Hey folks. Capone in Chicago here.
To put it plain and simple, for as long as I've been writing for Ain't It Cool News--more than 10 years now--I've wanted to interview Steven Soderbergh. The time in my life when I went from enthusiastic film fan to amateur film critic occurred right when Soderbergh was making a name for himself. SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE came out when I was in college, a time when I was eating and breathing older films to beef up my film history knowledge so I could place each new film coming out in some sort of context. So that by the time I made it to his fourth film, THE UNDERNEATH, I got what elements of film noir he was borrowing from and which ones he was altering.
Over the years, I've met Soderbergh twice, neither time in an interview situation. At the Chicago premiere of his third feature, KING OF THE HILL (1993), I got to shake his hand and talk to him for a minute about working with Spalding Gray (of the stars of the movie), an actor I'd been obsessing over since my freshman year of college (more on that later). Four years later, I met him again when he brought his wonderfully freaky SCHIZOPOLIS. Both of these meetings predated my time with AICN, so the only reason I was attending either was because I was a truly massive admirer of Soderbergh's work. In fact, SCHIZOPOLIS marked a real turning point is the man's career, since the next film he made was OUT OF SIGHT, his first of many pairings with George Clooney and the film that took him from the underground to award-winning heights. He still dabbles in the obscure (if you haven't seen his wonderful 2005 DV feature BUBBLE, you really need to), but for the most part, he digs hanging out with the big kids.
The man is an insatiable workaholic as well. Don't forget that ERIN BROKOVICH and TRAFFIC came out in the same year, or that OCEAN'S ELEVEN came a year later. The man is like a shark: if he stops moving, he dies. Wrap your brain around this. Putting aside the small army of films the guy has a hand in producing each year (in 2007, he produced WIND CHILL, MICHAEL CLAYTON, and the Bob Dylan biography I'M NOT THERE), he's about to see the wide release of his ambitious and breathtaking two-part film CHE (if you see them as two separate films, rather than one-film Roadshow version, the films will be called CHE PART ONE and CHE PART TWO). I realize that it's a lot to ask, but if you're lucky enough to live in a city that will be played the Roadshow version of CHE--4.5 hours with no credits and one intermission--you are in for one of the singularly cool experiences of the year.
Soderbergh also has two other films in the can--THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE (a smaller work shot much like BUBBLE) and THE INFORMANT with Matt Damon--and he's finishing up editing a documentary that he's been working on for a couple years about a dear friend. It's actually about this doc that I began my half-hour conversation with Soderbergh.
Steven Soderbergh: So, I didn’t know that Ain't It Cool had a roving reporter.
Capone: Well, I live here. I don't rove much.
SS: I mean, I thought it was just about crashing previews.
Capone: We've moved a bit beyond that. Although, I did actually crash this interview.
SS: [laughs] Now I know.
Capone: That’s right. I did want to ask about one thing before we dive into CHE, because it’s been on your roster for a little while, and I’m wondering where you're at with it right now.
When Spalding Gray used to come to Chicago, we always used to meet up to talk, even if it was just for 30 minutes while he walked down Michigan Avenue or along the lakefront. I wouldn’t dare to say we were friends, but he always used to make a little time to talk, not because of the Ain't It Cool thing, just because I'd written to him years ago and we started a correspondence of sorts. The very first Broadway show I ever saw when I was still in college in Chicago. I was visiting a friend at NYU, and he took me to see “Our Town,” and that’s the first time I ever saw Spalding work. I quickly learned about his monologues and saw the film SWIMMING TO CAMBODIA after that, and I moved to New York and saw “Monster in a Box” at Lincoln Center, and had seen every monologue since then, including GRAY'S ANATOMY, which you filmed. I saw that you had this documentary on him in the works. Where does that stand?
SS: We’re editing. It’s a very painstaking process. We have an incredible amount of material that we’ve been given to work with by Kathy [Gray's wife], and 30 years worth of journals, some of them written and some of them tape-recorded. It’s a gigantic process of just trying to break it down into subject and all this stuff.
