num_pages: 171
description: 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 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.
language: English
title: Steven Soderbergh: Interviews
titlecomplete: Steven Soderbergh: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers Series)
genres: Film
ratings_count: 32
series: Conversations With Filmmakers Series
publisher: University Press of Mississippi