Product Description

This is a series of interviews between Steven Soderbergh and Richard Lester, two film-makers from different generations, who share the same passion for cinema. The book also includes a journal by Soderbergh, recounting a 12-month period in which he rejected the Hollywood system and ventured into guerrilla film-making.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #418230 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Review
"Too funny, too true, too sad to put down." --David Thomson, "The Independent on Sunday"

Customer Reviews

Soderbergh is a genius...
Steven Soderbergh is a rare talent in American Cinema. His career (so far) has been a mix of different/diverse films and this book gives insight into why he does what he does.

You can read this either as an instructional manual (his diary on the making of Schizopolis is both informative and piss funny) or as a comparison to two different generations of filmmakers (the lengthy interview with British Director Richard Lester). He also seems to be one of the few Directors these days who is having fun and not bogged down with pretensions of being taken seriously.

Schizopolis is a crazy movie, harking back to Woody Allens early films (Take The Money & Run, Bananas), and it's a special treat to learn how (and why) he did it. Soderbergh is one of a handful of filmmakers (the only other that comes to mind is Ang Lee) who's body of work will be looked back upon, and seen as a lot off...uh...great films.

Read book...is good.

It's Neither Unamusing Nor Uninsightful, Dad
Soderbergh (Sex, Lies and Videotape) interviews Lester (Hard Day's Night), interspersing the conversations with his own diary entries about writing (or more often, not writing) various film drafts and the multiple headache-related opportunities afforded by choosing to be part of the film industry. The self-deprecatory journal entries and the punitive footnotes are pretty funny - sort of a cross between Jonathan Ames (What's Not to Love?) and Simon Gray's various theatre diaries.

The interview sections take us through Lester's films one by one - not an immensely detailed, blow by blow account, but the impression of frankness and ease with the fellow film-maker suggests that you get the to essence of Lester's work: insights which might not have emerged from a more conventional, or reverential, Q and A.

Personally, I could have done without the "Where did life come from and what's it all for?" meanderings towards the end - surely The Running, Jumping and Standing Still Film says all that needs to be said on that particular subject? - but overall this is, as the "publisher's" note says at the beginning, "Literature that soothes and invigorates, while accidentally stimulating the body's own defenses." (Well, it's as good a description as any.) Guaranteed free of Mark Cousins.