“You know, for a year after we finished shooting I would still wake up
in the morning thinking, ‘Thank God I’m not shooting that film.'”
And you thought you didn’t like Soderbergh’s Che.
That quote comes from a very resigned, possibly defeated sounding Soderbergh in an interview with the Guardian. He’s certainly at a crossroads in his career, one clearly marked by Sony shutting down Moneyball, a movie that from the outside appeared to be one of his ‘for them’ efforts; if that turned out to be a ‘for me’ effort, what does that say about Soderbergh’s eye for the mainstream these days?
He admits that it’s getting tougher out there, that getting the funding for what he wants to do will be harder. And he also sounds like maybe he’s reaching the end of his own personal road.
“In terms of my career, I can see the end of it,” he says. “I’ve had
that sensation for a few years now. And so I’ve got a list of stuff
that I want to do – that I hope I can do – and once that’s all finished
I may just disappear.”
I don’t believe it. If Soderbergh is as down and out as the interview makes him sound (and it’s a heavily edited piece, so beware of assumptions), I believe the filmmaker is the kind of guy who does his best stuff when the odds are against him and when he’s at his lowest. Remember, Soderbergh went through a period like this once – it was called the 90s.