Schizopolis (1997)
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
A man works for the unpleasant guru of a Scientology-like movement.
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What critics compared Schizopolis to
I don�t see him making something like The Limey again soon, let alone Schizopolis.
Soderbergh excels on a grander scale (the sex scene with George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight, the epic parallels of Traffic, even the pop spectacle of Ocean's Eleven), but when his artistic pretensions guide his filmmaking, disaster strikes (Kafka, Schizopolis, Full Frontal).
He wrote none of the screenplays for his seven subsequent films, and though he did pen the upcoming Solaris adaptation, the guiding hands of Stanislaw Lem and Andrei Tarkovsky loom large in that endeavor.
To single out a mere eight of 28 film credits: There’s the indie film lodestar Sex, Lies, and Videotape; drug trade exposé Traffic; experimental head case Schizopolis; a hypochondriac’s anxious-sneeze confirmed in Contagion; mixed martial arts adrenaline shot Haywire; new-millennium Norma Rae Erin Brockovich; new-genre invention – hullo, male-stripper-meets-the-recession! – Magic Mike; and, oh yeah, only the most stylish crime caper ever made, Out of Sight.
Soderbergh can speak with authority on the subject: over nearly three decades, his films have ranged from eclectic indie projects (Schizopolis, Full Frontal, Bubble) to box office hits (Ocean's Eleven, Magic Mike).
Soderbergh's pictures as director range from the openly commercial Ocean's Eleven to the experimental Schizopolis ; from a two-part biography of Che Guevara and a remake of Tarkovsky's sci-fi classic Solaris to the best adaptation of an Elmore Leonard thriller, Out of Sight , and the true-life social conscience drama Erin Brockovich , in which Julia Roberts won an Oscar.
His persistent ennui has led him to all manner of narrative experiments, benighted projects like "Schizopolis" and "The Good German" that were doubtless more involving for him to make than for audiences to experience.
I don’t think I’d rank it as one of the best movies in a career that frequently has balanced entertainment with social significance (Erin Brockovich and The Informant) and that has seen the director employ a dazzling variety of approaches in movies such as Kafka (1991), King of the Hill (1993), Schizopolis (1996) and Bubble (2005).
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Soderbergh has balanced his ability to make commercial hits ( Ocean's Eleven, Erin Brockovich) with his desire to do more personal, innovative and political films – such as Traffic, The Good German or Schizopolis.
He remakes (Solaris, The Good German) and makes mistakes (Ocean's Twelve, Schizopolis) and, as often as not, he shoots beguiling, flawed cinematic experiments that blur the line between fact and fiction.
Follow-ups like Schizopolis and The Underneath indicated a disconnection from the mainstream that seemed willful and consummate.
With Erin Brockovich, he's got the Capra-esque story told, now let's all keep our fingers crossed and hopes he gets back to the neo-Godard work of "Schizopolis."
He gets to make unconventional, experimental films like Kafka, Schizopolis and The Limey, while still making a few bucks doing "mainstream" films like King of the Hill and Out of Sight.
And, of course, the parallel temptation in a film culture increasingly parceled between "Hollywood entertainment" and "independent art films" is to valorize Schizopolis as a relic of Soderbergh's integrity while writing off Erin Brockovich or Ocean's Eleven as landmarks of his selling out.
Though it's a sequel to the caper comedy "Ocean's Eleven," "Ocean's Twelve" is more like a strange hybrid of the 1960s Rat Pack movies (in which the stars had fun and the audience got to hang out and watch) and director Steven Soderbergh's impish, absurdist art films ("Schizopolis," "Full Frontal").