And, what we’re trying to do is… because I’m not interviewing any people--it’s not a documentary like that--what I’m trying to do is build a new monologue out of material that you’ve never heard before. So, it’s taking a while, because it makes you realize how good he was. He made it look really easy to just talk for 90 minutes when, in fact, there’s a very, very intricate structure and a sort of press and release in the way that he tells his stories and that we’re trying to duplicate. So, I think, that’s the long answer. The short answer is, I think, sometime next fall we’re going to have something. But, we’ve been working on it for a couple of years.
Capone: Yeah, I’ve seen that and have been sort of salivating over it, because I know you would do it right. So, he’s sort of serving as his own narrator in this?
SS: Yeah.
Capone: I like that idea. That makes sense, I mean, it’s appropriate.
SS: Who’s better?
Capone: Yeah. The last time I saw him, he was here. It was after his accident [Gray was in a terrible car crash in Ireland], and he was still on crutches and, I think, on some amount of pain killers, too, when I saw him. He was doing an "Interview the Audience" show here. You stayed in touch with him since you last worked with him?
SS: Yeah, basically…I mean, yeah, in a very informal way.
Capone: Where did you start to hear that something wasn’t quite right?
SS: Well, I knew about the accident. I knew he was having a hard time. And, it was…I don’t know, that’s all…it’s, it’s…we know, we know, because he told us, how precarious his inner life was, and it was obvious that this really diminished his ability to maintain some sort of equilibrium, you know? It was serious enough to just throw him off. And, it made you realize--as I said, even though we kind of knew that anyway--that he’d found some way to sort of hang in there through work and all that stuff, and this thing just really threw him off. And, he couldn’t seem to…he couldn’t seem to get back to that place of being, I don’t even know if ‘content’ is the word, but just able to continue. So, it’s awful, you know. It’s a real loss.
Capone: Yeah. He was supposed to come back here, actually, and revisit “Swimming to Cambodia” on the anniversary, whatever year that was…
SS: 2006, yeah.
Capone: He was going to appear at the Goodman. Obviously, that never happened. And, I did not return my ticket that I bought for that, because I just…
SS:…wanted a testament, yeah.
Capone: Right. Okay, thanks for indulging me on that project. With CHE, much like the man himself, I think, the film will undoubtedly polarize audiences. I think it already has, among the people that have seen it and even some who haven't. I notice a lot of people are criticizing your treatment of him and the way you portray him. You take on the role of casual observer not really as someone who is casting your opinion on him or his beliefs. Are you prepared for that? Are you surprised by that?
SS: Yeah, sure. Yes, yes, and yes. That’s absolutely by design. I know that there are risks inherent in taking that approach to any movie, especially one about him. But, having done all the research and immersed myself as much as I could in what he did, there just didn’t seem to be any other way to do it. I think because I came to it not knowing very much about him and without really having any kind of personal connection to him, because I’m not Latino, so I had no idea of him to either solidify or deconstruct. I was kind of a blank slate and was just sort of taking on everything that I read and everything that I heard from people who knew him.
So, the film is really my impression of him based on what I was exposed to. I mean, he was not very warm, he wasn’t, and not, not…somebody used the word ‘embraceable’. And, they said, “He’s not very embraceable,” and I said, “No, he’s not. He wasn’t.” That’s what came through from the people that I spoke to about him.
One guy had a great line. He’s a character who’s in the film. He’s a doctor that they hook up with late in the campaign. He’s with him at Santa Clara, sort of running the makeshift triage that they have at the university. His name is Dr. Fernandez Mell. He had a great line. He was talking about Che and telling a few stories about him, and he said, “You had to love Che for free.” And, I knew exactly what he meant. And, this was a guy who was close to him, was at his wedding, was considered by many people to be a close friend of Che’s, and it was very obvious that he, knowing Che, would never describe himself like that.
Che didn’t have people that were close friends. He was a revolutionary all day, every day, and that, to him, meant you don’t relationships like normal people do. I mean, he talks about it…Some of the letters that he wrote his wife when he went away to the Congo are pretty interesting, because he kind of gets on her a little bit about being emotional in these letters. He tells her that he loves her and he misses the kids, but he also says to her, “You knew what you were getting into. You know that this life entails. Don’t make this harder by turning it into an emotional issue--my absence.”
