Steven Soderbergh is the jack of all trades and yet master of them all. The chameleon filmmaker is promiscuous and omnivorous for any genre. He’s done the lo-fi world (“Full Frontal,” “Bubble”), sci-fi (“Solaris”), whizzy entertaining crime capers (“The Ocean’s 11” franchise, “Out Of Sight”), WWII period pieces (“The Good German”), cerebral indie work (“Sex, Lies And Videotape”), stark and austere dramas (“The Limey,” “Traffic”) obdurately procedural biopics (“Che”) and plans on releasing a film on porn “The Girlfriend Experience”), a biopic of Liberace and a 3D indie-rock musical (“Cleopatra”) and a CIA whistle-blower drama (“The Informant”) within the next 24 months (‘Girlfriend and ‘Informant’ should both bow this year).
Why the need to jump around and dip a toe in every field? “I guess the only analogy I can think of is not wanting to eat the same meal every day,” Soderbergh told Esquire in 2002.
Now he’s thinking of retiring? In a recent interview with Esquire (the most recent issue, the specific interview not online yet) the director says he’d like to use The Beatles as his model and go out at the top of his game in around six years.
“I’m 45 now. When I turn 51, that’ll be 25 years. And that’s a lot of time to do one thing. [That will have been] like 30 movies. And that’s enough. I don’t want to have to falloff. I want to go out with Abbey Road.”
Don’t do it, dude. We think he’s just getting started and should keep at it for at least another twenty. Who knows. People say a lot of things, but then again Soderbergh isn’t one to just glibly toss away thoughts. Hopefully we’ll see many more films from the versatile and protean filmmaker.