Black Bag
Short description
Black Bag follows George and Kathryn Woodhouse, two veteran intelligence officers whose long marriage has been built on shared tradecraft and mutual trust. When a serious leak is traced back to their agency, George is handed the job of finding the traitor, and the evidence points to Kathryn. He must work out whether his wife has betrayed their country while deciding where his own loyalty lies, with the couple's professional discretion leaving him little to go on.
The film is directed by Steven Soderbergh, working from a screenplay by David Koepp. It is the thirty-third of thirty-five features Soderbergh has directed in chronological order, arriving between Presence and The Christophers. Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender lead as Kathryn St. Jean and George Woodhouse, with Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Regé-Jean Page and Naomie Harris in supporting roles. Gregory Jacobs and Casey Silver produced for Focus Features and Casey Silver Productions.
Critical response was notably stronger than general audience reaction: critics gave it 8.1 out of 10 across 291 reviews, while on IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 91,000 votes and on TMDB 6.4 out of 10 from 1,383 votes. Made on a budget of 60 million dollars, it took in roughly 44 million dollars worldwide.
What's left behind the scenes
- Screenwriter David Koepp partially based the character of Michael Fassbender's hero on James Angleton – an intelligence officer who headed CIA counterintelligence operations for two decades.
- The design of the lamps above the dining table was inspired by a photograph of a coffee table in Steven Soderbergh’s New York home, which he showed to the film’s production designer, Philip Messina. Messina created a lamp design resembling an inverted lamp. The dining table resembles a Rubik's Cube. It unfolds into separate components, and the central part rises upwards. This allows filming to be done directly from the table, and the light source can be moved for use in other scenes.
- To achieve greater authenticity in depicting espionage activities, the filmmakers and actors consulted with high-ranking officials from the Government Communications Headquarters.
- Director Steven Soderbergh is a big fan of actress Cate Blanchett, and she, in turn, is captivated by his work. She agreed to star in this film without even reading the script.
- The idea for this film came to screenwriter David Koepp while he was writing the screenplay for the action film "Mission: Impossible" (1996).
- In English slang, a "black bag" refers to eavesdropping or obtaining information without official authorization, typically by intelligence agencies. The term originates from the toolkit carried by burglars.
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