Steven Soderbergh Creates a Big List of What He Watched, Read & Listened to in 2014

Image by Nico­las Genin

Our vast media land­scape feels gross­ly over­sat­u­rat­ed with adver­tis­ing, pro­pa­gan­da, and all man­ner of redun­dant noise. But the dis­cern­ing eye, and ear, per­ceives just as much qual­i­ty out there as crap. “Retired” auteur Steven Soder­bergh, as fans of his will know, is just such a dis­cern­ing cus­tomer — and an exact­ing, high­ly orga­nized one at that. Soder­bergh has sworn off direct­ing film, turn­ing his atten­tion to tele­vi­sion by direct­ing the Cin­e­max series The Knick as well as—reports Indiewire—“pro­duc­ing, edit­ing, and lens­ing Mag­ic Mike XXL,” the sec­ond install­ment of the Chan­ning Tatum-star­ring male strip­per saga.

One might think all this work would keep Soder­bergh busy from dawn to dusk, but he’s a man who “gets more done in a day than most do in a week.” A con­sum­mate con­sumer of cul­ture high and low, Soder­bergh assid­u­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ed his watch­ing, read­ing, and lis­ten­ing expe­ri­ences for the entire year pre­vi­ous. His list includes TV shows like Veep and Louie, and heav­ier fare like True Detec­tive and House of Cards. He read Don­na Tartt’s The Goldfinch and Karl Ove Gnausgaard’s labo­ri­ous Prous­t­ian nov­el My Strug­gle (books one through three—in two months). In addi­tion to recent films like Gone Girl, Soder­bergh watched Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey three times and Jaws twice. He even found the time for Die Hard With a Vengeance.

The above rep­re­sents but the tini­est sam­pling of Soderbergh’s vora­cious diet. You can see the full list, includ­ing his album pur­chas­es here. As Indiewire right­ly observes, the list is “a lot to wade through.” Even more so the incred­i­ble range and diver­si­ty of cre­ative works con­tained with­in. Soder­bergh main­tained a sim­i­lar log for 2013, which you can see here. Scan­ning these may inspire you to step up your input, or maybe just to pull a man­age­able num­ber of selec­tions for future reading/viewing/listening of your own.

via Indiewire

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Steven Soder­bergh Posts a List of Every­thing He Watched and Read in 2009

Watch Steven Soderbergh’s Cre­ative Mashup of Hitch­cock and Gus Van Sant’s Psy­cho Films

Steven Soder­bergh Cre­ates Silent, Black & White Recut of Raiders of the Lost Ark to Explain the Art of “Stag­ing”

Steven Soder­bergh Writes Twit­ter Novel­la After His Retire­ment From Film­mak­ing

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness