2. McCarthy, T 2000, “Traffic”. Variety. 20 August, 2018. (Informed Industry Source)

3. Austin, F. J 2004, “Digitizing Frenchness in 2001: On a ‘Historic’ Moment in the French Cinema”. SAGE Publications, vol 15, no. 3, pp. 281-289. 15 August, 2018.
(Academic Source)

Traffic features three chronologically paralleled storylines that vary in characters, locations and context. To distinguish scenes that shift between them, Soderbergh and Mirrione chose to strike each storyline with its own bold, contrasting colour grade. “The color scheme sandwiches a few lush patches between sequences filmed in two hues […] that are as visually discordant as the forces doing battle.” (Holden, S. 2000.) Not only do these colours divide the storylines in a way decipherable to audiences, they represent each ones position in capitalist society and the war on drugs. The cool, cobalt blue colour grade representing Douglas, the head of the National Drug Control Policy’s storyline matches its stern, uninviting scenes within the white house. The harshness of the blue appears to emulate the governments detached approach to the war on drugs and their isolation from its impact. Within the burning yellow colour grade, the fraud surrounding Mexico’s anti-drug campaign is revealed as two well-meaning Mexican police officers, Rodriguez and Sanchez, are forced into assisting a higher ranking officer who is pawn to a cartel. As mentioned by Holden, the colour grades and their respective storylines are conflicting forces within Traffic’s representation of the War on Drugs. The unharmonious effect of these paralleled visuals and narratives and appears politically charged and objective, until under the blue hue, Douglas’ high school age daughter is shown using hard drugs. Consequently, Soderbergh and Mirrione’s use of colour comes full circle in humanising their narrative subjectively.

As a director, Soderbergh’s films regularly feature editing techniques inspired by the French New Wave, such as jump cuts and breaking of the fourth wall. Soderbergh met Sirrione at the premier for Go (1999), a film edited by Sirrione with a contrast-heavy colour grade that also follows intertwining plots. Mirrione’s implementation of the colour themes in Traffic have been likened to Contempt (1963), a film directed by the pioneer of the French New Wave movement, Jean Luc Goddard. Amelie (2001) and Vidocq (2001) were amongst the first films in France to implement the use of digital editing techniques such as special effects and colour grading to curate their visual qualities. As French New Wave critics followed a strict notion of authenticity, extensive work having gone into post production of a film incited a criticism of the film as ‘Cinema du Look’. This term suggests that image manipulation techniques were reserved for advertising and aligned with a lack of socially-conscious substance. Speaking on Vidocq, James F. Austin states “The digital camera employed renewed saturated images, high in contrast and intense in color […]” Although shot on film rather than digital, the same could be said about Traffic. Historically initiating French Cinema’s use of digital editing, Amelie and Vidocq were only relevant to Cinema du Look in terms of their highly stylised visuals. Editing of film colour temperature and luminance was present during the New Wave movement and played a significant role in many of its films. The opinion of digital video editing as a disingenuous and compromise for lacking substance goes against Goddard’s New Wave beliefs that challenge the tradition of quality and putting craft before innovation. As Traffic was released a year prior to Vidoq and Amelie, the lack of digital video editing within French Cinema was not amongst the New Wave influences Soderbergh drew upon in making directorial decisions around Mirrione’s editing. In spite of this, the films socially-conscious narrative substance was foregrounded in its critical acclamation, winning Academy Awards for Best supporting Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Director, and Best Film Editing.

“Stephen Mirrione’s editing […] is characterized on a moment-to-moment basis by jump cuts and jagged rhythms. Overall result is far too stylized to call the approach verite, but pic looks far more caught-on-the-run, and therefore far less staged, than all but a few other American films.” (McCarthy, T. 2000). As the French cinema style of verite is regarded an approach to documentary, McCarthy’s comment is in reference to the raw, realistic qualities the film exudes. Mirrione’s editing enhances these qualities through his use of rhythm. Lacking in editorial visual repetition adds to the ‘jagged’ appearance of the film. The tempo of the editing remains mostly consistent within its scene. This consistency doesn’t account for equally paced increase and decrease in tempo. The strength of the rhythm as result of its consistency in tempo  and lack of visual repetition reflects the ‘candid’ editing style of cinema verite and its attempt to bring a sense of life to its sequences. The strength of the editorial rhythm also creates a bolder intensity when it need be broken, as the audience is awaiting its continuation. The breaks intensity illicit a deeper emotional response from the audience and therefore a stronger connection with the event inciting the break in rhythm. 

