Customer Reviews

Steven Soderbergh: Interviews (Conversations with Filmmakers)

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This volume collects selected interviews covering Mr. Soderbergh's career from his first feature film through his Oscar win for "Traffic." Most of the interviews are brief, and the book an easy read; however, most readers will find it unsatisfying and even tedious. The main problem is the amount of repetition across interviews. I doubt that's the fault of either the editor or Mr. Soderbergh--probably the nature of the beast. The journalists tended to ask the same sorts of questions, and of course, Mr. Soderbergh has the same answer each time. To be sure, thought-provoking hints about the filmmaker's ideas, methods, and aesthetics occasionally surface, along with a few technical details, but there are no deep insights into the artist or his work. Still, fans of Mr. Soderbergh's work will find the collection informative enough to spend an hour or so with it. The general reader, though, would do better to pick up Mr. Soderbergh's own books--his published screenplay-with-journal for "sex, lies, and videotape" or his "Getting Away with It, Or: The Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw," a series of conversations with filmmaker Richard Lester interwoven with more of Mr. Soderbergh's journals. Better yet, just watch the films.

I'm a fan of Steven Soderbergh's films, so this was obviously a fascinating introduction to the director's thoughts and filmmaking practices. He strikes me as very candid in his interviews, and he offers useful and thoughtful insights into his own work as a director, cinematographer, and editor, but also how movies work, in general. The chronological structure of the book is also interesting, because you get to see how Soderbergh, himself, and the independent film industry, changes and evolves over a couple decades' time. I think this would be a good book for film lovers, film students and aspiring filmmakers, looking to see how this underrated American auteur conceives his movies.