2008 Woodie Awards
Director causes controversy while creating brilliant film
By Pardick, Seth
Issue date: 2/3/06 Section: Entertainment
Steven Soderbergh, Academy Award-winning director of such box-office hits as "Oceans 11," "Erin Brockovich" and "Traffic," has just made another film. Chances are, however, you haven't seen any commercials for it; you probably haven't even heard about it. The film is called "Bubble" and it is in theaters right now.
Apparently fed up with Hollywood box-office giants like "King Kong" and the "Star Wars" films ruling the multiplexes, the studio behind the low-budget "Bubble" is releasing the film simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and on Pay-per-View. According to some Internet sources, some theater chains are up in arms over the decision, opting not to show the film at all. But is this really a protest? Were the theaters most vociferously protesting this release-format actually going to show a film like this anyway? Wasn't that the impetus for this entire experiment?
Despite the controversy, after seeing "Bubble," I'm pleased to see that the spirit of John Cassavetes is alive and well in 2006. Cassavetes' 1959 directorial debut, "Shadows," was a landmark in that it consciously ignored every cliché regarding how a film should be made; in fact, it is considered by many to be the first "independent" film. The film boasted non-professional actors and a completely improvised script. Cassavetes' indifference paved the way for great directors of the 1960s and 70s such as Scorsese, Bogdanovich and Altman. Besides some of Gus Van Sant's recent work ("Elephant"), "Bubble" is perhaps the first film since "Shadows" to fully disregard Hollywood conventions, opting for the raw and unsophisticated (although very intelligent) aesthetic of Cassavetes' celebrated debut.
This is not Soderbergh's first stride towards movie maverick-hood; "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," his feature debut, was a small film that found an audience after its appearance at Cannes. Recent films like "Full Frontal" let viewers know that he was interested in more than the box-office figures. Other smaller films, such as "Out of Sight" and his remake of "Solaris" (both starring George Clooney), are incredibly underrated.
Apparently fed up with Hollywood box-office giants like "King Kong" and the "Star Wars" films ruling the multiplexes, the studio behind the low-budget "Bubble" is releasing the film simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and on Pay-per-View. According to some Internet sources, some theater chains are up in arms over the decision, opting not to show the film at all. But is this really a protest? Were the theaters most vociferously protesting this release-format actually going to show a film like this anyway? Wasn't that the impetus for this entire experiment?
Despite the controversy, after seeing "Bubble," I'm pleased to see that the spirit of John Cassavetes is alive and well in 2006. Cassavetes' 1959 directorial debut, "Shadows," was a landmark in that it consciously ignored every cliché regarding how a film should be made; in fact, it is considered by many to be the first "independent" film. The film boasted non-professional actors and a completely improvised script. Cassavetes' indifference paved the way for great directors of the 1960s and 70s such as Scorsese, Bogdanovich and Altman. Besides some of Gus Van Sant's recent work ("Elephant"), "Bubble" is perhaps the first film since "Shadows" to fully disregard Hollywood conventions, opting for the raw and unsophisticated (although very intelligent) aesthetic of Cassavetes' celebrated debut.
This is not Soderbergh's first stride towards movie maverick-hood; "Sex, Lies, and Videotape," his feature debut, was a small film that found an audience after its appearance at Cannes. Recent films like "Full Frontal" let viewers know that he was interested in more than the box-office figures. Other smaller films, such as "Out of Sight" and his remake of "Solaris" (both starring George Clooney), are incredibly underrated.