Soderbergh and Mirrione’s collaboration delivers an American narrative to audiences through editing considered to be atypical of traditional American cinema. Traffic’s bold political message and intensive emotional journey are enhanced through its practice of distinctly French-inspired editing. Through the lens of French Cinema’s influence, Traffic is empowered as emotionally authentic to audiences, effectively reaching and engaging them despite the films controversial content.

 

This love and commitment has since allowed Soderbergh to create his own narrative style, that tends to lend itself to well woven, character driven stories that prioritises the ideology of “Form = Function” (Palmer & Sanders, 2010). This “optimized” version of the traditional narrative includes numerous jump cuts, montage sequences and has resulted in many more multi-layered narratives that focus on one topic or event that ties it all together. (Perno, 2013). This style is extremely evident within Traffic, as the film portrays up to 5 different stories at the one time, all of which look at the different perspective of the War on Drugs and cut’s between then with such urgency and little to no downtime, instead relying on the visuals of the film to tell the small details for him. An example of this can be seen in the introduction of Michael Douglas’s daughter, as she is used to both introduce the “western” side of the drug trade but also sets us up for the volatile introduction when we realize later she is his daughter. These little moments really help drive the creative narrative further, showing that you don’t always have to spell or exposit everything to the audience, you can let them make the connections themselves and makes them feel more invested. This choice of narrative style also lends itself well to the genre of film noir, placing small clues throughout each scene to tie together near its climax.  

 

Soderbergh also attempts to tackle the topic of the Drug trade with a very objective point of view, opting to show all sides strengths and short comings when approaching this very volatile and emotional charged topic in America. This was a breath of fresh air back in the early 2000’s as most western drug related media painted a negative light towards the users, but very rarely pointed that same spot light towards the producers and distributors both within the US and south of the border. These perspectives when looking at the drug trade tie in well in respect to Soderbergh’s style of telling multi-layered stories, and doesn’t choose to focus or paint bias towards one particular story or standpoint either. This inability to choose sides really makes the audience think about forming their own opinion, and not just adopt the one being presented to them by the director. Rodger Ebert talks about his own experiences with the points being shown, “the judge's final speech--I wanted one more sentence, making a point, but the movie lets us supply that thought for ourselves. And the facts make their own argument” (Ebert, 2001). This element of a non-judgemental narrative pushes across the point that everything isn’t as black and white as we’d like to think, this is also done quite well in his other movies “The Girlfriend Experience” (2009) and “Che” (2008). 

 

 

Though it is not just the narrative that has a unique Soderbergh touch. Within each of his own films, Steve likes to wear multiple hats and play multiple roles within his production team, ranging from Director of Photography to Editor. (Palmer & Sanders, 2010) In the case of Traffic, Steven was both the director (credited under his own name) and also the Cinematographer, instead opting to act under the name of Peter Andrews, a personal anagram of his.  Though this may seem like an egomaniacal act, it instead shows how willing he is to get behind every area of production and assist in bringing his artistic vision to life. This in turn leads to some interesting creative choices in both the way the film is shot with different compositions (depending on the storyline) and how both Soderbergh and his editor Stephen Mirrione attempt to further differentiate each storyline from each other. With examples such as the coloured filter with each storyline, the unfiltered light being a signature of his style (Perno, 2013), and while many of the shots south of the border are large, sweeping shots, those north are much more intimate and at times claustrophic. Though these choices at value may seem off-putting to initial viewers, the end result gives us a greater understanding of what storyline is being shown and how it affects the overall movie, a facet that is sorely needed when dealing with multiple actors and quick cuts of which Soderbergh is known for.  

 

Steven Soderbergh is a polarizing artistic creator, who has reached a level of notoriety that many strive for, all the while keeping his own artistic freedom, something that is slowly getting harder to do in modern day Hollywood. Though this tendency has led him to finding mixed results in his later career, his artistic successes like Traffic revolutionize the way up and coming filmmakers craft and tell their own stories. 

