Analysis Of Steven Soderbergh's Film Contagion

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Steven Soderbergh’s film Contagion (2011) opens with a blackened off-screen shot accompanied by the sound of an unseen person coughing and then cuts to a tired sweaty Gwyneth Paltrow eating nuts out of a shared bowl at an airport bar. Superimposing “Day 2” in red lettering, Soderbergh initiates a wave of unanswered questions and his slow reveal heightens the drama and gets under your skin. The simple and effective opening begins a journey that traces the path of a new virus as it spreads across the globe, moving from host to host with the ease of a touch. Contagion uses a realist style to comment on the links of globalization, and the connected technologies that enable the rapid transmission of a virus which takes advantage of our networked …show more content…

For those infected, skin glistens with sweat, hair hangs from the weight of dampness, and faces flush with fever. He shows the dead with a pale green cast, staring straight ahead with vomit drying to their faces. To illustrate the virus’ spread, he frames scenes at hand-level showing fingers pushing elevator buttons, gripping poles on public transportation, passing water glasses, and signing paperwork. This element of cinematography highlights society’s vulnerability to the invisibility of the virus due to its rapid spread via common …show more content…

The story moves away from how these elements spread the disease to how they can be used to solve the mysteries of the virus. Soderbergh accomplishes this by using editing to transition between shots showing individual researchers combating the virus in various cities. They use cell phones to keep in touch and computers to gather data, predict transmission, and plan intervention. They use digital models to map the virus’ surface, and to explain how it functions. The use travel to monitor outbreaks and find the source, and they study video feeds to discover patient zero. Contrasting the positive and negative aspects of technology and connectedness, he balances the dread felt by watching the spread of the disease with the hope that these same elements can reveal the weaknesses of the virus and provide a

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