(1989)
directed by Steven Soderbergh
This extraordinary film tells the story of four people in their early thirties whose sex lives are in disarray. John (Peter Gallagher) is a lawyer who is married to Ann (Andie MacDowell) but no longer sleeps with her. Early in the film, we overhear Ann in her psychiatrist’s office. When the psychiatrist asks how things are with John, she says, “They’re fine,” adding almost as an afterthought, “But I’m kind of going through this thing where I don’t want him to touch me.”
Ann’s husband, John, is conducting a passionate affair with Ann’s sister, Cynthia (Laura San Giacomo). Cynthia has always resented the beautiful, refined Ann. Graham (James Spader), an old friend of John’s, shows up in town. Graham has a subtle, prying intelligence that sees right through people. He asks questions with the words carefully chosen to suggest that he is somehow aware of everything that is going on just below the surface. He arrives at Ann’s house and immediately starts questioning her. “Do you like being married? What do you like about it?”
One day Graham has lunch with Ann and their conversation becomes intimate. “I’m impotent,” he tells Ann. “I can’t get an erection in the presence of another person.” Because he is unable to have normal relationships with women, Graham explains that he videotapes women talking about their sexual fantasies. Graham’s only physical satisfaction comes when he watches the tapes he has made of women answering his questions about their sexual histories and tastes. “It’s a personal project like anyone’s personal project,” he explains.
Ann finds herself in front of Graham’s camera. What follows is a scene of extraordinary power. For the first time in her life, Ann reveals herself to another human being and begins to discover long buried truths about herself. As Ann, Andie MacDowell is a revelation as a repressed Southern belle. From her first moments on the screen, MacDowell commands our attention with a performance that is both seductive and heartbreaking.
The story of “Sex, Lies and Videotape” is legendary. Still in his twenties, writer-director Steven Soderbergh wrote the screenplay for his first feature film in eight days during a trip to Los Angeles. The film was made for $1.2 million and won the Golden Palm at Cannes. Wim Wenders, the jury president at Cannes, said that to see an American director embrace the tradition of the European art film “gives us confidence in the future of cinema.”