 

 

Soderbergh has managed to become both director and cinematographer of the film Traffic, along with his limited cinematographer experiences. “In recent years Mr. Soderbergh has become a one-man American New Wave. With or without big stars, he works in a nimble, fluent style that makes much of Hollywood's output seem even clumsier than it is. [...] "Traffic" is a triumph of this stripped-back technique;” (Morgenstern, J. 2001). Although the Wall Street Journalist has mentioned the word ‘One-man’ is in the American New Wave, but the ‘stripped-back technique’ can be adopted into the French New Wave. In fact, the French New Wave has forced the cinematographer to use their skills to remedy the lack of support from the expensive equipment in the past. Especially the film Traffic has a limited amount of budget which has driven Soderbergh to take the full advantages to fulfil both cinematographer and director roles in the film to control the budget and time. In the film Antoine & Colette (1962) during the French New Wave, the movie took place in the real-world locations and filmed with natural light. Soderbergh’s traffic has shared the similarity in light sourcing, mainly with sunlight and ambient lights during film shooting stage in American and Mexico. In general, the natural sunlight is sharp and harsh, but it reflected and bounced off toward the character and create a strong contrast in the film, the ‘highlights’ (the brightest tone has no colour and details) of shots are overexposure and the remaining parts are underexposure. In contrast, the shots are underexposure captured during night time. However, it turns out shots looks casual but realistic as the result.

 

"In this world (Mexico), the unrelenting sun literally alters perspective as does the stroboscopic effect of the forty-five-degree shutter and during filming. The shutter eliminates motion blur and thus represents movement as surreally halting, and the larger scale of the theatrical screen compounds the effects.” (Boozer, J. 2008). The directors and cinematographers have their own unique, individual style in film production during the French new wave. Although Soderbergh has his own style in cinematography, it does not mean he has changed the traditional rule in filming. Instead, he has used a faster or and normal shutter speed to tell the story through the camera lens. The sharper and crisp footage shows clearer, solid movements and decisions in the storylines. However, the faster the shutter speed is, the unrealistic look in the footage will be. Traditionally, cinematographer uses the camera settings of twenty-four frames a second with the shutter speed of 1/48 a second to simulate the persistence of vision occurs from our human eyes.

 

The influence of the French New Wave has decomposed the beauty of the shots, which became not as important since the cinematographer uses the camera to interact with the audiences. Steven Soderbergh has mentioned how he manipulated the camera as the following: “I was very conscious of that when we would set up stuff and I would start looking as to how I wanted to shoot it. […] "This is not about perfection, I don't want to give people marks; I don't want them thinking about that stuff […] You don't want them thinking. You want them being.” (Hope, D. 2001). In terms of cinematography techniques, there are many tracking shots in the film manages to chase the character’s movements, it works as a spotlight to navigates the target. During the French New Wave, the techniques appear in the film ‘Breathless’ (1959), ‘Shoot The Pianist’ (1960) and ‘Femme Est Une Femme’ (1961). In Soderbergh’s Traffic, he uses the long take and tracking techniques show realistic of the story. The camera follows the characters in the scene where the Mexico policeman Javier leaves the car and walk past the Helena in Mexico. The continuous tracking shots have broken the 180-degree rule. Instead, Soderbergh has filmed the shot as 360 degrees tracking shot, panning from left to right. Shifting the focus of an object while panning the camera has been used in the movie ‘Vivre Sa Vie’ (1962), where a series of gunfire were shot, and drifted the focus from the female character to the gun fires on the street. Although 180-degree rule can keep the object or person on track, Soderbergh has differentiated two different characters and shifts the focus from Javier into Helena from Soderbergh’s long takes in the movie. An example the use of long take shots has been seen from the famous movie ‘Breathless’ (1960). “We used the new Millennium XLs […] With their lightweight zooms and a small mag, there wasn't anyplace I couldn't get with that camera.” (Hope, D. 2001). Soderbergh’s uses Zooming in his movie, the inconsistent zooming has zoom in and out along with the hand-held camera. It has created a casual style but realistic look and gained the flexibility from his shot. The French New Wave approaches allows cinematographer to untie the rules from the traditional restrictions, the effects have been seen through Soderbergh’s Traffic.

