The Girlfriend Experience

[MacGuffin]

Soderbergh to direct 'Girlfriend'
Koppelman, Levien to write script
Source: Variety

Steven Soderbergh will direct "The Girlfriend Experience," a feature that focuses on the world of prostitution from the vantage point of a $10,000-a-night call girl.

Brian Koppelman and David Levien will write; the pair hatched the project when they and Soderbergh were working on "Ocean's Thirteen."

Pic will be financed by 2929 Entertainment partners Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner through their HDNet label. It will become the second film -- after "Bubble" -- in the six-picture pact they made for Soderbergh to direct low-budget films that get distributed simultaneously in theatrical, on cable TV and on DVD.

Greg Jacobs ("The Good German") will produce.

Rather than go for star power, Soderbergh may set an adult film actress to play the lead role. Soderbergh shot "Bubble" using mostly non-pros.

Project marks the director's first exploration of sexual relationships since his breakthrough film, "sex, lies & videotape."

Much the way that Coleman Hough and Soderbergh wrote a detailed outline for "Bubble" that was used as the basis for a partly improvisational shoot, Koppelman and Levien worked out the beats of the call- girl film with Soderbergh. The director waited until he shot two installments of his Spanish-language Che Guevara biopic before turning his attention to "The Girlfriend Experience."

Soderbergh will lense "The Informant" with Matt Damon for Warner Bros. as his next film. Then he'll turn to "The Girlfriend Experience," which will be shot over 14 days this fall.

The title refers to a phenomenon in which wealthy men pay not just for the quality of a sexual encounter but also for a woman who will play the role of a perfect girlfriend. The arrangement apparently involves more intimacy than the usual prostitution relationship. Soderbergh, Koppelman and Levien interviewed numerous women and fixed on an interior look at a woman who makes $1 million a year in the business.

[Gamblour.]

Not to be a sexist in my own right, but how many guys do we need to make a movie from a call girl's point of view?

[MacGuffin]

Porn star cast in Soderbergh film
Sasha Grey boards low-budget 'Experience'
Source: Variety

Oscar-winner Steven Soderbergh has cast precocious porn star Sasha Grey as the lead in his upcoming feature, "The Girlfriend Experience," Adult Video News reported.

The low-budget drama, currently shooting in Gotham, chronicles the life of a high-price call girl, is part of Soderbergh's six-pic deal with multimedia entrepreneur Mark Cuban. Pic was written by "Ocean's 13" scribes Brian Koppelman and David Levien and will bow under the Magnolia Pictures shingle.

The 20-year-old Grey entered the skin biz just after her 18th birthday and has appeared in scores of XXX flicks. In January she became the youngest recipienct of AVN's Female Performer of the Year award.

For Grey, who lists Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Catherine Breillat among her favorite filmmakers, "Girlfriend" will be her third legit film appearance in 2009, having notched small parts in Dick Rude's indie "Quit" and Canadian horror project "Smash Cut."

"To have the opportunity to work for an Academy Award-winning auteur is truly a great honor," Grey told AVN. "I've been an admirer of Soderbergh's films for years, and I am elated that I have been given a leading role in a character-driven film."

[Stefen]

From this hoe's MySpace.

Movies   French new wave Godard , Italian Neo-Realism Antonioni, Dogme95 Von Trier, German New wave Herzog, American films of the 1970's, the night porter, Night Jobs for men, really good documentaries, the pornography of Belladonna,John Stagliano, modern works of Gasper Noe, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, ,David Lynch, Gus van Sant, Steven Soderbergh,David Gordon Green, P.T. Anderson,larry clark dumb funny junk food movies (i'm not telling but you know what i mean) anything cinema verite oh and duh Harmony Korine,Hiroshi Teshigahara, Monte Hellman,Bernardo Bertolucci,Agnès Varda, Terrence Malick,Louis Malle,William Klein

You can't fake alot of those names. She may genuinely know her shit.

http://www.myspace.com/sashagrey

[squints]

"Sasha Grey won't be doing any scenes for about a month. Porn's leading existentialist is on the injured reserve list. She's got a horrible case of anal warts and requires extensive medical treatment."


suddenly not so hot.

[Pozer]

You can't fake alot of those names. She may genuinely know her shit.

http://www.myspace.com/sashagrey

Criterion Collection made her top friends.

[matt35mm]

Huh.  She and I have a lot in common.  I like a lot of those directors and I want to be a porn star, too.

[The Perineum Falcon]

do you also have anal warts?

Perhaps it's the lowered expectation that comes with her being a, well, porn star and all, but I am thoroughly impressed.

