Black Bag uses the intelligence world as a backdrop to explore themes of loyalty, relationships, and marriage. It’s actually a really cool example of how theme informs story.
Black Bag Explained
I think most people who love movies understand the broad strokes of storytelling. They know stories have a beginning, middle, and end. What they might not know is how writers write those stories.
Some writers just start and have no idea what will happen. They just let the story flow and take them on a journey. Others are more regimented. They’ll list out all the major events, maybe even working backwards from the ending. They write only after they’ve fully sketched the major plot beats. Others will draft scenes in random order, as things come to them, then try to organize it and fill in the gaps.
Most mainstream storytelling is primarily concerned with plot. Are the events interesting and do they flow and add up in a way that the plot makes sense and feels earned? While more artistic storytelling is almost entirely concerned with plot as an expression of theme. Do the events add up to a statement that makes sense and is earned?
Chehkov’s Gun is a great example of the plot focus. A filmmaker may include a shot of Object A at the start of a scene because it sets up Event Y later in the scene. If you didn’t know Object A was there, then Event Y might not make sense and might not feel earned.
The same thing happens with theme. Dialogue or actions that might feel superfluous to the plot might be crucial for the theme. For example, in Whiplash, someone might argue that the main character’s attempted romantic relationship is an underdeveloped subplot that could have been cut to focus more on Andrew’s pursuit of drumming and the toxic dynamic he has with the conductor of his ensemble. But that would miss the point. The toxic dynamic is strengthened by Andrew prioritizing his artistic relationship with Fletcher over his romantic relationship with Nicole. That contrast provides stakes, an opportunity cost, a fork in the road. If you cut it for the sake of streamlining the story, you lose the purpose of the story.
Let’s look at Black Bag. In the opening scene, George marches his way to the basement of a club, where he finds Meacham, a superior who tasks George with uncovering a traitor in the agency. Where George finds Meacham, how he finds him, what they talk about—the potentials are infinite. Instead of finding Meacham at a club, George could have found him getting a haircut, or betting on horses, or playing Magic: The Gathering at a comic book store.
Over the centuries that humans have been telling stories, we’ve opted towards elegance. So while you could have Meacham playing Magic: The Gathering, what point would that serve? How does that benefit the story? The character? The theme? I’m not saying it has to serve a point. Not everything does. Just that, for the most part, especially on the professional level, it’s often a consideration.
If Black Bag were a plot-based story, then maybe George finds Meacham at the club because Meacham being away from the house is what allows for James to break into Mecaham’s home, poison the whiskey glass, and leave. The story just needed Meacham not at home, the specifics don’t matter. In that case, why not Magic: The Gathering?
But Black Bag is a theme-based story. One that’s particularly concerned with marriage and relationships. So George finds Meacham at a club, in a booth with two women. They then talk about Meacham’s marriage, how he cheated and is trying to win his wife back. Meacham then challenges George’s marriage by citing Kathryn as one of the potential traitors.
That’s what I mean by elegance. The scene now contributes to the overall discussion about marriage, relationships, and loyalty by having George in this conversation with someone who hasn’t been loyal, who hasn’t respected his marriage.
Think about the characters who come to dinner and are involved in the main story. Clarissa and Freddie are in a long-term, committed relationship, but aren’t married and aren’t loyal. Dr. Zoe and James are in a new relationship; they’ve been loyal but are not right for one another. And then you have George and Kathryn. They’re married, committed, right for each other, but having this potential crisis.
Soderbergh didn’t have to have the others in relationships, especially not with each other. What about the plot actually changes if Clarissa and Freddie weren’t together? If James and Zoe weren’t together? Nothing. James could have slipped about Severus during a therapy session with Zoe. It didn’t have to be that they were dating. The reason Soderbergh had everyone in these romantic relationships is because it served as a foil to the main couple: George and Kathryn. And it allowed Soderbergh to further explore why some couples work (loyalty) and why others don’t (lack of loyalty).
One couple implodes. The other may actually be okay. And our protagonists, Kathryn and George, seem like they’ll get a happily-ever-after. George is in-line for a huge promotion. And Kathryn has access to ₤7 million.