So, he was hard. I mean, I think he really did love Camilo [Cienfuegos, one of the key figures in the Cuban Revolution; played in the film by Santiago Cabrera]. I think he and Camilo had a relationship that was pretty unique. Camilo was one of the few people that could really get him to smile. And, everybody we talked to confirmed that, that he just adored him. But, everybody did, I mean, Camilo really was kind of a rock star. But, other than that, time and again, these stories would come up some interaction where he was just hard on people.
Capone: Well, in the first film [GUERRILLA], we see him as a doctor a lot of times, and there he seems to possess a bedside manner.
SS: He’s much more, yeah, he’s much more…when he’s in doctor mode, absolutely, he’s very solicitous and very sensitive, absolutely. That’s really the only time.
Capone: Did you actually have to say that to Benecio [Del Toro], and say, “If you’re ever tempted to play him a little sentimental or a little likable, cast that aside”?
SS: No, because I think he felt the same way I did. He was there listening to the same stories I did. And then, you could tell by reading the script. When I’m sitting there sort of trying to shape this thing, and I’m deciding what scenes are going to be in and what aren’t, you begin to see the pattern here. He’s smart enough to know what I’m trying to get at, and what I’m trying to avoid.
So, it really was for me an opportunity to, once again, explore the idea of process, which is obviously something I’m really interested in, in general and in life. And, this was a milieu in which process has incredible stakes attached, like, not doing things right can result in a disaster. And so, I was really interested in this sort of day-to-day process of waging a revolution under these terms. First of all, you couldn’t wage a revolution now the way they did, like, it’s just impossible. It’d be over in 10 days. Technology has made that impossible. So, that was kind of fun to me, to think about the last analog revolution, you know, ’cause even by the time he hits Bolivia, helicopters are showing up, and it’s changed.
Capone: Yeah. You must be reading my notes, because I wrote ‘process’ right there, because showing a process is central to a lot of your films, whether it’s planning and carrying out a heist or a lawsuit or the layers of the drug industry. You do love to show us a process.
SS: Well, I just think how people behave in that context is so revealing, you know? And, it may be a reflection of the fact that I like to work and that I’m not a result-driven person. I’m a process-driven person. And, when something’s finished, I’m immediately…[looks around]. It’s why I’m working all the time. I have no interest in sitting around--despite what we’re doing here--and talking about it. I want to go make something.
I think he was like that. The reason, I think, the movies ends up in the jungle for the most part is that’s where, I think, he felt like the best version of himself, the most natural, the most comfortable. I think he really dug it, in a weird sort of way, being out there.
Capone: Roughing it like that, you mean?
SS: Yeah, being out there and doing that. I think that’s why he kept going back, ’cause he certainly didn’t have to.
Capone: There are a couple of times in the second film where you show him, and you spend a good deal of time, showing him just shaking hands with a big, long line of people. And, I think, that’s a classic ‘show, don’t tell’ thing where no one says, “Oh, he’s a man of the people.” You see it. It’s right there, whether he’s being a doctor or shaking 50 guys’ hands, because they all know who he is--and they all want to shake his hand.
SS: Yeah, I think you tend to…if you’re not careful, you forget those scenes. Or, forget that they actually have relevance to what you’re doing. Yeah, I think a lot of writers would think that writing the sentence, “Che meets so-and-so and shakes his hand” would be, like, Oh god, we don’t need that. But, we all were of a mind that, no, you do need that. You need to see not only how he does it, but what it means to them.
Capone: Yeah. I have to ask this: Did you ever watch the CHE!, the exclamation point version?
SS: [rolls his eyes] Yeah.
Capone: [Laughs] A big source of inspiration for you?
SS: Well, the fact is somebody asked me that the other day, and I said, “Yeah, I did watch it. And, at the beginning, it’s sort of funny, and then, it really wasn’t funny.” And, they said, “What do you mean?” And, I said, “Well, because I realized…I was suddenly seeing all these scenes that we were going to do.” And then, suddenly, it didn’t seem so funny, because then you thought, ‘Oh, shit, am I reacting the way people are going to react when they see our thing?’ And then, I stopped watching it. I didn’t watch the whole thing until we were done.
