Transcript. The Treatment. Steven Soderbergh.

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  Welcome to the Treatment which //My guest, director Steven Soderbergh has made 25 films since 1989. Sex, Lies, and Videotape. He probably has made four since I made this introduction. His newest is Magic Mike. It's good to have you back. Steve, thanks so much for doing this.

  Yeah, it's always fun.

  I was thinking about this// after seeing it. And there's strand(?) in your films that people tend not to talk about, which is you like talkers in the movies often. I'm thinking about Demián Bichi as Fidel in Che. I'm thinking about Brad Pitt in the Ocean's movies. He didn't talk a lot before then. I'm thinking also about Channing Tatum here who basically played stoic, strong, silent types. And you got him talking and it's release of another side of him as an actor. What is it you like about getting people who are not associated with talking to talk?

  Well... I especially like in a movie when people who aren't necessarily very articulate or talking a lot. In this case, you got a character who is stripping to make money but ostensibly considers himself an entrepreneur and he has several other businesses that he's involved with. So a lot of his conversation revolves around not acknowledging that stripping is kind of his primary source of income. It's kind of... taken over his life in a way I don't think he really wants to admit, so. (great insight, It's enough to give me nightmares. I must remember this and act accordingly.) In addition to the fact that Channing did this job when he was in his late teens, I think he understood this guy, how this guy would talk in a way he might not normally so I think he was just open in a way that he might not be playing a role that's been written in a specific way and he's coming in afterward.

  I guess I wast thinking too just about,// you guys worked together in Haywire which was the film just before this.

  What impressed me about him was that he sort of showed up with some, some ideas and some, some suggestions I thought that were really simple and smart. And he has a great attitude, great attitude about himself, great attitude about the work. I sort of became a sort of fan of him personally fairly quickly. And that's sort of how all this came about, was conversation we were having on the set about is his production company and what they were up to. And he mentioned a movie about a male stripper set in Florida. I just thought, That's a really good idea. I haven't seen that. I'm always looking for stuff I haven't seen. I just haven't seen that. It felt like a really good movie idea in terms of imagery, music, activity, sex. It was better than a magazine article or documentary or TV sh... (TV shit?) It seemed like a really good movie idea. And, um, he had somebody else involved with it at the time. He called me a year later and said, (This is now an open assignment. Are you still interested?) I said, Yeah. But we gotta go right away. Like, we gotta be shooting in five months. So from the first conversation to delivering the film was ten months. So it all happened fairly quickly.

  It's funny too (What's funny?) because the other thing I thought about was, it's, we talked about Godard here when you were here in the past. This seems Bressonian to me. Almost Bressonian musical.

  Bressonian stripper movie.

  It's a whole new genre.

  I never would have sold it that way.

  You're right, you never would have sold it that way. (never wanted or never been able? Ambiguity in meaning)

  Um, I like to... there's a lot of sequences where I'm letting a lot of people occupying the frame and letting things sort of play a little bit. And I guess that comes from, I like watching people. I like eavesdropping, you know. And, this was the case where you got these guys backstage that are in thongs. Anything they talk about with a straight face becomes funny because it's just a weird context.

  You, You, You demonstrate that, when you take us into special bullpen, when a guy's his thong in a sweing machine. His gold Lomay(?) thong in a sewing machine.

  Well, Channing's mantra, he said, when he was doing that, for, for a living was "It's only weird if you make it weird."

  My guest to made it weird is director Steven Soderbergh, his new film as director is Magic Mike. You can also hear the Treatment at //.com. But there's that, in the last few movies, even those surreptitious aspect to them. Haywire is an action film which, you know, camera is hiding in a corner a little.

  Yeah, I guess, I'm trying, I'm trying to be judicious about when I decide to get really close someone because, when I do, I want to have an impact whether it's in a scene or, in the case of Che, the entire movie. I'm sort of reverse-engineering back (The fuck does this mean?) from the moment where I think we really physically close to performer to get what we want. Close-ups are the most powerful tool in your arsenal and, as a result, everytime you use it without it having an effect, you diminished it. (Endless close-ups means trash movies.) And so, I, one of the biggest things I think about were when we were shooting is, When am I gonna go in and why?, so that I kind of designed it in a way the audience just suddenly feels in a moment when they feel need to be close instead of, just, all the time.

  It's funny (What's funny?) because//movie star work is you made them less presentational than movie star films often are.//Ocean's almost//surveillance camera.

  Yeah, that's an example. There is very few close-up in Ocean's movies. On, the, usually, because I have a lot of people in the frame but even when I don't, I feel like actor's bodies are important part of their acting. I like actors who use their bodies well because I want to take advantage of that.

