NO SUDDEN MOVE

The basic story behind No Sudden Move is a layered robbery gone wrong. Set in 1955 Detroit, a pair of criminals (Ronald Russo & Carl Goynes) are hired by an unknown source to retrieve an important document and they soon find that they’ve been set up/used as pawns in a much bigger game. Now Russo and Goynes have to work together to figure out what’s going on all while still trying to make a nice score. From the rarely mentioned Underneath & Lucky Logan, to The Ocean’s films, Soderbergh is at home with the crime caper (as you can imagine - there’s lots of double, triple and quadruple crossing at every turn in the film).

To my surprise, there were a decent amount of (subconscious?) Tarantino-esque moments. From the stacked ensemble cast to specific scenarios - this is the kind of post-Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction movie that would have come out in 1996.

Inglorious Basterds /
No Sudden Move

Reservoir Dogs /
No Sudden Move

It also appears that Soderbergh is tipping his hat to Bill Duke's role in Get Rich Or Die Tryin...

Get Rich Or Die Tryin /
No Sudden Move

At the end of the day this movie is "fine"(?) overall. There's just one aspect that I haven't been able to shake for the last two years...

I don’t know if this is good, bad or a combination of the two - but I saw shades of myself in Don Cheadle’s Goynes. Not the homicidal killer aspect. The just the part about “gettin’ what’s mine” (a phrase he uses throughout the film). I’ve always joked about how if I ever had to turn to crime in order to get money I wouldn’t get too greedy. Just one or two safe scores and then I’m out. A decent amount of momentary life-changing cash to stretch for a while and I’m good. By the time No Sudden Move ends, we learn that was Goynes’ plan all along (at least that’s how I saw it). 

That’s the good part about my relation to Goynes. The bad part is the selling oneself short. By the end of the film Goynes makes $5,000 dollars out of a potential $400,000 dollars. $5,000 in 1955 is a nice chunk of money but $400,000 is obviously better. No matter what year it is. But to get this $400,000 dollars you have to take part in an elaborate risky plot. The thing is - I’m not a risk-taker. Even in 2023 if there was an opportunity to make $5,000 in a low risk situation versus $400,000 in a high risk situation, I’m going to go with the low risk option. That’s just how I am. Part of that has to do with wanting to live. I don’t want to die (the stakes in No Sudden Move are very very dangerous). The other part of my non-risk taking personality has to do with me being a worker bee. A lot of people like to say they’re a “boss” or a shot-caller because they took out a PPP loan or started a small business. But not me. Take my work record. I have no interest in working for myself or being my own boss. I’m a salary guy. A lot of folks won’t admit this but my way of thinking represents a nice-sized majority of people in this world which is essentially what the film is about - giving “regular” folks crumbs to do the dirty work to get someone else rich. This isn’t a revelation. That’s the way of the world.
At first glance, No Sudden Move is a crime caper. Beneath that surface it’s a light commentary on the racial tension/divide in 1950’s Detroit. And beyond that it’s about regular folks being used as pawns and being happy to get scraps (like Goynes). These days any movie about money is going to be dissected as some kind of commentary on capitalism but in the case of No Sudden Move it’s truly warranted (the heavy-handed final scene/climax of the movie just solidifies this).


This would make a nice double feature with Army Of The Dead in that both films are semi-recent stories of pawns (that don’t necessarily know they’re pawns) used to carry out a mission with ulterior motives that goes horribly wrong. In both No Sudden Move and Army Of The Dead, the main characters/pawns think they’re getting a good deal when they’re really just getting crumbs at the end of the day.

Both films even have the pawns playing each other…

Army Of The Dead / No Sudden Move

No Sudden Move is set in Detroit so the name “Goynes” had to be a nod to the Michigan crime writer Donald Goines. The intentional slight change in the spelling of the name has been done before. In Nicolas Refn’s Fear X, the main character, Harry Cain, is a nod to Orson Welles’ characters in both Citizen Kane (Charles Foster Kane) and The Third Man (Harry Lime). Refn just changed the spelling of Cane.