Capone: Was the chronology of the first film--the back and forth between the U.N. speech and Che's New York trip, and the first meeting with Castro in that apartment or hotel room, and the early revolutionary activity--was the back and forth in the script, or was that something you came up with in the editing?
SS: Yes and no. We shot the New York stuff in January 2006, before we had finished the scripts and before we had the money, because they were going to renovate the U.N., and we needed to get in there. It was always designed to be used as an element that we would use to jump out to and then jump back in. But, since we had already shot it, there was no reason to put it in the screenplay, so if you read the screenplay of Part 1, there’s no New York. But, we knew it was going to function as this mortar. So, yes and no.
Capone: I really do love the scenes in Mexico City where the people are meeting and they’re all dressed very nicely, because it makes you remember that every revolution has to start somewhere. Why not there?
SS: Yeah. That was something that came in sort of late. I was thinking, ‘You got to see him meet Fidel. How do you…?’, but I wanted to shoot it and set it up in such a way that, again, you’re not editorializing about it, you’re not shooting it in such a way that makes it seem important. It seems almost desultory. And, yet, you’re watching it going, ‘Omigod, that’s Che meeting Fidel. A lot of people’s lives were affected by that meeting’, but to sort of do it casually, and, like you said, at some level, make it feel like ‘What’s the difference between that evening and a hundred other ones just like it’. Well, the answer is ‘Fidel showed up’. And, I like that. Again, I was just doing it…My attitude was, like, if I saw it portrayed that way in a movie, I would think that’s cool.
Capone: I was speaking to Demián [Bichir, who plays Fidel Castro] the other day. And, I’m not in any way a student of Castro in terms of knowing anything about his history, but I did see a documentary once where they talked about how he physically handled the microphones when he was giving a speech. In the beginning of the second film, I noticed he never touched them. I mentioned this to him, because people at the time deconstructed that behavior--that was Castro showing he was in control of every situation or he was using that as a way to pause before he got his next thought out. And Demián told me, “You must tell Steven that I did touch the microphones, we shot that, we shot me touching the microphones, and it has to be on the DVD extras!”
SS: [laughs] I remember him doing it. Of course, I was thinking 'Why is he taking all those pauses?' and ‘We’re already at four hours…’ No, I hurt him a little bit. And also, some of the shots, were so tight on his face, you couldn’t see it.
Capone: Once I saw those little microphones, I was getting excited. "He’s gonna grab the microphones!"
SS: He’s gonna grab ’em! [laughs] Boy, how lucky were we to get him, though, jeez.
Capone: He’s great. And, outside of “Weeds” I wasn't really familiar with him.
SS: I didn’t know him at all.
Capone: He was great fun to talk to the other day.
SS: Yeah, he’s really funny and smart.
Capone: You said earlier that you didn’t really know that much about Che Guevara when you started this. Did you come at it from just wanting to know more about the man behind the T-shirt and banner image? Was it a demystifying impulse?
SS: No, the good news was I didn’t even have that, in a sense, because he wasn’t a mythic figure for me. He had no really impact on me, as far as I could tell. So, like I said, I didn’t have to pull him down off anything. I was just sort of coming at him at eye level, which is why the film creates such, you know, varied reactions in people, ’cause it is kind of…You can sort of read into it or not read into it a lot of different things. It’s interesting to talk to some people who come in with a very specific view and really do skip over things that don’t fit what they wanted to see, in both directions. It’s really interesting. I mean, funny in a way--like life. That’s what people do in life. They walk around, and they sort of exclude the stuff that they just don’t want to deal with. And so, I’ve had a lot of that, like, I’ve had people say, “I don’t understand why you didn’t address…blah, blah, blah.”
Capone: I’ve read things where people have said, “Well, he left this out, and he left out the Congo, and he left out…”
SS: Well, that’s one thing, but issues too…and you go, “Actually, no, it’s addressed here and here and here.” I literally had one guy say something, and I go, “No, no, no, he says it in close-up. It’s in one of the few close-ups in the movie, actually. He says these words…” I said, “Don’t you remember that?” He said, “No.” I went, “Well, I don’t know what to say. I’m glad we had this conversation.”
