An Evening with Steven Soderbergh

Me and a buddy headed over to the Holland Arts Center for an interview session with the director, writer, editor Steven Soderbergh. Steven Soderbergh has been a very popular director due to his first film, "Sex, Lies and Videotape" then onto Oscar nominated films such as "Traffic" and "Erin Brockovich" and the commercially successful "Ocean's" films. The interview was insightful into the thought process put into deciding whether or not to make a film. This along with struggles were examined as a filmmaker. It was interesting to see the evolution of the filmmaker over a span of more than 20 years in the business. More than anything, the artistic films of the director were a main focus of topic. Films like "The Informant", "The Girlfriend Experience", and one of my personal favorites, "Solaris" were discussed. What may have came to a surprise to a few in attendance was Soderbergh's announcement that he plans to retire after the 5 films he has left on his slate. Matt Damon was on a talk show about a week ago talking about Soderbergh's retirement and confirmation was made at the event. The reasons for this? The accomplished director feels that he cannot express himself fully through film anymore. He feels that he has done everything he could with film and would like to try a different field. He was thinking more in the terms of photography or art. He wants to engage people emotionally. He isn't certain at this point what he'll be doing after retiring from film because he really hasn't had much time to think when he has 5 upcoming films to worry about. The guy is truly a workaholic and mentioned that he never really goes out socially and added 'if I'm awake, I'm working'. The director has an extremely diverse career. See IMDB's list of the final films of Soderbergh. I should add that the director also confirmed another film, "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." which is based off of the TV series from the 1960s. George Clooney is looking to star.