![]() ![]() Microbes are notoriously hardy travelers - long before the age of aviation, plague-riddled rats aboard trading ships brought the Black Death to Europe - and “Contagion” reflects the dizzying potential speed and reach of outbreaks in an increasingly globalized world. Soderbergh’s who also wrote “The Informant!” “We need to band together to fight these things, and yet it’s our closeness and the fact that we are messy animals and rub up against each other that causes the problem.” “It’s an interesting dynamic,” said the film’s screenwriter, Scott Z. But when the disaster in question is an infectious disease, the genre’s inherent sense of community breaks down because of fears of transmission and the prevention measure that public health professionals call “social distancing,” a concept that comes up often in “Contagion.” Soderbergh recognizes, are a curious subset of disaster movies, which traditionally bring together a cross section of society - the tenants of a skyscraper, the passengers on an ocean liner - to demonstrate their survival skills and the brotherhood of man. Soderbergh has applied to familiar templates, rethinking the particular challenges of each genre he takes on. “Contagion” is yet another example of the restless intelligence that Mr. It’s a suitably eclectic finish to a more than two-decade career that has zigzagged between low-budget experiments and Hollywood entertainments that are, in their way, no less sneaky. “I’ll be the first person to say if I can’t be any good at it and run out of money I’ll be back making another ‘Ocean’s’ movie.”īesides “Contagion” he has completed the action film “Haywire,” set for a January release, and will shoot only three more movies, all in the coming months: “Magic Mike,” inspired by the actor Channing Tatum’s experiences as a stripper a big-screen version of the 1960s TV hit “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and a long-planned Liberace biopic. “I’m interested in exploring another art form while I have the time and ability to do so,” he said. Soderbergh, 48, sounded matter-of-fact about the career change. ![]() Propped against the walls are some of his recent pieces: a pair of striped canvases in red and gray hues and a portrait of the abstract painter Agnes Martin. Soderbergh was speaking last month in his office space-cum-painting studio in the Flatiron district of Manhattan, where, having announced his imminent retirement from directing, he will soon be spending a lot more time. Soderbergh said, referring to the so-called master of disaster behind “The Poseidon Adventure” and “The Towering Inferno.” “We’re doing exactly what he did, using a lot of movie stars and trying to scare a lot of people.” “It’s an Irwin Allen movie, at the end of the day,” Mr. 9 - belongs to the fitfully popular Hollywood genre of the disaster movie. With a large all-star cast (Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow, Laurence Fishburne, Marion Cotillard, Jude Law) and a sky-high body count, “Contagion” - which Warner Brothers will release on Sept. In a weird way, the less you trump it up, the more unsettling it becomes.” “We were looking for something that was unsettling because of the banality of the transmission. ![]() “It’s an ultrarealistic film about a pandemic, and that’s the key phrase,” the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh, said. Another option is to invent a disease with outlandish symptoms, as in “The Crazies” (1973), in which the infected turn homicidally insane, or “28 Days Later” (2002), in which they become zombies.īut unlike many of its predecessors, “Contagion,” which tracks the global spread of a lethal flulike virus, resists the sheen of science fiction or fantasy and instead stresses the chilling plausibility of its nightmare situation. The new thriller “Contagion” revisits a conundrum that has bedeviled many filmmakers over the years: how do you make a movie about a virus, a villain that isn’t even visible? Epidemic movies have sidestepped the problem by focusing on the aftermath of a deadly plague, as with “The Omega Man” (1971) and “12 Monkeys” (1995), both set in postapocalyptic wastelands. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |