Steven Soderbergh
Steven Soderbergh
Steven Andrew Soderberghis an American film producer, director, screenwriter, cinematographer and editor. His indie drama Sex, Lies, and Videotapewon the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, and became a worldwide commercial success, making the then-26-year-old Soderbergh the youngest director to win the festival's top award. Film critic Roger Ebert dubbed Soderbergh the "poster boy of the Sundance generation"...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth14 January 1963
CountryUnited States of America
There are three major social issues that this country is struggling with: education, poverty, and drugs. Two of them we talk about, and one of them we don't.
I look at other filmmakers and see skills in them that I wish I had but I know that I don't. I feel like I have to work really hard to keep myself afloat, doing what I do. But I find it pleasurable.
I think there are only two times that I've ever ended up paying somebody their quote. Like what they actually were worth in the marketplace.
We have to have a version of our own story that we keep telling ourselves that allows us to get up in the morning. This version of yourself is what you sell to yourself. I think it necessarily includes ... not looking at certain things. Everybody's got some blind spot.
I guess I didn't feel confident enough to be searching in a big public way. I was very content at the time to toil in obscurity on things that I thought might point me in certain directions or teach me certain things - not knowing what that would be.
The key is, if youre not monkeying around with the script, then everything usually goes pretty well.
People are sort of numb to watching violence, but sexual activity is still as strong as it ever was in terms of generating response.
We all get outraged by things and there are things that make us angry and maybe for a while we get angry enough to actually go do something about it.
We [people] are a species that's wired to tell stories. We need stories. It's how we make sense of things. It's how we learn.
That line doesn't exist, ... It's all exploitation. I mean, it is if you're honest about it. You pick up a camera and point it at someone, you are exploiting them. I don't care who you are. The issue to me is what is the agreement between you and the person you are exploiting? But I know the experience we had in Ohio and how people on both sides of the camera felt. And that is what matters to me.
I guess I just look at talent as a very subjective thing. I mean, if you never tried playing an oboe, how do you know you're not the most talented oboe player ever? The point is that if you don't love it, then it doesn't matter.
I try to use other songs or bands as reference points - it seems like the easiest way to get across what are really differences of taste or opinion. If you know what kind of music somebody loves, then you can kind of figure out why they do what they do.
Stuff I like is getting trashed and stuff that is being praised I think is terrible. I don't really feel in sync with what's happening, but at the same time, what I think keeps me afloat is that I try not to be, and don't want to be, very indulgent. I try to make the films as lean as possible, and to not spend a lot of time crawling up my own ass creatively.
Reality shows are all the rage on TV at the moment, but thats not reality, its just another aesthetic form of fiction.