strength, and it’s also a part of its weakness.”

It also set the style for one of Soderbergh’s enduring visual hallmarks: his use of now-vintage film technology. His earliest films (he often shoots his own movies using the cinematographer pseudonym Peter Andrews) were made on the Super 8 and 16 millimetre film formats, but he shoots prolifically on digital and shot Unsane (2018) on an iPhone 7 Plus and High Flying Bird (2019) on an iPhone 8. No Sudden Move was filmed using older camera lenses because Soderbergh wanted the softer frame edges they offered.

For the same reason he is a passionate believer in the “cinema experience”.

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“There is something unique about being in a theatre with 400 strangers experiencing something at the same time and having that thing be the only thing that you’re looking at for two hours,” he says. “Absolutely, that’s unique. But if the trend is going in a certain direction, [that] is not something that I’m going to burn a lot of calories thinking about, because I can’t control it.

“I try to expend my energies toward things that I can actually impact,” he says. “We’re now in that place where you’ve got fantasy spectacle ... blockbusters, and then you have Oscar bait, and that’s it. The mid-range movie for grown-ups, like No Sudden Move, it’s not viable economically. It’s not going to make $100 million. Twenty years ago it would’ve been, but it’s not now.”

No Sudden Move is released on Premium Video on Demand on September 23.

Streaming Soderbergh

Mosaic (2018)

Sharon Stone and Paul Reubens in Mosaic.

Sharon Stone and Paul Reubens in Mosaic.Credit: Claudette Barius/HBO

This groundbreaking and fragmented murder mystery first appeared as an interactive mobile app allowing the viewer to choose plot paths and perspectives. The more conventional version is a six-part series that most critics recommend watching twice – perfect for filling those lockdown hours. Perplexing though it seems, it does at least come to an end. Binge, Foxtel Now

Contagion (2011)

Jude Law in the pandemic thriller Contagion.

Jude Law in the pandemic thriller Contagion.

Uncannily prescient, this film traces the Hong Kong origins of a virus even more deadly than the one now keeping us couch-bound. What starts with one woman feeling more than just jetlagged descends into global panic as the virus spirals out of control as alarmingly as Jude Law’s unplaceable accent. Apple TV, Amazon Prime, Fetch

Sex, Lies and Videotape (1989)

The feature debut that brought Soderbergh to the attention of Hollywood explores “neurosis and human sexuality” via the now charmingly retro-looking lens of the camcorder. Filmed in a month, it cost $US1.2 million but went on to earn $US36.7 million worldwide. Showtime

Traffic (2000)

Benicio Del Toro in Soderbergh’s Traffic.

Benicio Del Toro in Soderbergh’s Traffic.

Soderbergh won the best director Oscar in the year he was – unluckily – nominated twice in the category. Traffic – a crime drama about the illegal drug trade – took the honour, but his other contender, Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts as the titular legal clerk fighting big business – is also worth a look. Stan, Apple TV, Amazon Prime

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven.

George Clooney as Danny Ocean in Ocean’s Eleven.

The first instalment in the Ocean’s franchise is a cool remake of the 1960 Rat Pack film of the same name, with a killer cast of Soderbergh regulars including George Clooney, Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Roberts. As is often the case, the first in the franchise is arguably the best. Prime Video, Binge

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