[MacGuffin]

Steven Soderbergh On Casting Porn Star Sasha Grey For 'The Girlfriend Experience': '[She'll] Surprise People'
Source: MTV

Though Steven Soderbergh has featured unknown, untrained actors in his movies in the past, he has raised a number of eyebrows recently by casting porn star Sasha Grey in the lead of his forthcoming feature 'The Girlfriend Experience.' To be sure, Grey is certainly outside of the mainstream of Hollywood actors, but she certainly is famous and has had quite a bit of experience on camera. Does Soderbergh consider her to be a true amateur?

"No, of course not, but the key is dealing with people who haven't learned anything about acting," he recently told MTV News. "She's not trained and that's what I'm looking for. She's going to surprise people. She's great in the movie."

So that's good to know! But what is "The Girlfriend Experience," anyway?

"I was working with Brian Koppelman and David Levine and we were in a bar and I saw this woman on the other end of the bar and something wasn't fitting. Her affect, the way she was alone, there was something that just drew your eye. What was going on there? This is not typical. Brian and David both said "GFE," and I said "What's that?" And they explained the girlfriend experience. They explained this whole world of high end escorts wherein its not just a straight sexual thing. It's almost like a full on fake relationship. You go out to dinner and you talk and if you saw a transcript of it you'd think these people are in a relationship. I was really intrigued by that and we whipped up a story, a week in the life of somebody who does this."

Given that Grey is experienced in having sex on screen, was Soderbergh tempted to have the actress perform unsimulated sex acts in the movie? No, says the director. "I guess I felt like that's been done. That boundary has been broken. I don't want that to distract. But I was looking for someone who was comfortable in scenes that were sexual. There's a scene early on where she's watching a guy get undressed and she's standing there. She's almost undressed already and the look on her face is fantastic. I don't know how to describe it. She is absolutely in her element. That only comes from being in situations like that and being in control. She looks comfortable and in control. You can see it on her face. Its kind of awesome."

[SoNowThen]

Perhaps it's nit-picky, but wouldn't a cheap video whore who probably gets a few grand per shoot be the ultimate miscasting when dealing with a $10000-a-night (insane amount of money most likely meaning she deals with high-level politicos, and corporate power men) call girl?

Wouldn't a stuck up actress actually portray that illusion of high-class-ness much better?

[MacGuffin]

The Movable Buffet: Dispatches from Las Vegas by Richard Abowitz
Sasha Grey: 'I wanted porn to be more creative'

Mark Spiegler is among the best known talent agents in the adult business. He is by his own description a legal pimp. He supplies women actresses to adult movies. Covering the Adult Entertainment Expo for a decade I have had many chances to meet and interview Spiegler. But only once has he called me to speak about one of his clients. That was two years ago and the client was an 18-year-old named Sasha Grey.

Spiegler insisted Grey was going to be the biggest star he had ever come across. Two years later she is the name who most comes up when discussing stars who are transforming the adult industry. Interestingly, our first interview did not go well. It was brief and awkward. She just seemed very young to me and I did not see the spark behind all the excitement she was even then generating. In fact, John Stagliano had already cast her in the sequel to his successful "Fashionistas" film. For 2009 she is in the "Pirates" sequel that is the film that has hoarded so may of the AVN nominations this year.

Among Grey's more recent accomplishments are being cast in a Steven Soderbergh film and being put on the Rolling Stone annual Hot List. Grey has become such a star these days that, since I did not plan in advance, her schedule was too full yesterday and I was told she had no time for an interview with me. But Grey amazingly recognized me from our brief and awkward conversation of a couple years ago and called me over to speak:

Richard Abowitz: Two years ago Mark Spiegler told me I had to interview you because you were going to be a huge star.

Sasha Grey: I remember that actually. I remember we met briefly but did not get a chance to speak.

Abowitz: Well, we have a lot more to talk about now. Are you surprised how quickly all of this has happened for you?

Grey: I am surprised. I got into this business just wanting to make a change. I did not think my ideals would reach that far. I did not have any self doubt. But I did not think on my own I could have such an impact in such a short amount of time.

Abowitz: How has your work impacted your private life?

Grey: My fiance is a photographer and I have made him my photographer. I kind of stole him. It is pretty awesome because we get to work together a lot now.  We have similar artistic interests; we have a similar vision, and we work well together. But as far as the relationship, I think the first three months are the hardest. You learn so much about yourself in such a short amount of time. Obviously, jealousy is part of it. It is more the type of sex that you get to do in films I would like to have in my private life, but I don't have the money for even the gear for some of the stuff I do on film. I am not going to invest my money in that. I am going to invest my money in my own goals.

Abowitz: You are still only 20. What are your goals?

Grey: My goal right now is to continue to brand myself. I work on my website. I want to direct. I have a feature I really I want to come out of the gate with and that is my goal right now.

Abowitz: Next year I'll ask you if alcohol tastes like you expected it to. Do you find in the industry when it comes to getting opportunities to direct that your age is a barrier?

