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Steven Soderbergh Is Ready To Retire

Despite wishful thinking from fans of his, apparently those close to director Steven Soderbergh (Schizopolis, Traffic, Che) know that yes, the busiest filmmaker in the business is truly ready to hang it up.

In speaking to the LA Times, Matt Damon recently revealed that Soderbergh is indeed ready to retire, something originally discussed a few years back.   Here’s what the actor had to say:

“He wants to paint and he says he’s still young enough to have another career’¦He’s kind of exhausted with everything that interested him in terms of form. He’s not interested in telling stories. Cinema interested him in terms of form and that’s it. He says, ‘If I see another over-the-shoulder shot, I’m going to blow my brains out.’ ”

Soderbergh and Damon are currently shooting the pandemic thriller Contagion in Chicago, and with him approaching his 51st birthday, a date he has repeatedly said he wants to be done making films by, we may be seeing the last of Soderbergh behind the camera.   He has Liberace next, also featuring Damon, and then his George Clooney-led take on The Man From U.N.C.L.E., which according to Damon, will be his last film.

Personally, while it’s sad to see Soderbergh go, it will be nice to see him bow with a picture starring George Clooney.   That said, this is ultimately a really upsetting piece of news, because Soderbergh’s voice is one so distinctly singular, that it will be a massive void.   No one makes films quite like Soderbergh, so hopefully he’ll get a second wind of sorts, because this is one filmmaker I don’t think the film world is quite ready to lose yet.

What do you think?

Source: LA Times

Joshua Brunsting

Josh is a critic, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, a wrestling nerd, a hip-hop head, a father, a cinephile and a man looking to make his stamp on the world, one word at a time.

4 comments

  • A voice? A vision? A style? Like how?? I’m certainly not seeing one, and that itself is not a bad thing: Soderbergh knows how to frame movies. But a Coen Brothers trademark shot ( or Hitchcock’s even) I’ve never seen. . .not on Steven.

  • Really? To me, while he may not have a patented single shot (like say Aronofsky’s over the back tracking shot), it’s a sense of aesthetic and style that makes his voice singular. People like to say that Soderbergh is a “chameleon” of a filmmaker, but to me, it only goes as far as his choice of genres and budgets. I can tell a Soderbergh film apart from a crowd, just as easy as I could someone like The Coens or Aronofsky. That could just be me though.