The Master
I had my doubts for just a second. I heard Quentin Tarantino tout his new book on Marc Maron’s podcast, for a reliably hyperactive appearance, and then I think a week later Steven Soderbergh was on, just as reliably calm, measured, and not the least bit hyperbolic in his responses. He sounded like his movies too, I guess, is what I’m really saying. Much of my film-going life I’ve been sat through a nondescript and yet awfully crisp and precise cinematic experience, only for some implausible sheen, roundabouts the hour-mark, to tickle the bridge of my nose and make me go, Hey, hold on, goddamnit, that’s that son of a bitch Soderbergh behind this, isn’t it?
Last year it took me about an hour to wonder who could get Meryl Streep, Dianne Wiest and Candice Bergen to spend two hours on a luxury cruise-liner, with zero award stakes and with Lucas Hedges, for the pleasantly spiteful little jaunt that was Let Them All Talk. There was something all-too familiar about all these characters of singular objective, and the way the director’s camera captured them all — as if perched somehow upon the sea breeze itself. As soon as a Soderbergh picture’s all over, it’s the sort of thing you’ll readily, instantly watch all over again: to just make sure you caught everything you were supposed to in frames made of perfect stillness; to just admire how little need he has of visual histrionics.
Maron remarked as much to Soderbergh, on aforementioned podcast, about how his craft sort of creeps up on you and haunts you for life. How he’s willing to go places, be they eras or locales, that aren’t obvious destinations for cinematic romp. The director answered his questions with audible full-stops, said he had no chips on his shoulders to declare, and refused to attribute anything he’s ever made to any mystical artefact beyond a readiness for good luck. I’m not sure what I expected, and I’m not sure Maron was sure either. For the director of The Knick, that cruelly under-appreciated and under-viewed limited series, to shout out pain and torture and angst as the primary reason he, a brilliant individual, makes art? A bunch of behind-the-scenes goss on what kind of ass Don Cheadle or Matt Damon or George Clooney can be after take 12? Maron brought up the new movie, No Sudden Move, which is neither here nor there in its commercial aspirations and (in July) represents an act of disinterest in gongs. But what the hell’s July, and what the hell’s November, in a world where theatres are barely even open again?
This was one of the first times I went into a Soderbergh picture, besides Logan Lucky, High Flying Bird, and I think Magic Mike, knowing full well it was Soderbergh attempting to wow my socks off.
Ten minutes in I was a little bit, well, whelmed. (Don) Cheadle and (Benicio) Del Toro and (Brendan) Fraser set off speaking tough guy a little effortfully; before shit can hit the fan, send a simple plan spiralling, and kick off a noir caper that Soderbergh doesn’t even have to colour ‘noir’ to nail the pastiche. He just bathes everything in light, which fountains from every possible crack he can find.
The scene is post-War Detroit. The conceit, so artfully unfurled, is that in the infancy of American capitalism, titans of (motor) industry were willing to wage unbecoming feuds over patents. Someone powerful’s got their eye on a blueprint for the catalytic converter, which is in the possession of a one-percenter at an honest, tax-paying firm. Someone street-savvy is contracted to procure said patent, by street-savvy means. Old rivalries, new alliances collude, as a registry of (ahem) organised activities enters the mix and complicates the delivery. To what degree this plot is founded on the historical anecdote at the movie’s credits is unclear if you want it to be. In Soderbergh’s hands, for two hours, it’s hard to dispute facts that look this delicious.
Maron mentioned a curved lens on the podcast, which I had to see for myself as soon as I was done with the dishes that evening. In those first few minutes, it strikes me as pure showmanship, not very (ugh) Soderbergh-ian. As the tension ratchets up, you see its purpose: it makes the centre of your screen the centre of the universe. When a character or two thunders towards those curved edges, you swear they’re about to slip right off the face of the earth.
Even before we were all plunged into global pandemic, I worried for the twilight phases of Tarantino, Spike Lee, and Scorcese’s careers, with respect to Once Upon A Time in Hollywood, BlacKkKlansman, and The Irishman — all great movies, but all respectively resistant to signature. I do wonder what the Coen brothers and Paul Thomas Anderson have up their sleeves; but I have no such concerns for Soderbergh, who could literally shoot Citizen Kane on a damned iPhone, off a dare.