Steven Soderbergh is one of the most prolific directors working in Hollywood presently, delivering one or two projects per year, alongside other seasoned filmmakers like Ridley Scott and Guy Ritchie. Soderbergh, who broke out in the late 80s with his critically acclaimed and commercially successful (for its budget) Sex, Lies and Videotape, flourished in the 90s through the 2000s in the independent scene, working with big studios and A-listers like George Clooney, Michael Douglas, Julia Roberts, Kate Winslet, and Benicio Del Toro.
Soderbergh has dabbled in both short-form and long-form storytelling. While not engaged with acclaimed TV series like The Knick, Full Circle or Mosaic, the filmmaker churns out small to mid-budget films, all technically competent.
He is back with a mid-budget film with some heavy names. Black Bag, boasting such big names as Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Pierce Brosnan, Naomie Harris, and Tom Burke, is his unique take on the spy drama where Blanchet and Fassbender play a couple that finds their marriage threatened when information about a mole comes to light. The film is expected to be released in India soon.
Finding a fresh approach
In an interview with Variety, Soderbergh talked about how he and screenwriter David Koepp (Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible) figured out a way to come up with a different kind of spy drama. "He [Koepp] found a way to differentiate it by going kind of narrow and deep on the character work, as opposed to let's turn it into an emotional, psychological spectacle," says Soderbergh. "The trick of coming up with a good story is to have it conclude in a way that is surprising but inevitable. That's tricky. Sometimes, you can surprise people, but it doesn't feel right or it doesn't feel organic. But if it's too telegraphed, they're not surprised and not pleased, right?"
'Movies of shorter durations are possible if planned well'
In the same interview, Soderbergh calls the script "very fast and sleek" and talked about lately being drawn to films with shorter runtimes, such as Presence (85 min) and Kimi (90 min).
"The goal is to identify, at the script stage, things that can go because it saves time and money. If you are rigorous in that process, it pays dividends. Now, you're often surprised by what audiences respond to or pick up on or don't pick up on," he explains. "There are some things you need to go back and fix. I always set aside resources to do reshoots, because I anticipate — especially in a movie like Black Bag — where the way in which information is released is really crucial — that things will need to be clarified."
