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Steven Soderbergh Retrospective

Steven Soderbergh is a successful Hollywood director known for his frequent collaborations with actor George Clooney and for the film Ocean's Eleven and its sequels.

November 29, 2007
To borrow on Vegas casino terminology, if Hollywood is "the House," then director Steven Soderbergh is its resident card sharp, a cinematic gambler who's been quietly robbing the Big Store blind for years. A career criminal in purest sense, Soderbergh has managed to successfully hopscotch from obscure low-budget indie experiments (sex, lies and videotape, Bubble) to star-studded franchise flicks (Ocean's Eleven and its two sequels) without once blowing his hand or losing his seat at the industry table.

While most Hollywood directors just play the game making safe cookie-cutter films that feel like a long, dreary day of baccarat, Soderbergh takes roulette-caliber risks every time out. He plays to win... but by using the casino's own rules against it, often doubling down as director of photography, producer and editor on his own films.

Turning the conventional industry wisdom on its head, he's proven in a string of groundbreaking hits that you don't have to choose between good box office and good reviews. With films like Erin Brockovich, Traffic and the Ocean's franchise (the proverbial ace up his sleeve), Soderbergh has shown time and again that you can have can your Oscar and eat it too. Or even your Palme D'Or if you're one for French haute cuisine.

Let's see how the chips stack up in his long and varied career.

sex, lies and videotape (1989)
sex, lies and videotape (1989)

sex, lies and videotape (1989)

Cast: James Spader, Andie McDowell, Peter Gallagher, Laura San Giacomo

The Stakes: Steven Soderbergh's first feature film, shot on a shoestring $1.2 milion in his hometown of Baton Rouge.

The Score: Andie McDowell plays a stressed Southern housewife obsessed with mounting offshore waste disposal and the suspicion that her yuppie hubbie (Peter Gallagher) is having an affair... with her barmaid sister, (Laura San Giacomo sporting lots o' skimpy leather). Enter Graham (James Spader in full-on creepy mode), a mysterious man in black and former college chum of her husband who comes to town lugging his own set of obsessions along with a curious collection of Hi-8 video tapes. From there, sparks fly...but in a low-key, thoughtfully observed 80s art film kinda way.

The Payout: It's not often you hit the cinematic jackpot your first time out, especially at the tender age of 26, or single-handedly launch the indie film boom of the 80s and 90s in one shot. But that's exactly what Soderbergh did with the little Louisiana indie that could, a low budget paean to obsessive self-love, marital infidelity and now-obsolete video formats.

Before this groundbreaking 80s classic, Soderbergh had little on his resume other than a short film and a video concert film for the prog rock super-group, Yes (No! There's nothing wrong with Yes!). Talk about coming out of the gates strong. Soderbergh practically blew them off the hinges.

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