Steven Soderbergh: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1578064287 ISBN 13: 9781578064281

Publisher: University Press of Mississippi, 2002

Synopsis

Steven Soderbergh's cinema-making star has blazed with sex, lies, and videotape, sputtered with The Underneath, and flared again with the acclaimed movie Traffic.

Steven Soderbergh: Interviews charts the rise and fall and rise of the writer-director-producer's surprising career from 1989 to 2001. From his "flavor of the month" status with his debut film sex, lies, and videotape to his Academy Award-winning feature Traffic, Soderbergh's road to success is fraught with ups and downs.

On each and every film, the book details such experiences as his creative crisis surrounding his fourth film, The Underneath, and his rejuvenation with the ultra-low budget free-style Schizopolis, and the mainstream achievements that followed with Erin Brockovich and Traffic.

Spanning twelve years, these conversations reveal Soderbergh (b. 1963) to be as self-effacing and lighthearted in his later more established years as he was when just starting out. He comes across as a man undaunted by the glitz and power of Hollywood, remaining, above all, a truly independent filmmaker unafraid to get his hands dirty and pick up the camera himself.

Not only do the interviews provide a glimpse into the filmmaker's aesthetics, but they also offer a history of the U.S. independent film movement in the late 1980s and 1990s--the explosion of "independent films," studios and film festivals, and the Hollywood co-optation of such talents, Soderbergh included. The collection also reveals the increasingly blurred boundaries between independent and mainstream and Soderbergh's commitment to revitalizing cinema from inside the system.

About this title

About the Author

Anthony Kaufman, Evanston, Illinois, is an assistant professor at the New School and a film journalist. He has written for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Village Voice, Slate, Variety, Wall Street Journal, and other publications.

From the Inside Flap

Interviews which chart the rise and fall and rise again of the writer-director-producer s surprising career from 1989 to 2001

Reviews

Whether they prefer the early, low-budget sex, lies, and videotape or Erin Brockovich, Steven Soderbergh fans will appreciate a new collection of interviews with this year's "It" filmmaker put together by indieWIRE.com editor Anthony Kaufman. Steven Soderbergh: Interviews features conversations with the director that originally appeared in publications like Rolling Stone and the Village Voice, spanning from 1989 to 2000. With his famously self-deprecating sense of humor, the director reflects on all stages of his career, from his phenomenal freshman success with sex, lies through the indie efforts of the mid-'90s to recent blockbusters Out of Sight, Traffic and Ocean's 11.

Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1578064287
• ISBN 13: 9781578064281
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 171
• Editor: Kaufman Anthony