This is also wouldn’t be last time Refn tipped his hat to Welles…

Mr Arkadin / Drive

Any Soderbergh heist movie will draw comparison to the Ocean’s films but if you’re familiar with his (large) body of work, you might be reminded of something like his under-appreciated The Underneath.

The end of No Sudden Move is actually a huge nod to The Underneath (it isn't shot for shot identical but both movies end with the femme fatale thinking they're getting away with the loot only to have their plan thwarted. 

Actually maybe it's time for me to revisit that...

THE SCHOOL OF GODARD PART 5: MOVING IMAGERY

I admire Jean-Luc Godard and I think it's impossible for anyone making cinema to escape from his influence - Hal Hartley

We're continuing our look at Jean-Luc Godard's influence on modern cinema through some regular culprits (Harmony Korine, Hal Hartley & Leos Carax) as well as lesser-mentioned folks like Chantal Akerman, Seijun Suzuki and even the Farrelly Brothers...

Also make sure to check out the previous entries:

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

Yeah, it’ [The Girl From Monday]'s a conversation with Alphaville - Hal Hartley (Little White Lies)

Alphaville/The Girl From Monday

First Name: Carmen / Amateur

Pierrot Le Fou / 
Amateur

A Married Woman /
Amateur

Godard taught me a sense of freedom - Martin Scorsese (Interveiw Magazine)

Two Or Three Things I know About Her/Taxi Driver

Made In The USA/
Taxi Driver

A Married Woman / Who's That Knocking At My Door

Godard is one of my favourite film-makers. When I was young, I was obsessed by his films, and he’s still a favourite. I probably didn’t understand half of what he wanted to say, but what I did understand touched me, and when I see his films I see the whole, like what you hear when you’re listening to an orchestra - Harmony Korine (Vogue)

Band Of Outsider/
Gummo

I got a letter from Godard. It was hard to read, it was two lines and had coffee stains, something about passing the baton - Harmony Korine (Index Magazine)

Vivre Sa Vie / Julien Donkey Boy

I think the only people who really experienced film are people like Jean-Luc Godard, you know? He really experienced the texture - Claire Denis (Filmmaker Magazine)

Vivre Sa Vie / Trouble Every Day

In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from—it’s where you take them to - Jim Jarmusch (Movie Maker Magazine)

Pierrot Le Fou / Mystery Train

I saw Godard’s film, Pierrot Le Fou, and I had the feeling it was art, and that you could express yourself. It was in 1965, and you felt that the times were changing. He was really representing that, and freedom and poetry and another type of love and everything - Chantal Akerman

First Name: Carmen/Family Business

L'Amore/
Les Rendezvous D'Anna

Passion/Holy Motors

Breathless/Schizopolis

Band Of Outsiders/
Tokyo Drifter

First Name: Carmen/
Kingpin

Vivre Sa Vie/Faces

First Name: Carmen/Punch Drunk Love

A Married Woman / THX 1138

A Married Woman / The Perfect Human

A Marrried Woman / Life Of The Marionettes 

THE SCHOOL OF PERSONA PART 3

Below are a few more obvious (and not-so obvious) references to some of my all-time favorite moving images courtesy of Ingmar Bergman's Persona (along with a few quotes from the possibly influenced directors themselves).

Enjoy...


I’m sure Ingmar Bergman did not influence Cheryl Dunye's Watermelon Woman (I did tag her in this post on twitter so perhaps she can chime in. I mean - movie references and video stores do play a big part in her film). But the visual similarities (along with Bergman's exploration of sexuality) is quite the coincidence.

Persona / The Watermelon Woman

BFI: What filmmakers have influenced you in making your Alien films?

Ridley Scott: Mostly Kubrick, but then along the way you’ve gotta take on board [David] Lean, you’ve gotta take on board [Akira] Kurosawa and [Ingmar] Bergman.