Grey: Absolutely. My age and my gender. Inside and outside. I wish they would say it to my face but they don't. I hear things said behind my back and I wish they would say it to my face.

Abowitz: Do you have any sense of what it is about you that in an industry of people fighting for the spotlight  has made you such a magnet for attention?

Grey: It is hard to answer that without sounding pretentious and stuck up. I think the difference with me is that I sought my way into this industry. I had a goal. I think that has made me a lot different. I did not get into this through a friend, or because I was a stripper or because I wanted to pay college tuition.  That and I am completely into film, music and art. I am into art house films.

Abowitz: OK, outside adult what art have you been enjoying?

Grey: I've been listening to a lot of black metal. For the past month I have been reading nothing but my script. I am on the fourth draft of it. Movies: I really loved "The Wrestler." It was incredibly intense to see him so vulnerable. I love when an actor does that. I did not like some of the dialogue. But I felt something that night.

Abowitz: Didn't you just do a mainstream film? Was that one of your goals?

Grey: No. I keep getting asked that question and it is a bit annoying. Stephen was brilliant. But unfortunately I can't really talk about it. You know how a lot of people make art you admire but you never want to meet them. But Soderbergh far surpassed my expectations. I have a huge respect for him. He is  very focused on process and not just the outcome and getting there is the exciting part for me as well. I guess most people know that the movie is about a $10,000-a-night escort and how she perceives herself to be in control of her life.

Abowitz: Was it an acting challenge for you?

Grey: I am sorry, I can't answer that part. But as far as trying to get into mainstream that is a silly idea. I got into porn because I wanted to get into porn. I did eight months of research before I entered the industry. And, as I told you before, I entered porn because I thought there was a void -- a lack of quality production. You see the same thing over and over and there was just so much titillation missing from porn. I really wanted to see two people perform like they are into each other. I want to see the titillation. I wanted porn to be more creative.

[modage]

http://www.cinematical.com/2009/01/21/sundance-review-the-girlfriend-experience/
http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2009/01/girlfriend_expe.php
http://blog.spout.com/2009/01/21/the-girlfriend-experience-and-steven-soderbergh-at-sundance/
http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2009/01/steven_soderbergh_premieres_th.html

[Stefen]

Both reviewers seemed to not like it, but weren't willing to say it since it wasn't a finished film. It was interesting reading commentary about a female high-end escort from both a male journalist and a female journalist. Their opinions weren't as different as I'd imagine considering the subject matter. Maybe that's just my own sexism. Yeah, it definitely is.

I'm still interested in it. Not so much for the story or idea, but more for the experimental element of it all. It's important to reward creativity and trying something different right now in times where American independent cinema seems to be dying with the American economy. The only movies getting made right now seem to be sure things.

[MacGuffin]

Soderbergh Shares The Girlfriend Experience
Source: Edward Douglas; ComingSoon

Every year at the Sundance Film Festival, there are a couple of unexpected surprises and to coincide with the 20th Anniversary of Steven Soderbegh's Sex, Lies and Videotape premiering at the festival, there was a last-minute addition to the program billed merely as "An Evening with Steven Soderbergh." Word quickly got around that the filmmaker would be using the Eccles Theater's vast space to sneak preview his new movie The Girlfriend Experience to an audience for the first time.

After being introduced by the festival's director Geoff Gilmore, Soderbergh tried play the sneak preview cooly as if he hadn't planned on showing anything, but that ruse was quickly dropped to the delight of the packed theater. Before rolling the film, Soderbergh made it clear that the film was a work-in-progress, and one can expect changes before the movie gets its inevitable release later this year. Even so, the film, shot using the same Red digital camera technology Soderbergh used on his groundbreaking Latin American epic Che, looked absolutely amazing and was clearly a step up from his last film in the HDNet series, Bubble.

Shot for just $1.7 million, the film features 20-year-old Sasha Grey, best known as the star of over a hundred adult films, playing Chelsea (née Christine), a high-priced Manhattan call girl making her way through the lucrative escort business while trying to maintain a relationship with her personal trainer boyfriend Chris. Surprisingly, Chris doesn't seem to have a problem with her profitable career decision until she decides to go off for a weekend with one of her clients, a married man who offers support when Chelsea needs it most.

Told in a non-linear format, the film spends much of its running time following Chelsea around New York, as she spends time with clients, lunches with friends and potential managers, as well as being interviewed by a journalist for a piece on the Manhattan escort business. Through these interactions, we learn more about what she does, as well as how and why she does it. At the same time, Chris has been invited to travel to Las Vegas by one of his own clients and tries to make his own way through the less lucrative career of physical training, while contending with his girlfriend's planned infidelity. It was pretty obvious how recently the film was shot, since there are references to the impending election and the country's economic collapse, things that make the film seem even more relevant and timely.