 

In conclusion, the rise of the French New Wave has influenced the film industry. The strength of it has allowed cinematographers, like Steven Soderbergh to re-frame and jump out of the box from traditional restrictions, which provides a variety of new ways for them to capture the footage through the camera lens.

The book the philosophy of Steven Soderbergh written by R. Barton Palmer and Steven Sanders presents quotes discussing Soderbergh’s work which can be related to the French New Wave film movement. The source highlights Soderbergh’s use of art cinema narration. Which is to present characters without clear cut traits but instead characters that may act inconsistently. This puts across much more realistic characters as most audiences will agree people don’t usually have clear cut traits. This shows a great respect for audience members ability to see deeper into the characters and what they represent. This can be related to the way French new wave directors would develop characters. Seeing as they would be sick of mainstream film presenting fairly basic tales and spoon-feeding audiences morals and teachings.  Another aspect of Steven's films that can be related to the French new wave movement is present within the source in the form of a quote. "…the form in Soderbergh’s films often breaks through the fourth wall of invisibility to create a discontinuity that communicates the unconventional thinking of such marginalised characters, sets up critical distance for the viewer, or uses self-reflexivity, allusion or realism to comment on a particular narrative situation” (Palmer, 2011). Seeing as French new wave directors would use similar techniques through realism and un-conventual presentation of marginalised characters. Such as following a murderer on the run fall in love in Jean-Luc Godard's film "A Bout De Souffle" also known as "Breathless”. Or the presentation of the Drug Kingpins wife suffering from her husband’s arrest, and what she does to keep herself supported. Seeing as this Academic source presents quotes relating to Steven Soderbergh’s directing than can be related to elements present in French new wave films this would make this a good source to support the hypothesis that Steven Soderbergh’s film Traffic has influences of French New Wave.  The second source that will be critically evaluated is an informed industry source. 

 

The film industry magazine Premier highlighted Soderbergh’s film making in the Film Maker Series by Anne Thompson. The magazine reflects on Soderbergh’s Filmmaking career and presenting an overview of his oeuvre. The article discusses Soderbergh’s admiration and praise of the French new wave director Jean-Luc Godard. The article quotes “Giant posters of such Godard rarities as Les Caribiniers and Bande Part dominate Soderbergh’s Burbank office.  Godard is a constant source of inspiration, he says. Before I do anything, I go back and look at as many of his films as I can, as a reminder of what’s possible. But the director Soderbergh probably resembles most is that master of many genres, Howard Hawks, who cannily, craftily improved just about every story he got his hands on.” (Thompson, 2000) As we can Identify Godard is a huge influence and inspiration for Soderbergh making this a moderately useful source to support the hypothesis. The next source to be critiqued will be the informed Professional source. 

 

The next source is an article written by Jess Cagle for time magazine. The article discusses two of Soderbergh’s critically popular films Erin Brockovich and Traffic and Soderbergh’s creative direction throughout. One of the key elements Cagle discusses is the fact that Soderbergh took initiative to be the films cinematographer. As Cagle quotes Soderbergh’s colour decision and Cinematography “Although directors usually observe the action on a set by watching a video monitor, Soderbergh joined the cinematographers' union so he could work the camera himself. "There's something about the director being right there with the actors," explains Stephen Mirrione, Traffic's editor. "He gets what he needs and can move on." Soderbergh also gave each story a distinct look in order to keep the audience oriented. He shot the Cincinnati and Washington footage in a bleak and bluish colour; rendered Mexico grainy, baking in blinding light; and slightly overexposed the San Diego scenes to make the colours soft and blossoming. "All this rot is going on underneath this very pristine surface," explains the director. "It's a nice contrast. (Cagle, 2001)" We see that Soderbergh took direct initiative to ensure his directorial ideas would translate through his cinematography. This initiative can be related to the initiative shown by French new wave directors like Godard. This showing a level of inspiration from the film movement making this source of moderate usefulness to the hypothesis. 

Inconclusion, each of the three sources provide a useful evidence to support the hypothesis that Steven Soderbergh was influenced by the French new wave film movement in his film Traffic.