Capone: Have you given any thought to what Che would think of a movie like this?
SS: I think he’d hate it. Well, I don’t think he liked movies. I mean, the only reference in all of his writings that I could find to movies is literally a sentence where he says, “Children’s stories, novels, and movies are ways in which the imperialists sell their propaganda.” I don’t think he had much use for art, period.
Capone: I never got a sense he had much place for artists in his revolution either.
SS: No, there’s another line from that same essay, “Man and Socialism in Cuba,” where he says, “There is no great artist who is also a great revolutionary.” So, yeah, I don’t exist in the society that he is going to create, which is what’s funny to me, when people think that I must believe everything that he believes to make a movie about him.
Well, first of all, I wouldn’t be walking the red carpet at Cannes, if I believed a twentieth of what he believes. And, secondly, literally, I have no job, you know. He feels that’s all a waste of money. You could be buying books for kids with that money, and maybe he’s right.
Capone: We were talking about the U.N. sequence before. There’s something I don’t even know that a lot of people will realize: In the New York sequence, you don’t use subtitles. You’ve got the translator there. Why did you go that route?
SS: I went with the translator route for two reasons. One, there was a translator there that actually was a great resource for us. And, the conceit of this interview, the Lisa Howard interview, which is sort of based on a real interview that she did for television, but also we used as a jumping off point to talk about things that weren’t discussed in that interview, but that are based on writings of Che’s or other interviews with Che. All of the words that he speaks in the film are pretty much pulled from something that he wrote or said.
A lot of those things happened over sequences in which I did not want you to have to read and try and watch the sequence, and so I took this conceit that kind of already existed of this interpreter and layered it in for English-speaking audiences, because, like, during that first battle when he starts talking about Tolstoy, I wanted you to be able to watch the battle and listen without having to read. I just felt like that’s too much.
And, the U.N. thing was sort of the same. I wanted you to be able to look at these images and listen and not…you know, reading. You’re either reading, or you’re watching. So, it was me just trying to be kind, in a way, so that people were…You know, I’m already making a lot of demands on them, frankly. And, I felt, like, ‘I’ll give them a breather so that they can watch these images’.
Capone: Speaking of demands, is there a way that you would prefer people to see these two films? Would you rather have them see it in one screening, or do you think the break is preferable?
SS: You know, I think either way works. Well, some people are not going to have the opportunity to see it in the “Road Show” version, so part of my reason for sort of pushing the “Road Show” version to people is ‘you should check it out like this, ’cause you’re never going to see it like that again’. Otherwise, I think it’s a perfectly legitimate thing to see them a day apart, a week apart, a month apart. I think there are probably other things that happen to you in that interim that make it just as satisfying as if you’d seen it all at once. But, I love the "event" aspect of just seeing the whole thing. It really does become an immersion in this guy’s experience. And, in New York and in L.A., in the two theaters where we’re showing it, you know…no trailers, no commercials. You walk into the theater, the lights go down, and the thing starts, and four and a half hours later, you leave. And, with the printed program, there’s no credits or anything. The music just comes on.
Capone: That’s how I saw it.
SS: Yeah, so I feel like that’s…You feel like ‘Well, I saw something’. But, I’ve talked to other people who saw it in parts--in Toronto, they did successive nights--and had people say, “I really liked having a day to think about Part 1 and then prepare myself for Part 2.” They were very happy.
Capone: Someone who had seen it at Cannes said that the maps at the beginning of each part (of Cuba in Part 1, of South America for Part 2) were new. Is that true?
SS: The maps for Part 2 didn’t exist. There was a map in front of Part 1, but I hadn’t finished the map for Part 2, which again is only…That only exists in the Road Show. It will be on the video.
Capone: Okay. The map for Part 2 is almost more important, because you kind of get the sense that all of these other countries that are touching Bolivia, and why that nation was a lynch pin for Che.
SS: Yeah, absolutely.
Capone: Is one of the reasons you didn’t deal with Che’s younger years because MOTORCYCLE DIARIES covered that time so well?
