Sex, Lies, and Videotape - 1989
Updated: Sep 28, 2022
I just adore this film. It's actually a little bit funny. When I first saw this in my mid 20's, as a nascent cinephile in the making, I was simply blown away by so much of it. I was mesmerized by James Spader's effortless cool, his chilling insouciance. He was the quintessence of the coming slacker generation, casually sounding off on the tired mores of Reagan-era yuppies. By contrast, Andie MacDowell's almost palpable repression sucked me in like a tractor beam, and Laura San Giacomo's raw prurience was simply electrifying. But above all, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" was at its most transgressive when it joined the far too-short list of pictures which are nearly obsessed with the topic and psychology of sex with nary a viscerally nude scene to be found.
Now, if I'm being honest, I perceive different things altogether. As I almost round into my fourth decade on this spinning orb, I see Spader for what he is - a pretty broken down shell of a man. A husk who's found a disturbing hobby to try to keep the wolves at bay. As a matter of fact, all of these people are pretty jacked up in their own ways! The twists and turns of betrayals and violated boundaries may be a touch too neat (read: too cinematic) for some, but if I've learned anything in my years, it's that they are also quite believable.
I suppose what I'm really getting at is that these four characters are exquisitely well nuanced in their crafting. (And when they are not, as in the case of the vapid, suspender-donning corporate cuck played by Peter Gallagher, it is overtly intentional). To think that Soderbergh had all this on his mind when he was merely a 26 year old trying to get his first picture off the ground is more than a little astounding.
But I'll go further than that. Not only is the writing delectable, each performance lived in and idiosyncratic, Soderbergh's eye is remarkable here as well. Of course, the notion of framing so many shots through a video camera is a titanic stroke of brilliance in its own right. It practically forces the viewer into the role of voyeur, having the effect of placing us as a fly on the wall on these extremely intimate dialogues.
Yet, Soderbergh has more up his sleeve as well. Though the film takes place in a mere three or four locations and is clearly shot on a shoestring budget, the director captures the actors in these long, static close-ups. Again the emphasis is far less on writhing bodies than the battlefield of the mind, where wars are waged on desire and connection. Steven supplements these shots with dialogue that often runs over shifting cuts. So we witness one person talking while two others are engaged in a tryst and other sequences of the like. I still just can't get over how well-conceived it was.
Put together, it's really just a remarkable feat. Now, with a much wider palette, I can see how this film almost single-handedly launched the 90's boom of independent cinema. It continues to boggle the mind that "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" won the Palme D'Or as a small little indie debut helmed by a director barely old enough to imbibe. But when you really look close, you start to see it. Sure, there are moments of clumsiness and signs that the artiste at its heart is still learning the ropes. There are just as many moments, however, of the kind of profundity that causes shock and awe.
I just keep returning to the depth of the characters. Andie MacDowell has simply never been this good, and it's really not even close. Her intense vulnerability cast against her guarded external primness is in itself a wonder. The way that she and Spader's characters are able to connect and sort of untangle the binds with which life has imprisoned them still captivates me. Yet when this is juxtaposed with San Giacomo's precisely opposite affect, namely the girl who is all bluster on the surface yet resoundingly hollow at the core, the film reaches new heights.
Some will probably read this and feel like I'm spinning in circles. If so, then I've done my job. Because that is precisely what Steven Soderbergh has done with this entirely sui generis picture. With its release, his genius was announced to the world. He would rarely reach such towering heights again.
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