I have an upcoming piece on Steven Soderbergh's The Knick, his fantastic medical drama now showing on Cinemax. While writing it, I revisited a piece I began over a year ago on what I called the "Late Soderbergh" period (a poor name in hindsight), covering an era beginning with The Girlfriend Experience and assumably ending with Behind The Candelabra. It was a wild and ridiculous essay, trying to cover way too much ground with flimsy cohesion. I eventually abandoned it. Revisiting the 10,000 word document, however, I found some insights that helped me contextualize The Knick as well as my own thoughts on how Soderbergh evolved in this era. What follows are some excerpts from that, which I found still managed to make sense, and hopefully have some use.
Young and naive Adam (Alex Pettyfer) sits on a couch, pumped
up from adrenaline from the experience he just had. On a complete whim, he has
does stripped down to almost his bare ass for a loud of screaming young women.
He was awkward and a bit silly, unsure of what to do, which made his so-called
“performance” all the more exciting for the crowd. He sits on a couch while the
rest of his now-colleagues celebrate and joke around for another successful
night. Still dressed in only underwear, dollars are flowing out of his pants,
as if his cock was spewing it. His body has a value, and we can see it right
there.