Some might be surprised that besides a little bit of nudity, there's absolutely no graphic sex of any kind in the movie, which is something many might have expected when they learned Soderbergh had cast Grey given her chosen profession. In fact, Grey proves to be quite a terrific and talented find at delivering straight dialogue-driven drama, creating a character that's very believable to the viewer.

"I read about Sasha in an article in 'Los Angeles Magazine' a couple years ago, and I've never really heard anybody in the porn industry talk about the industry the way she did, and why she wanted to go into it," Soderbergh said later about casting Grey in the film. "When the idea of this movie came about, I contacted her and we sat down and talked and I described the way we work on these things. I said, 'It would just be interesting for you' because I wanted somebody who even on a film that's not very explicit, there's a comfort level that she obviously has from making all of those films that I think is difficult to fake. There's kind of an attitude, and she said, 'Look, I want to try it and see what happens.' She's the only person in the film that's been in front of the camera before. Everyone else in the film is a real person that was cast based on their similarity to the character description. It's really fun as a director to watch and I really like the idea of people speaking in their own words, really speaking for themselves."

One of the film's standouts in this regard is a funny cameo by former Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny--now sharing his vast film knowledge on his own blog SomeCameRunning--as a creepy adult entertainment reviewer who convinces Chelsea to provide complimentary services as a "review copy" to help further her career. We've seen creepy film characters before, but Kenny's ten-minute appearance and his bitingly cruel review of our heroine (and the effect it has on her) becomes the catalyst for what happens to Chelsea and Chris later in the movie.

During the Q 'n' A after the screening, Soderbergh answered questions about the process used for creating these scenes. "We're sort of using the same method that we used on 'Bubble' which is we're working from a kind of detailed scene-by-scene breakdown that the actors are improvising. This is a more complex attempt to implement that approach, more characters and a city that imports a lot of activities, so a lot of times, since I'm dealing with improvised performances and they're usually one or two takes, I have to compose in such a way that doesn't lock them up and that allows them some movement because I'm never telling them where they should go or not go. Almost every time you see a conversation between two people, there are two cameras shooting simultaneously, so that drives a lot of the framing and the visual esthetic. One of the filmmakers that I think is most proficient at placing characters within a landscape and just giving a sense of them being a part of it is Michelangelo Antonioni, especially in a film he made called 'Red Desert' which has some really extraordinary visual sequences. He just had this great gift for having an environment embellish the characters. I thought about that a lot and that's why the frame is loose a lot of the times."

"It's the first time we've shown it in front of anyone really, so it's always interesting," Soderbergh said about experiencing the film for the first time with an audience. "You can feel things. The structure is very tricky, so it's helpful to get a sense of where people are going in and out, where they sort of lock in to the way the story is being told. There are people who do not like stories told like this. I remember we had a preview of 'Out of Sight', and it went horribly. They started the focus group and the first guy raised his hand, before the person even asked a question, and he said, 'I just want to say something right now. I hate stories that are told like this.' And then it went downhill. There are some people who as soon as they realize the structure is going to be like this, it's just not their thing. The couple of times I've done this I've tried to find that balance of interest and intrigue but also playing fair. There is a line there where if you don't really play fair and dole out information in the right way. The last time I had a structure this elaborate was ten years ago and 'The Limey' so I'd been looking for a way back into it."

Even so, Soderbergh said that the film was written and shot chronologically. "You're sort of working without a net but you're only four feet off the ground, so it's not too terrifying. What you're trying to do is through these structure improvisations, after you've compiled all the footage, you start finding the connections between what people have talked about in all of the scenes. The film has this loose structure that's not entirely arbitrary. There's sort of a business section, then there's the client section, then there's the break-up and talking about the break-up. You're culling all of the footage and making little sub-clips and labeling what they're about, and then you're sitting down and starting to pull similar subjects together."

Soderbergh continued by talking about one of the running through-lines of the movie that helped pull all of the disparate scenes together. "The interview with the journalist--who is a real journalist, Mark Jacobsen, who wrote the definitive piece on this young guy Jason Itzler, who was running an escort service in New York a couple years ago and got busted--so through a friend I contacted Mark and I shot 30 minutes of him interviewing Sasha, and that was sort of like the shrink in 'Klute,' it was a great way to organically have her talk in a way that's sort of guarded and then weave it in and out, which is something we're still working on. You have a sense of where it's going to go but day by day, you're discovering it."

Soderbergh ended the evening by telling the audience "You weren't here," although obviously, with so many journalists and critics in the audience, word quickly got around that Soderbergh's latest film The Girlfriend Experience was something worth seeking out whenever it gets its theatrical release. While a release date hasn't been set yet, one can expect it will be released similarly as Bubble.

[modage]