  I just found... For me.... When you start shooting yourself, it feels, there's something about being behind the camera, own director of photography and operator that made you look for different kinds decisions to make as filmmaker.

  Well, that was a, that decision to start shooting a long time coming. That's how I started. I shot my short films. But, you know, I worked for very good cinematographers and been paying close attention... had a long term plan to get back and doing that job. For a couple of reasons. One of them is just the, the intimacy that it provides, me and the actors. To be physically close to them is really helpful. Um...

  Is it helpful.//two of you//I've heard often, directors will say, when actors get savvy enough, they just talk to DP instead of talking to a director.

  There's a little bit of that. And there's certainly in gaining a momentum in removing one layer of explanation in the process. You know, the trade-off is I'm not Harry // and Manuel // What I get is just speed and sense of, I'm not really interested in things being perfect. I'm interested in them feeling real. As a result, I'll try things and let things go no card-carrying DP would ever allow. So I like that. It's taken me a while actually to walk into a certain situation, look at the real light that is in the situation and go "That's really ugly. And that's what we're doing."

  By the way, it's the Treatment. I'm talking to Steven Soderbergh. Counting down to his last film, I guess.// But going back to the early films, who, I was, I was really worried you were trying to get.//Now I find that I can, I, //I'll very deep focused//corners are slightly out of focus. Either side of the frame is out of focus.

  Yeah, yeah, the past few years, I've been going for very shallow depth of field and shooting wide open. And using, ,um, this will sound terrible for the company's providing these lenses but I've been purposely using lenses that are older, less sharp, less unforgiving than some of the newer lenses. First of all, digitals become so, resolutions are so extreme, at times I feel like it's almost too much. And I'm trying to soften image a little bit. I think, when you work in shallow depth of field, image seems to have more depth.

  It feels to me, incredibly sort of unique way in making film, not that unique needs to be amplified.//it feel like that sort of thing, too //eavesdropping//You move the camera to the person who is listening rather than the person who is talking off.

  I think that's a ... There is some very, very good things going on TV. There's a traidition in cutting television on every line that is not very cinematic. When I was growing up and watching movies like Carnal Knowledge [(1971, Menmotechnique)]. There's a scenes there in which, the camera is on the person that is not talking and the people on the other side of the frame are talking. It makes you realise you don't have to see everyone say everything all the time. They don't even have to be in the same room. (great insight)

  Catch-22 [(1970), Mnemotechnique], even there is in Carnal Knowledge//You do the commentary on Catch-22 video, home video version of the film. But I just remember that as you were talking about this, there big rooms, and there somebody, in front of the camera//off screen.

  Yeah. I like that. First of all, you talk to any director and they'll tell you that one of the qualities that you look for, one of the qualities all really good actors have is they're great listners. That doesn't mean they listen in an itali-cised way. And they're just very good at listening and not, It doesn't look like they're waiting for other person to finish so they can talk. It's actually something Sasha Gray did really well. She was a good listner.

  You're talking about Girlfriend Experience.//That's the one example, that maybe Bubble, protagonist is doing more listening and talking// she is very much Tabu Rorasa(?)//.

  I like that. It's a very, I think, movie, Magic Mike generous towards its character and I wanted to have that Hal Ashby quality to it. You can tell that he really loved perfomers. He gave them a lot of freedom but he was the best editor in the world. He knew how to make sure it didn't preen(?) out of control.

  That's how he start out.

  You look at Last Detail, specifically. That's just organised but shaggy, kind of, movie. It's perfect.

  In a weird way, you're waiting for a jokes to land in The Last Detail. And which, something you seem to lean toward as well.//You're not sure when the punch line////it becomes a way of creating unconventional tension for you, doesn't it?

  You find yourself laughing, in the case of The Last Detail, at just how true it is and so the issue of one-liners really does kind of just go away. If you have a great sort of premise and three great performers. Let's talk about the scene where they get drunk in the hotel room on the first night, which is a long sequence.

  It looks like it comes out of Bergman. It's so long.

  But it's hilarious. It gets progressively stranger as it goes on because the bevaiour is so real. (accurate) I always think of that when you're in a situation like this. That's really. It's character based. Jokes are, Jokes are coming organically out of the situation. We didn't sit down beforehand and make a list of jokes we wanted in the movie.

  But you gotta sit down and make a list of where, the movies//always got to get somewhere. These jokes basically//Movies gotta dictate//as they're going along, don't they?

  Well, that's where knowing where the ending is really helps, you know. As you create these scenes, whether it is the writing level or a shooting level. The fact that you know exactly where you're gonna end up emotionally and tonally allows you to sort of filter ideas as you're going,// all in support for the last feeling you wanna leave.