Persona / Bladerunner

Person / Bladerunner

Persona / Freeze Frame

Persona / Always Shine

Persona / Always Shine

Nicolas Winding Refn is on record saying he's never seen Persona but this is a pretty interesting comparison nonetheless (although I find it hard to believe a self-proclaimed cinephile like Refn has never seen Persona)

Persona / Fear x

If I can’t watch a film like Persona and realize, Oh, Ingmar Bergman is an originator and I’m a synthesist, then I don’t know what I’m doing. Part of knowing what you’re doing is understanding, Okay, I can’t drive the lane. But I can shoot from the outside. - Steven Soderbergh

Persona / Sex, Lies & Videotape

Persona / Sex, Lies & Videotape

I wrote a lot of fan letters to Bergman... - Lars Von Trier

Persona / The Orchid Gardener

Person / Mullholand Drive / Blue Is The Warmest Color / Carol

A FEW WORDS ON UNSANE

I’m a big Steven Soderbergh fan. I know his heart was in the right place when crafting his latest film (Unsane), but I had more than a few problems with it. That’s kind of a good thing because the older I get the more difficult it has become to talk about films I absolutely love. How much can be said about a great film until it turns in to pointless/embarrassing gushing? Problematic films that came from a good place are the most interesting to talk/write about in my opinion. And Unsane is certainly problematic.

Right out of the gate we get the (not-so) hidden message behind the film: being a women (in this case a lone/single woman) can be shitty mostly in part to certain gross entitled men who don’t get how intimidating & threatening they can sometimes be (or who don’t have the capacity to handle rejection). Long before we get to the meat of the story involving a young woman ("Sawyer") being stalked by a crafty yet mentally unstable “admirer”, Soderbergh gives us a scene of our female protagonist being hit on by her older male boss. Actually – before that scene we’re put in to the position of the stalker’s perspective as we watch Sawyer through the bushes making her way to work (*SPOILER ALERT* while the trailer to the movie tries hint that there is the possibility of the stalker being a figment of Sawyer's imagination, he is in fact very real *SPOILER END*).

Visual similarities: The Matrix / Unsane

Being a large male myself, I often don’t think about the kinds of threats that Sawyer has to think about. What’s funny is that - due to unfortunate societal stereotypes – I may very well fit the description of someone that she may have to keep her guard up around. That sucks because I would never pose a threat to a woman but I don’t want to make this about me and the bullshit racist stereotypes that I have to deal with. This is about Unsane and the social commentary behind the harassment & assault on women.

Unsane sometimes comes off from a pandering/overly apologist (male) point of view to the point where I want to roll my eyes ever so slightly which is even dangerous to admit because I don't want people to think I'm rolling my eyes at the very real dangers women face on a day to day basis. I’m rolling eyes at how it was executed. Had I not known the intelligent Soderbergh directed this, I would have thought this was made by a young film student who would describe himself as “woke”. Unsane is absolutely for woke Indiewire readers and I find that a little disappointing because I think Soderbergh can do better than that.


It's difficult to discuss Unsane without bringing up Patrick Horvath & Dallas Hallam’s Entrance, which, in my opinion, is a much better version of what Unsane tried to be. Entrance is obviously not the first film to do what it did, but it is the first film in a long time to show the realistic horror that comes along with being stalked when you’re a woman. On the surface, one might not catch a lot of the comparisons between Entrance & Unsane so allow me to break it down...

The stalker's gaze in Entrance (top) & Unsane (bottom)

Both movies are shot from a male gaze both behind the camera (both films are directed by men) and in front of the camera (the majority of both films are shot from a threatening male gaze). Both films center around women who are unhappy in life outside of/in addition to their current stalker situations. The budgets to both films are modest (although not visible, obvious, or distracting) and they both rely on modern/digital technology.

men potentially invading personal space in Entrance (L) & Unsane (R)

men standing close in Entrance (L) & Unsane (R)

the antagonist attacking their victims in Entrance (L) & Unsane (R) in similar ways...