Black Bag’s Deeper Themes
This idea of loyalty takes us even deeper, thematically, as each character has a professed concern:
- George: Kathryn
- Kathryn: George
- Freddie: Wants to keep his relationship with Clarissa, despite its problems
- Clarissa: Wants to keep her relationship with Freddie, despite its problems
- Zoe: God
- James: Country
- Arthur: Country
James and Arthur are the only two who prioritize themselves and their country over other people. Is it a coincidence that they’re the primary antagonists? No, not at all. It’s a purposeful choice because it shows a difference in perspective. The loyalty George and Kathryn have to each other, the love they have for each other, causes them to prioritize the lives of innocents over the potential “greater good” of deploying Severus to overthrow the Russian government. They make the emotional choice. While James and Arthur make the logical one. They were willing to sacrifice thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, maybe more, not to mention ecological and economical fallout, from a nuclear meltdown caused by Severus.
With all that in mind, I’d argue that Black Bag is, at its core, a movie about what it takes for a relationship to make it through a rough patch. All the spy stuff is just defamiliarization to make it exciting. It gets back to what Clarrisa said, when she talked about how being in a relationship with another intelligence worker is hard because if you ask them where they were, they can say “black bag.” Maybe they really were on a top-secret mission. Or maybe they were cheating. You can never know (which is why the movie is called Black Bag).
Remember George’s delayed response to Clarissa?
You asked how it works, to be with someone in this business—this is how. You each know what you know, and you know what you [???] do, and you never discuss certain things again. I watch her, and I assume she watches me. If she’s in trouble, even of her own making, I will do everything in my power to extricate her. No matter what that means. You understand? That’s how it works. It’s the only way.
So when George suspects Kathryn might be the traitor, it’s just a euphemism/metaphor, for the idea she might be cheating. When George finds the Dark Windows movie ticket and gets suspicious of Kathryn’s activities, that’s not some spy-specific thing. It’s universal. Almost everyone has had that moment in their life where they think they’ve caught a significant other in a lie and don’t know what it means. Is it nothing? Could it be something? Is there a logical explanation? If you bring it up, you look crazy. But if you don’t bring it up, you’ll go crazy. In George’s case, he wasn’t losing trust in Kathryn so much as trying to figure out if she was in trouble or not.
George using the satellite to spy on Kathryn is the equivalent of looking through someone’s phone, checking their emails, following them to work. Don’t get me wrong—I’m not advocating for that stuff. I’m just saying it’s a dramatic, cinematic way to capture the actual behavior of someone nervous about their significant other.
All of the spy stuff in Black Bag is just normal relationship melodrama that’s dressed up for entertainment purposes and clarified as soon as George and Kathryn have an adult conversation about what’s going on. Other couples in the movie, as in real life, don’t communicate well and their relationships suffer because of it. There’s a grounded version of the story that’s a lot more relatable but also probably way less entertaining.
Black Bag As A Life Lesson
On a broader level, Soderbergh seems to be exploring the idea of who or what we’re loyal to and how that affects not only personal lives but society as a whole. Which creates some interesting opportunities for self-reflection, or a self-polygraph exam, if you will. What or who are you loyal to? Answer honestly. How does your loyalty impact your priorities? Who or what are you less loyal to than you want to be? And how does that impact your priorities? Meacham, for example, wasn’t loyal to his wife, so ended up at the club even though he was trying to repair their marriage.
Every day, we all take actions that show our priorities. Maybe you’re living your ideal life. If so, that’s awesome and keep up the good work. But if things feel off, or feel frustrating, if you’re not quite where you want to be…start with your priorities. And be truly honest with yourself. What do you spend your time on? Because that’s where your loyalty lies. And if you want to make a change in your life, that’s where you start. You may want to be a great musician, but if you play Call of Duty for 2 hours every day, then it’s not a priority.
Be like Kathryn and George and prioritize the thing you love the most. See what that does for your life.
Cast
- George Woodhouse – Michael Fassbender
- Kathryn St. John – Cate Blanchett
- Clarissa Dubose – Marisa Abela
- Freddie Smalls – Tom Burke
- James Stokes – Regé-Jean Page
- Dr. Zoe Vaughn – Naomie Harris
- Arthur Stieglitz – Pierce Brosnan
- Meacham – Gustaf Skarsgård
- Written by – David Koepp
- Directed by – Steven Soderbergh
