Steven and Soderbergh

 Steven Soderbergh has consistently been one of America's most interesting filmmakers. He makes films in two directions - the man who made the experimental SCHIZOPOLIS also made big box office hit OCEAN'S 11. If he has any precedent it might be (in a more limited way) Arthur Penn who made MICKEY ONE and LITTLE BIG MAN. 

Soderbergh has shown himself to be a binary type of filmmaker and this has been more evident recently with the pair of films he released this year. PRESENCE is his unusual take on the haunted house genre, while BLACK BAG is his version one might say of MR AND MRS SMITH. 

At first glance I would be the first to admit that these seem to be minor works by a major filmmaker. However they may mature over time largely because both films have a stylistic philosophy to them that one cannot dismiss. I do not know if the films were shot back to back but it's a possibility. 

Each film takes place in a fairly limited location (just one house in PRESENCE) and mostly interiors in BLACK BAG. Each film is noticeably shot in wide angle, and with subdued low lighting. That is to say things happen in shadows more than light. Both narratives are about intimate relationships and perhaps betrayals and sacrifices. In PRESENCE the antagonistic brother dies saving his sister from rape - a sacrifice he did not intend. At the end of the film his mother played by Lucy Liu sees him in a mirror as the family prepares to leave the tragic house. In BLACK BAG the two protagonists who are both spies ("spooks" if we want to keep them in the realm of ghosts in PRESENCE) and married to each other make a thing about killing for each other. At one point the husband suspects his wife of being a traitor and is prepared to eliminate her. That commitment to fatality and loyalty runs through both films.

 Whichever way you look at it, both films suggest a troubled mood, an unsure consciousness of the present, perhaps a lack of direction in life. Soderbergh dealt with these anxieties in his very first feature SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPES with James Spader as a man who builds his character and identity through videotapes and confessions. 

For Soderbergh from the beginning to the present, the cinema is a kind of confessional, not a sounding board. It's an unusual trait in the American cinema which is usually more puritan than Catholic and often one or the other. That is to say the aesthetic thrust is less about shaming (a puritan trait) than expurgation of the soul. 

If there is a key to Soderbergh's cinema it probably lies in the zig zag path of these two tendencies. It reminds me of his earlier film CHE a kind of epic of the soul, reaching for the purpose in life. While PRESENCE and BLACK BAG may not be major works, they pose intriguing questions about life: the dangers of family life, the treachery of marriage.