Written Interview: Steven Soderbergh
IndieWire interview with Steven Soderbergh about his newest movie Haywire:
Some early reviews of the film, while positive, label “Haywire” as a B-film, which I think is unfair. What do you make of that kind of response? The realism you talked about earlier doesn’t really tie into that reading of the film.
I mean, it’s a genre film. Somebody just sent me one of those books that just came out on Pauline Kael, who I didn’t always agree with but I was always interested in what she had to say. And, look, she was a big proponent, especially at a time when it was not fashionable in the ’60s. She would say, “I’m getting a lot more out of these lowbrow movies that aren’t supposed to be taken seriously than I am these A-level important films. They just feel more alive.” And I agree.
Maybe since “Che,” my interest in and appetite for “serious” movies, making them, has really dropped. I just feel like I want to have more fun as a filmmaker and I’d like to make things that are more fun for the audience. I don’t need to be taken anymore seriously that I am. I don’t have to prove my important-film bonafides anymore. And so, since “Che,” I’ve been looking for stuff that’s more fun. Even “Contagion” to me was a more “genre” movie. I mean, that’s my version of a disaster-horror movie. It’s how I would do it. The stuff I have coming up, since “Che,” I haven’t made what I would consider a serious movie by Academy standard. I have no interest in that.
So you’re one to categorize a film by genre?
Yeah, sure. That can become a very facile exercise and one that doesn’t really take into account certain kinds of filmmakers. Pick any of the people that we think are very, very good, if they go and make something that’s a genre film, you know that it’s not going to be just that.
The only two categories I have are good and bad. No other categories exist for me in terms of scale, content or intent. The only thing that matters to me is whether it’s any good.
And look, there are times when that’s hard. It’s hard to root for assholes and sometimes it’s harder still to see something bad made my somebody who’s really great. I remember reading that unauthorized Led Zeppelin biography that came out in the ’80s. I couldn’t listen to their music for a year after I read that book. Seriously, it was so disturbing. I took me a year to go, look, I don’t care.
If you’re looking for fair, you’re in the wrong universe.
For more of the interview, go here.
For an AV Club interview, go here.
UPDATE: Teddy Pasternak found another interview with Soderbergh with this interesting quote:
Yeah, I like them to be around constantly whenever possible. Some of them are really happy to do that, and some of them don’t want to be around at all. But that’s really the fun part to me, is to have somebody there to keep calibrating, to keep trying to make it better, to keep asking the questions, “Is this the best version of this idea?” I’m very, very protective of them, and also, if you look at my list of films, on a percentage basis, I would argue that I had more sole credits either to a writer or a writing team than any other director you can find. I have never replaced a writer.
Would that all directors took this attitude! For the rest of the interview, go here.