Talking with Steven Soderbergh

Here’s a piece from one of my col­leagues, Scott Hutchins. Take it away Scott…

Steven Soder­bergh was in San Fran­cis­co as part of the roll out for his four-and-a-half-hour, two-part epic Che, about the Argen­tin­ian doc­tor turned rev­o­lu­tion­ary Che Gue­vara.  Gue­vara is no stranger to Amer­i­can screens, espe­cial­ly after the pop­u­lar film, The Motor­cy­cle Diaries. So we won­dered why Soder­bergh want­ed to make anoth­er movie about him.  Soder­bergh is wide­ly con­sid­ered one of the most tal­ent­ed direc­tors at work in Hol­ly­wood today, but even some of his fans are scratch­ing their heads over this most recent film.  In the New York­er, film review­er Antho­ny Lane says, ‘I still have no idea what tru­ly quick­ens his heart.’  In this inter­view, we cer­tain­ly dis­cov­ered what gets his blood pump­ing.  Soder­bergh (who also direct­ed Traf­fic, Erin Brokovich, and Sex, Lies and Video­tape) dis­cuss­es his shak­en faith in the pow­er of film, what he has in com­mon with Fidel Cas­tro, and how noth­ing will ever be solved in the Mid­dle East as long as monothe­ists are involved. You can read the full inter­view at therumpus.net.