ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses Contagion as an instance of a global outbreak film. The film enjoyed a second life during the 2020 global confinement due to its striking similarities to the COVID-19 crisis, also attracting new critical attention. Contagion is contextualised here within Steven Soderbergh's career and his penchant for the social problem film and for medical subject-matters. The chapter establishes a link between the film's multi-protagonist narrative structure and the pandemic's network pattern of spread. It also highlights the visual and aural strategies employed by the film to visualise the virus, one of the central predicaments of epidemic cinema. Finally, it explores the analogy established in the film between the rapid spread of viruses and the instant dissemination of viral (dis)information, fake news, memes, conspiracy theories and collective panic through digital networks and social media.