SS: Well, even before that, I wasn’t really doing that. But, I have to say, I felt, Whew, that’s great that movie’s out there, because it really does remove us having to tell that part of his story. If anybody wants to know that, they can watch that. I thought it was great for us, because it really set us up in a wonderful way. It was successful, and I very much had the attitude, like, Great. That’s Act I, and we’re doing Act II and III.
Capone: You’ve already got two other films in the can for next year. THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE almost sounds more like what you did with BUBBLE. Is that right?
SS: Yeah, same approach, but trying to push it even a little further. It’s more complicated, but we’re using the same methodology of a detailed outline, nonprofessional actors. But, it’s a more complex story, and there are more characters, and it’s set in New York. The scale of it in every direction is a little bigger, but it’s kind of the same core of principles in terms of the making of it.
And, I’m really enjoying these, you know. It’s a really fun way to work. I mean, in this case, one cube truck with all the gear on it and two vans. And, that’s it, and it’s really fun.
Capone: Were you happy with the way it was received and the way it was packaged and distributed-- the DVD release occurring simultaneously with on demand and theatrical release? By the way, the DVD for BUBBLE was one of the greatest set of extras about these people we may never see again that I’ve ever seen.
SS: Yeah, given what it was. I mean, there was a lot of discussion about what we were doing in terms of the release and the day and date--all formats, all the time. And, I think, that in some ways, I wish this one could have been that one. Well, this will be challenging in other ways. The structure is very nonlinear, but, just in terms of the subject matter, I think GFE is a little more commercial, superficially, than BUBBLE is, just in terms of what it’s about and where it’s set and the people that are in it.
So, I feel we didn’t really get a good snapshot of what releasing a movie like that does, because, I think, a lot of people just conceptually couldn’t wrap their minds around what the movie was, that it just seemed really weird to them. And, it is. And so, I think this one’s going to have a better chance at sort of busting out a little bit, because of the piece itself. But, I like going out everywhere.
Capone: Right. And, then, THE INFORMANT, a bigger film, just reads to me on paper like a dark comedy.
SS: It is a comedy, yeah.
Capone: About some sort of whistleblower.
SS: Yeah, a dark comedy about a bipolar, pathological, liar whistleblower. I’m really happy with it. I think we got a great script, and we cast it, I think, really, really well.
Capone: Some good people in it, for sure.
SS: Yeah. And, Matt [Damon] is really funny. It’s a great performance, and we’re all really happy with it. And, we pushed it to the fall, which is better for the movie. But there was a moment of kind of “Awww,” because we all want it out there right now. But, I think it’s better for the movie. And, it looks GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE is going to come out this spring.
Capone: Okay. Are you really making a 3-D Cleopatra musical?
SS: Starting in April.
Capone: With Catherine Zeta-Jones?
SS: [Nods]
Capone: That’s unbelievable.
SS: It’s going to be crazy.
Capone: I'd heard that it was a more modern take on her story. [Soderbergh shakes his head.] Oh, it's not. So you're sticking with the ancient Egypt setting?
SS: Yeah, yeah.
Capone: What’s the music going to be like in that?
SS: Rock ’n roll.
Capone: And, are you still involved in this Liberace thing as well?
SS: Uh-huh, that’ll be the year after next.
Capone: That you’re directing as well…with Michael Douglas?
SS: …and Matt Damon as the young man that he gets involved with--Scott Thorson.
Capone: He’s the companion. So, with Michael Douglas, that would mean that we’re focusing more on his later years?
SS: …like the last 10 years of his life.
Capone: So, it’s not a full biography.
SS: No, no, the movie is just about this relationship, like, him meeting…You start with the kid, and the kid meets him, and it’s just the story of that relationship. Richard LaGravenese wrote the script. It’s really good.
Capone: It looks like they're going to drag me out of here.
SS: They’re giving you the hook.
Capone: And, I would love to hear more about this Spalding Gray thing as it’s progressing, because I guess I’m truly desperate to see it.
SS: Well, like I said, I’m hoping we’re going to be ready for the fall, a festival or something. I don’t know when we’ll put it out, but that’s when I think it will be done. See you next time.
Capone: Thanks.
-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com