  I don't know how to end but I know when to take a break. My guest is Steven Soderbergh. It's the Treatment. There's more. Stay with us.

  You're listening to the Treatment with Elvis Mitchell.//KCRW, Santa Monica.

  These conversaions always go too fast. With Steven Soderbergh, who is joining me after very long time away. His newest film is Magic Mike.//I guess at this point audience know what it's about.

  Magic Mike... is about a guy, um, who needs to find a new dream.

  It's really about two guys finding a new dream.

  Well, one guy seem, feels like he's found his dream and the other guy, in the course of watching that happen, realises maybe he needs a new one.

  Yeah, it's really kind of mentor-protégé film, mentor realises he doesn't wanna do this anymore. Protégé falls love with it. It really is, interestingly, a lot of the behaviour reminds me of being on movie set. How best I put this? Self-directed behaviour.

  Inside joke. Band humour, I think is another phrase for it. It's a very insulated world. But a family at the same time. You can understand appeal of it. It seems fun.

  Bunch of guys who have contempt for themselves and contempt for the audiences. You haven't done that //You've made films, people who are professionals. That's something definitely you're attracted to. People very good at what they do but respect their professions. We can tick them all up. Out of Sight or The Limey. And this is the first one I can think of which, characters who don't have real respect for what they do.

  Oh, yeah, they're really owning it. (own what?) Let's put it that way.

  Did you think it was time to make movie about something like that?

  No, it just, look, it just seems organic to the job. And, so, I didn't want to impose myself on it by applying a templet that I have applied somewhere else because it didn't seem really appropriate, you're right. You know, I think, men, generally speaking, more than women, tend to define themselves by what they do. And here, I thought, there are a lot of interesting things going on because of sort of objectification issues flipped. And there's a very different, as we're seeing now with EL James books, this is in conversation a lot now. The role of fantasy in the life of a female. And working on this film, a lot of us talked about was the difference in (between) the male fantasy and the female fantasy as it pertains to strip clubs. Clubs with female strippers that cater to men, you will see men mostly alone whereas women who go to male strip clubs always go in groups, they never go alone. There's a sense that, when women come to these clubs, it's an hour and a half or two hours of some fantasy, when it's over that fantasy is over and and they go home and they've dropped it . There's no sense, when they're watching it, their wanting to continue this experience beyond the end of the show whereas, I think you can argue that, when men go to strip clubs with women, there's some other  narrative that is going on that involves them somehow wanting to continue this experience beyond the performance they're seeing.

  It's funny too (What's funny?) These guys.. and, and, each one of these dancers, they have a story. //each of these narrative, they sort of have different names but affect the same ad. It's kind of by the yard was his, it was just a given that your routines needed to have stories.

  That's one of the things I thought interesting when Channing started describing this to me. Whether it's fireman, guy in the navy, the cop. Unlike the male strip clubs, girl just comes out go to the poles and that's it. There's no (laughter) narrative there. You know, clubs that cater to women, there has to be sort of a story. (Enlightning on the nature of female?) I thought that was interesting as well.

  It's the Treatment. We're talking narratives and various applications with Steven Soderbergh. His new film is Magic Mike.//I just find myself very fascinated by that. Bunch of guys do this sort of thing. I guess one thing you have in common with all your characters//Pursuit of their golas are incredibly short-sighted. I mean, I can't really think//Exception possibly Erin Brokovich.

  One of the things that defines your character is what you do when you don't get what you want. Like how you respond to that really says enormous amount of you, I think, as a person. I'm interested in that in general and it shows up a lot in the films that I have made. And this was, this was, it seemed like a really good example of that. It's a gradual process for him. There isn't one thing that starts making Mike wonder what he's doing and why. If he hadn't run into this kid, he probably wouldn't ask these questions at all, that was a totally random event. He also makes the mistake a lot of us make, which is meeting someone and seeing some superficial commonalities that make you believe you are just like this person.

  The kid says, You're my best friend now. Mike for him is a goal. Being that. But that's a goal you pursue from night to night.

  Mike thinks this kid is like him when I was his age.

  //Instant family. incredibly artificial. When you walk away oftentime, these relationships completely dissipate.

  Oh, absolutely. And he finds out this kid's not like me at all, actually. And the way he is like me is I'm not happy with myself. It's a weird... I don't know all of this stuff, you know, obviously a lot of the chatter about the movie is sort of female-based, well, gay men and straight women. (deviation?) There, It's interesting to, like, producers call me and read, comments that are going back and forth. One person will say "I hope the movie's good." and next person will say "I don't care if it's any good. I just want to see these kinds...." (laughter) 'Cause, obviously, I want to wind stuff into it because it's not something you toss over your shoulder as you are walking out of the theater. Degree to which people who are going to see the film interested in that stuff, I guess, will find out.

