Genre and Capital
Genre and Capital
New Crime Wave in the 1990s
This chapter identifies the broad resurgence of Hollywood crime films during the 1990s as the ‘New Crime Wave’, as well as Soderbergh's unique ‘anticrime’ iteration within it. A close reading of Out of Sight (1998) illustrates the alternative values system that Soderbergh proffers with his criminal characters. The film employs the presence of both the narratives of a charming criminal and the detective chasing after him, coupled with uniquely Soderberghian aesthetic signature stylistics, the characters' ethical impulse, and Soderbergh's slickly edited narrative — the latter of which is used as a method of restricting and revealing the range and depth of character information so as to complicate the viewer's understanding of the central relationship. It is more than just ‘likable criminals’ that distinguishes Soderbergh's films from others in the 1990s crime wave, however; it is that his criminal protagonists are set against larger, more nefarious institutions.
Keywords: New Crime Wave, 1990s, anticrime, Out of Sight, criminal characters, edited narrative
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