Now…I am not trying to say that Steven Soderbergh tried to plagiarize or copy Horvath & Hallam, but given Soderbergh’s insane movie consumption along with the type of lane that Entrance falls in, I find it hard to believe that Steven Soderebrgh didn’t see the 2012 horror film. Perhaps some unintentional residue was left in his subconscious.
If you watch a lot of movies, things are going to rub off even if you don’t intend them to. The sterile-yet-static world of working in an office cubicle seen at the beginning of Unsane is reminiscent of both Clockwatchers & season one of The Girlfriend Experience (two projects that Soderbergh has been attached to). Honestly, I almost feel like Unsane would have been better had it taken place inside of an office instead of a mental facility. If you scroll social media then I’m sure you’re aware of all the scientific studies that show how working in a sterile environment like an office (combined with a frustrating commute) can negativiley effect our psyche over time.

As a designer in the world of office furniture I must say that while cubicles may seem depressing & constricting (and they are), they are much better than these current open office solutions without any office cubicles or office panels. There’s this romanticized notion about how we shouldn't be closed in by tall office panels but they block out sound and do provide privacy. There’s no longer any sound absorption in the workplace and now you can hear every little thing which is enough to drive someone INsane. People think open/collaborative workspaces are the answer but in my personal opinion (the opinion of someone who draws office cubicles while sitting in one), I miss the privacy of office cubicles.
There’s your psychological horror right there. The horrors of working in an office. It would be a serious/scary flip on Office Space.


Entrance isn’t the only film that may have potentially influenced Unsane. There are unintentional nods to everything from One Flew Over The Cuckcoo’s Nest to all those psychological thrillers that came out in the early/mid-00’s (The Jacket, The Machinist, Fear X, etc).

paranoid schizophrenia in Seconds (l) & Unsane (r)

And speaking of residue from previous films, I wonder if Unsane is one of many films to follow Get Out's revitalization of the "social horror" genre (by social horror I mean horror films with an obvious social "message" behind them).


Soderbergh shot his latest project on an iPhone which seems to be what people care about more than anything else. At this point I don’t care what a movie is shot on. I’m kind of over the “one trick pony”/”gimmicky” films. You know what I mean; “this movie was made with a $100 budget” or “this movie only used non-professional actors” or “this movie was shot entirely in one room”. It’s as if by giving out that information in the promotion of the film that some type of leniency will be given because there were restrictions involved. While shooting a good/great film with various limitations can be impressive & commendable – I just care about if the movie is good or not. In this case I don’t think the film was good.


I guess the most positive aspect to come from Unsane (and Soderbergh’s recent filmography in general) are his female casting choices. I’m not sure if anyone notices this but his last few films feature a combination of veteran actresses who haven’t gotten much recent work alongside new up & coming actresses who may not have much of a “name” yet. True, Katie Holmes is a household name but Riley Keough (up & comer) & Hilary Swank (Veteran) shined in Logan Lucky. We see Sharon Stone star in Soderbergh's Mosaic. In Unsane, our two female leads are Claire Foy (Sawyer) & her mother played by veteran Amy Irving (I checked wikipedia and Amy Irving hadn’t acted in a film in almost a decade until Unsane while Hilary Swank hadn’t acted in anything in three years until Logan Lucky). I’m not sure if this is an intentional statement on Soderbergh’s part but I think we all know a lot of issues concerning gender equality have been brought to the forefront in recent years. I don’t know all the details but why doesnt a two-time academy award winning actress (Swank) show up in more films? Why is a veteran Depalma regular (Irving) barely working these days? This could very well be me making a potential fuss out of nothing but I do think it is worth mentioning.

Another positive thing to come from Unsane is that it makes me want to go deeper inside Soderbergh’s mind. He comes off as someone who gets easily bored yet needs to be creating all the time. If you’ve followed his career you know he’s experimented and tried different mediums, styles, cameras, etc since day one. He’s gone from movies to television and back to movies. When he isn’t writing or directing, his idea of fun is re-editing/remixing other people’s older films. I just wish he would control and sculpt all of that energy in to one solid project at a time instead of throwing stuff to the wall and seeing what sticks which seems to be what he's been doing for quite some time.

A FEW WORDS ON FOUR NIGHTS OF A DREAMER

This is a summarized version of a talk I participated in on Robert Bresson's Four Nights Of A Dreamer at Video Revival in Brooklyn.

