Sex, Lies, and Videotape [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Steven Soderbergh Steven Soderbergh

Overview

Steven Soderbergh kickstarted the independent film movement of the 1990s with this landmark drama about the tangled relationships among four people and a video camera. John (Peter Gallagher) is an unscrupulous, self-centered yuppie lawyer with a beautiful wife named Ann (Andie MacDowell). Ann feels secure and well provided-for in their relationship, but she has almost no interest in sex; she tells her therapist that she's more concerned about waste disposal. John, however, is still quite interested in sex and is having an affair with Ann's sister Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo), whose personality is fire to Ann's ice; sex is the one area in which she's been able to best her more successful sister, and she relishes her ability to seduce Ann's husband. Into this dysfunctional picture comes Graham (James Spader), a college friend of John's whom he hasn't seen in nine years. Graham has decided that talking about sex is more interesting than actually having sex, so he meets women and asks them discuss their desires and fantasies as he tapes them with a camcorder. A sensation at the Sundance Film Festival, the film made that festival a synonym for a new brand of low-budget indie dramas about contemporary life and relationships. Together with Quentin Tarantino's very different Pulp Fiction (1994), sex, lies, and videotape was one of the most influential movies for independent filmmaking of the 1990s.

Product Details

Release Date:	07/17/2018
UPC:	0715515216814
Original Release:	1989
Rating:	R
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround]
Language:	English
Time:	1:40:00
Sales rank:	4,025

Special Features

New, restored 4k digital transfer and new 5.1 mix from the original sound elements, supervised by Director Steven Soderbergh Audio Commentary from 1998 featuring Soderbergh in conversation with filmmaker Neil LaBute New introduction by Soderbergh Interviews with Soderbergh from 1990 and 1992 New documentary about the making of the film, featurin gactors Peter Gallagher, Andie MacDowell, and Laura San Giacomo Interview from 1989 with actor James Spader New conversation between Sound Editor/Re-recording Mixer Larry Blake and Composer Cliff Martinez Deleted scene with Commentary by Soderbergh Demonstration of sound restorations through the years Trailers Plus: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from Soderbergh's 1990 book about the film

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

James Spader	Graham Dalton
Andie MacDowell	Ann Millaney
Peter Gallagher	John Millaney
Laura San Giacomo	Cynthia Bishop
Ron Vawter	Therapist
Steven Brill	Barfly
Alexandra Root	Girl on Tape
Earl T. Taylor	Actor
David Foil	John's Colleague
Earl Taylor	Landlord
Cliff Martinez	Composer

Technical Credits

Steven Soderbergh

Steven Soderbergh	Director,Screenwriter
John Hardy	Producer
Morgan Mason	Executive Producer
Robert Newmyer	Producer
Nancy Tenenbaum	Executive Producer,Producer
Nick Wechsler	Executive Producer
Deborah Aquila	Casting
Paul Ledford	Sound Mixer

Editorial Reviews

A brilliant chamber piece about intimacy, technology, and truth, Sex, Lies, and Videotape won the Palme d'Or at Cannes and launched the career of its first-time writer-director, Steven Soderbergh. Made for the relatively modest sum of $1.2 million, the film helped the burgeoning independent film scene and provided a major impetus for that movement in the '90s. The story concerns a lonely, enigmatic video maker (James Spader) who conducts one-on-one interviews with women about their sex lives. When he returns to his college town to make peace with his past and strikes up a friendship with a former classmate's wife (Andie MacDowell), both find their lives taking an unexpected turn. The film demonstrates that the camera, for all its distancing tendencies, can paradoxically bring people closer together. This notion, which underlies both this film and others by Soderbergh, represents romantic humanism at its finest.

Barnes & Noble - Monica McIntyre

The feature debut by 26-year-old writer/director/editor Steven Soderbergh galvanized the independent film movement of the late '80s and '90s with its breakout success leading out of the Sundance Film Festival. Soderbergh's late twentysomethings are so alienated and sexually dysfunctional that voyeuristic, videotaping onanist Graham's professions of relative healthiness ring ironically true. In these warped lives, the mediating presence of the video camera becomes a means to self-awareness, yet human connection can happen only via a machine. Winner of the Audience Prize at Sundance, sex, lies and videotape commanded international attention by winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (as well as the Best Actor prize for James Spader's subtle performance as Graham), setting the stage for the award-winning prominence of American independent cinema at the Cannes festival in subsequent years. Picked up and aggressively marketed by Miramax, sex, lies and videotape grossed 26 million dollars, raising the bar for an "indie" hit, establishing Miramax as the most prominent purveyor and savvy marketer of independent film, and refocusing attention on non-Hollywood product as a vital creative and entertainment alternative to blockbusters.

All Movie Guide - Lucia Bozzola