Release Date: July 17, 2018
Prices and links:
Criterion - $31.96
Amazon - $39.95
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo, Steven Brill
With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister (Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.
Disc Features
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:
Prices and links:
Criterion - $31.96
Amazon - $39.95
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Steven Soderbergh
Starring: James Spader, Andie MacDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo, Steven Brill
- United States
- 1989
- 100 minutes
- Color
- 1.85:1
- English
- Spine #938
With his provocative feature debut, twenty-six-year-old Steven Soderbergh trained his focus on the complexities of human intimacy and deception in the modern age. Housewife Ann (Andie MacDowell) feels distant from her lawyer husband, John (Peter Gallagher), who is sleeping with her sister (Laura San Giacomo). When John’s old friend Graham (a magnetic, Cannes-award-winning James Spader) comes to town, Ann is drawn to the soft-spoken outsider, eventually uncovering his startling private obsession: videotaping women as they confess their deepest desires. A piercingly intelligent and flawlessly performed chamber piece, in which the video camera becomes a charged metaphor for the characters’ isolation, the Palme d’Or–winning sex, lies, and videotape changed the landscape of American film, helping pave the way for the thriving independent scene of the 1990s.
Disc Features
DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:
- New, restored 4K digital transfer, supervised by director Steven Soderbergh, with 5.1 surround DTS‑HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
- Audio commentary from 1998 featuring director Steven Soderbergh in conversation with filmmaker Neil LaBute
- New program by Soderbergh, featuring responses to questions sent in by fans
- Interviews with Soderbergh from 1990 and 1992
- New documentary about the making of the film featuring actors Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell, and Laura San Giacomo
- New conversation with composer Cliff Martinez and supervising sound editor Larry Blake
- Deleted scene with commentary by Soderbergh
- Trailers
- More!
- PLUS: An essay by critic Amy Taubin and, in the Blu-ray release, excerpts from Soderbergh’s diaries written at the time of the film’s production
