Movies - Sex, Lies, and Videotape

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	Movies - Sex, Lies, and Videotape

Sex, Lies, and Videotape is the 1989 film that first brought national attention to director Steven Soderbergh. The film stars Andie MacDowell and Peter Gallagher as a troubled married couple, Laura San Giacomo as the sister of MacDowell's character, and James Spader, who arrives at the start of the film as a guest of the couple with an unusual "personal project" in progress.

The film was written by Soderbergh in eight days on a yellow legal pad during a cross country trip (although, as Soderbergh points out in his DVD commentary track, he had been thinking about the film for a year). Principal photography took thirty days in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

It was a winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, with Spader getting the Best Actor Award for that same festival. It also won an Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Soderbergh was nominated for an Academy Award for his screenplay.

The film launched Soderbergh's career and was instrumental in the early, pre-digital success of the independent film.

DVD

The DVD version of the film includes a "director's dialogue" between Soderbergh and playwright/director Neil LaBute, recorded in 1998. Having LaBute present for the commentary leads to conversational tangents unrelated to the film, though almost all of the tangents are related to what it means to be a director and to, as Soderbergh summarizes at the end, to "demystify" the process of making a film. LaBute's presence helps prompt Soderbergh to talk about reverse zooms, dolly shots, how actors have varying expectations of their director, the difference between stealing from a film you admire and paying tribute to it, shooting out of sequence, how the role of a director changes as their success (and their budgets) grow, and other filmmaking topics.

The commentary track describes how Soderbergh had written MacDowell's role with Elizabeth McGovern in mind, and why she wasn't in the film: McGovern's agent so disliked the script that McGovern never even got to read it. San Giacomo, represented by the same agency, had to threaten to leave that agency in order to be able to play the part she had. MacDowell was reluctantly auditioned by Soderbergh for McGovern's part; she ended up surprising him and getting the role after two extremely successful auditions.

Soderbergh also notes that delays in completing the financing for the film led to Gallagher getting the part that Timothy Daly would have otherwise had.

Category:Films directed by Stephen Soderbergh Category:Drama films Category:Independent films Category:1989 films Category:Palme d'Or winners Category:1989 Sundance Film Festival Category:Sundance Film Festival award winners

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