Steven Soderbergh

Steven Andrew Soderbergh was born in Atlanta, Georgia, United States, on January 14, 1963. His ancestors come from Sweden –in fact, the real name is Söderberg–, and both parents were dedicated to teaching. In fact, as a young boy, Steven and his family moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where his father had been appointed dean of education at the state university. There he studied at a school attached to the university institution and became fond of making films, shooting Super 8 shorts with the cameras used by the students. The natural path seemed to be for Soderbergh to pursue higher education at Louisiana State University. But the call from Hollywood to attempt a career as a filmmaker was stronger, and that’s where he went as the future director.

Initially, Soderbergh accepted jobs of various kinds to earn a living, while working as a freelance film editor. That should not give to live, because he returned home, yes, he did not stop shooting shorts and writing scripts. 1986 would be the year of Steven’s takeoff and he must thank the rock band Yes, who commissioned him to make a documentary about one of his concerts; and indeed, Yes: 9012 Live earned him an Emmy nomination. The following year he films the short Winston, somewhat of a seed for Sex, Lies, and Videotape.(1989), the film that put him on the map and awarded him the Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. A title immediately mentioned when talking about independent American cinema, it is a film of disoriented characters, with fragile affective relationships, and all of it presented in a modern and youthful way that made a fortune. The cast of unknowns would also start to sound from then on, it was the trio formed by Andie MacDowell , James Spader and Peter Gallaher.

From this moment on, Soderbergh’s career is anything but predictable. Change your style, gender, approach. He becomes experimental, opts for classicism, makes commercial films, then becomes an auteur… He uses color and black and white, shoots cheaply with a handheld digital camera, or accepts the millions that he puts in his pocket. Hollywood even shoots Che’s adventures in Spanish, or releases movies like Bubble directly on the internet. He has complete control of the photography, although for contractual reasons he always signs under the pseudonym Peter Andrews.

It is not easy to say that we obtain a sharp, clear and coherent image, joining the “dots” that would be films like Kafka –an unusual “Kafkaesque” biopic in black and white, which seems to pay homage to Orson Welles’ The Trial- , The King from the Hill –an almost Dickensian title in the years of the Depression–, the Ocean’s Eleven trilogy –a very commercial robbery film with a cast of stars that pulls back, starting with Brad Pitt and George Clooney– , A very dangerous romance– pure film noir–, Traffic–his most accomplished title, a polyhedral look at the drug problem, for which he won an Oscar as a director–, Erin Brockovich –with the Oscar for Julia Roberts- , Solaris (2002) –a remake that Andrei ‘s film lovers Tarkovsky will never forgive him–, Full Frontal , Bubble and The Girlfriend Experience –a trio of “weird ones”– or his segment “Equilibrio” from Eros –sharing credits with Michelangelo Antonioni and Wong Kar Wai no less–. And yet, it is undeniable that here we have an artist, also capable of empathizing with the viewer.

What is clear is that Soderbergh is always exploring, looking for his place in the cinema. I had the opportunity to talk with him in 2011, when he had just finished shooting his diptych on Che Guevara, which is anything but conventional, starting with the structure, the first film is structured around an interview with Che. And he explained to me that “it is difficult to make predictions about where things are going to go. What I can say is that in the United States there is a kind of curious parallelism between what happens in the economy and in the cinema. The middle class is disappearing, the number of people who have a lot of money is growing, and those who have little. And something similar happens in the cinema, very small films or large productions are made.” Back then the crisis was not the scourge it is today, but it is clear that the filmmaker detects something in society,contagion _ There, fears, selfishness fostered by the survival instinct and giving priority to loved ones, coexist with difficulty with more altruistic attitudes in the face of an epidemic of enormous dimensions that is plaguing the entire world.

Soderbergh was married to actress Betsy Brentley between 1989 and 1994, and as a result of the marriage they had a daughter. In 2003 he remarried the journalist Jules Asner, divorced like him.