  I guess/// you chose not to heat this up in a conventional way that you could have. I mean, you created kind of these physical heat in heist movies, or in Contagion, or in Haywire. Rather than doing these kind of things, creating artifical tension, jacking up what's going on the screen, you don't do that here.

  Well, I guess I felt inherently that material is pretty volatile or at least it's something that it's gonna get a reaction without making any louder than it is.

  Did you think you would be cheapening it somehow if you did that?

  I wanted you to have it both ways. I wanted you to have experience vicariously being in that club but I didn't want you to feel dirty.

  But it's funny. (What's funny?) When I think about your movies, when I think about your characters, affected kind of pride authorship which I would depend on(?) you. Which is this one thing that, There's a, a, a degree of accomplishment that characters// Does it feel like that makes sort of in a weird way valedictory statement for you?

  No... or rather, I don't, I can't. (Laughter of Mitchell) If I, If I, If I started thinking that way, I'll be in trouble.... Look, every since Che, really, I haven't been looking for subjects that are quote unquote important. Even Contagion, I tried to push it as far into genre as I could.

  //genre films, including this in its way.

  Oh, absolutely. Because, coming out of that experience, I just felt done with this, sort of, lack of a better term, important, self-serious movies. And I've been looking around, I mean I had some stuff already, I was looking for material that would be just more fun. Which is why I really jumped at this. I'm glad Liberace movie is coming up because that's gonna be a lot of fun.

  It's the Treament. We're talking about stepping off the stage.//You brought up EL James. I just find myself thinking about these things that you've done in these last few films. These films I've been, expressly, they are more motivation driven than character driving. Full of archetype, as a matter of fact. What's the pleasure in making these films for you?

  Well, that's the trick. Can you build on these pillars in a way that's, that's interesting and doesn't feel old, doesn't feel like it's copy. I mean, that's, that's the goal. How do I make this distinctive? How do I make it specific? How do I make it feel like nobody else would have done it exactly this way? That's, That's, you know, when you're growing up and seeing films starting to watch them something other than entertainment, it's that thing that starts to emerge. Seeing, you know, Dr. Strangelove when you're fourteen, feeling him behind every decision that's on screen, like, really feeling it, feeling singular (wrong word?) intelligence behind what you're looking at makes a gigantic impression and you begin to notice that there is a real difference between movies that have that and movies that don't.

  Do you feel, I mean, // preparing to make major shift in your career. subconsciously selecting  these totemic (wrong word) films to do?

  You can kind of argue either way. I would say on the one hand, that I don't, in the making of decision whether or not to mkae forward, I don't have to think for very long. It's usually pretty immediate. It's either no or yes. That's it. Now, you can also argue that, as a result of things that I have and experiences that I have had in the past, that decision is sort of forgone conclusion in a way. Because, if you take into consideration, genre I haven't worked before would be even better. You know, immediately you're excluding a lot of things so my yeses and nos would be fairly predictableif if you were to know that the things people were coming to me with.

  I guess the question obviously is, this is basically stepping away,//walking away from it in to-tale(?).

  I, uh... I'm not gonna come back unless I can come back as different filmmaker. I've reached the point where I need to just annihilate everything that's come before and if I can't show up with a brand-new brain, then I won't. There's a more of a chance, if I start directing again for something other than theater, I'll probably end up back in television. There's a lot of great stuff going on TV.

  //You've done in TV. Case 4 is full of people talking all the time. It was really fun. It was like, you got real people to emulate screwball comedy. And, tt's why, I wonder, was it something you had in the house, in movies, that love of chatter.

  I think a little bit of both. Yeah. Yeah. I like a good talker. But I think, unfortunately, a lot of people think they are good talkers, so. And the people who really you wanna hear talk invariably don't want to talk.

  How do you mean?

  I remember with horror, in 1991, we were doing re-shoots for Kafka, I ended up on a plane from Prague to London with Tom Stoppard. We talked to each other on the plane. I spent the afternoon out there and as I was being driven back to London, I realised that I had done all the talking. That he just sat there and asked questions for, like, three hours. I was 28. What did I have to say? But he's like that, and, so. Those are the ones you really got to try and draw out.

  We're out of time. Thanks so much for doing this.

  Thanks for having me. Things will be a lot different.

  I hope we get to do it again before you step away from this //reincarnation you choose to//

  Two more shots.

  Okay, you'll come back.