Enjoy...

The motivation of Robert Bresson's characters seem predetermined. It's as if they're essentially going through the motions without any say or input on their own lives or actions. Bresson is kind of like a cinematic puppet master in a sense. While it's totally understandable that this would be off-putting & unappealing to some folks (Robert Bresson does have his share of detractors) it is intriguing to me and quite a few of the filmmakers he has directly inspired (Four Nights Of A Dreamer is a loose adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s White Nights so it's rooted in influence right off the bat).

The predetermined aspect in Robert Bresson's films were in full force from the late 60's (Une Femme Douce) until his final film (L'argent). That's not to say Bresson hadn't found his footing prior to Une Femme Douce (this is evident in The Diary Of A Country Priest which, in my opinion, is when he finally found his signature style), but it was cemented in the late 60's. Four Nights Of A Dreamer is a prime example of this. Besides the basic plot (two strangers fall in love after one saves the other from a suicide attempt), we're given expressionless faces (even in scenarios concerning intimacy and suicide attempts), emotionless/apathetic gestures (at the start of the film our hitchhiking protagonist is asked where he is going and he throws up his arms, with an expressionless look, as if to say; “I Don't know and I don't really care).

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Slacker
(In Slacker, the character on the right kills his mother like it was a menial chore. This is very Bressionian)

Like I already said - lack of emotion & spirit could seem unappealing to some people (especially in cinema) but at the same time life can break us and make us apathetic & emotionless. Again – it's understandable if some audiences want nothing to do with that. Movies are supposed to be an escape for some people. The films of Bresson are a reflection of society to some degree and no one wants to spend their time watching their lives on the big screen or on a television. Some people want a momentary escape to make them forget about their (very real) Bressonian problems from time to time (living life set to an alarm clock, boredom, mindless commuting, etc). But at the same time that aspect of life shouldn't go ignored.

Bresson's influence knows no bounds especially in the world of french arthouse cinema. Take Michael Haneke for example. All of his Austrian films deal with the same problems in Bresson's films (depression, broken spirits, existentialism, predetermined lives, etc). Haneke's first three films look like stories from an extended Bresson universe.
In The Seventh Continent we see a family live life in the same predetermined depressed fashion (until they snap out of it and handle in their own way). Both The Seventh Continent & Four Nights Of A Dreamer show the same pointless/banal things we do on a daily basis...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / The Seventh Continent

The same could be said about Hal Hartley who considers Bresson to be one of his favorite filmmakers (Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar is one of his favorite movies). The opening scene of The Unvelievable Truth is a clear homage to the opening of Four Nights Of A Dreamer in which both protagonists are aimlessly/hopelessly hitchhiking somewhere...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / The Unbelievable Truth

Bruno Dumont, who at one point was nicknamed “The Son Of Bresson” due to the similar themes & acting style in his earlier movies, regularly borrows the same scenes from the films of Bresson as well...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Hors Satan
Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Slack Bay

I'd also be remiss if I didnt bring up Leos Carax's possible reference to Four Nights Of Dreamer in The Lovers On Bridge (both movies are shot in some of the exact same locations)...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / The Lovers On The Bridge

Perhaps Four Nights inspired Leos Carax earlier than The Lovers On The Bridge...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Boy Meets Girl
(Both films start with pivotal scenes on a bridge and deal with tough break ups. The delivery of dialogue in Boy Meets Girl is also very Bressonian)

there's also Soderbergh's Solaris...

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Solaris

Four Nights Of A Dreamer / Solaris

It should be noted that all the movies compared to Four Nights Of A Dreamer in this piece have similar plot points & scenarios.
In Soderbergh’s Solaris, Chris Kelvin’s wife tries to commit suicide like Marthe at the start of Four Nights Of A Dreamer (and the characters in The Seventh Continent are successful in their suicide).
Both “Emmet” (The Unbelievable Truth) & Michele (The Lovers On The Bridge) refuse to accept that their respective relationship is over much like Marthe.

So while some of these comparisons could be perceived as vague at first glance, there is some depth & validity behind these images...