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CALENDAR
8th February: Side Effects released (US)
15th March: Side Effects released (UK)
THE FANLISTING
There are 445 fans listed in the Steven Soderbergh fanlisting. If you're a Soderbergh fan, add your name to the list!
UPCOMING PROJECTS
LET THEM ALL TALK
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
KILL SWITCH
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
ADVERTS
NEW & UPCOMING DVDS
Now available from Amazon.com:
 Haywire
Contagion
Now available from Amazon.co.uk:
Contagion
DVDs that include an audio commentary track from Steven:
Clean, Shaven - Criterion Collection
Point Blank
The Graduate (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition)
The Third Man - Criterion Collection
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
ADVERTS
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Soderbergh on Solaris
By Simon Braund
(Empire, March 2003)
Solaris is a strange choice for a remake, surely?
I saw Tarkovsky's movie first and then read the book and I felt that I wanted to
go back to the book a little more. And even then there are a lot of alterations.
Lem (the book's author) is still alive. I can't imagine what's he going
to make of this. Probably bourgeois bullshit (laughs)
Lem's book and Tarkovsky's film navigate deep philosophical
waters - the nature of God and so on. You kept the basic premise - a mysterious
energy engulfing a planet that brings the memories of scientists studying it to
life - but why did you focus on the romance, the dead wife returning and the
opportunity for a second chance that seems to offer her husband?
I'm interested in memory and have played with it in a couple of films, so I
thought the conceit that your memories can be manifested physically was
fascinating. I also thought the relationship between Kelvin and Rheya was
fascinating. In the original we don't see their relationship from before. Plus I
think she's 19 - she's a young, passive character and I didn't find that
satisfying.
James Cameron was a producer on Solaris. What's he
like to work with?
If you stay off his set he's fine (laughs). He was great. I saved all the
emails he sent me because they were so fascinating, long riffs on issues -
metaphysical issues, philosophical issues. He knows a lot about a lot of stuff.
He was a good resource and very supportive; he seemed to get the movie. There
are times on every movie where you're trying to find the shape of it. You'll
come up with something and you'll see the light go out of everybody's eyes. The
light never went out of his eyes.
He didn't try to direct the director?
Oh God, no. He's a director, so as a producer he'd never dream of getting in
your way. He believes in the director being in control. He's the perfect
producer in that regard.
What is your take on the George Clooney-showing-his-arse
controversy?
I thought it was time to objectify the male actor instead of the female
(laughs). For that scene I shot a lot of stuff of George and Natasha (McElhone,
who plays Rheya). They were both naked; it just ended up that way. Which is
why it was funny that the rating thing came up because I don't consider those
shots to be sexual. And yet that's the little box they get put in. (The MPAA)
have specific criteria: you know, 'If you show this is this context then it's an
R.' We argued that the scene was past sexual. It's emotionally intimate -
they're not having sex. I argued that you can have sex and not have an intimate
experience. I guess they bought it. I was surprised they overturned the rating
because I think they've only done that three times in 35 years.
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