“How badly directors are treated”: Steven Soderbergh and the worst retirement in history
There’s only so long that creative juices can keep flowing without burnout setting in. Steven Soderbergh reached a point where he’d become so dangerously close to running out of gas entirely that he decided to announce his retirement from filmmaking.
As an Academy Award-winning director with a string of classics, cult favourites, and box office hits under his belt, he’d already been worth his weight in gold and then some to the industry. However, he found himself growing so increasingly frustrated with the politics, machinations, and manoeuvrings behind the scenes that he decided the best option was to give it up entirely. Or at least, that was the intention.
Soderbergh announced that Behind the Candelabra would be his final feature-length undertaking, outlining his desire to pursue painting as his latest artistic pursuit. While he technically didn’t helm a theatrically-released movie between 2013’s Side Effects and 2017’s Logan Lucky, he nonetheless became busier than he’d ever been at any point in his career. This takes some doing, considering the rapid rate at which he moved through various productions in a number of capacities.
In a conversation with Vulture, Soderbergh outlined the reasons behind his hasty departure, citing how “the worst development in filmmaking – particularly in the last five years – is how badly directors are treated.” He didn’t want to become part of an “absolutely horrible” industry where, in his words, “the people with the money decide they can fart in the kitchen.” That’s an interesting way of putting it, but his alleged ‘retirement’ ended up making a complete mockery of the term.
Just months after calling it quits, it was announced he’d be heading to television with The Knick. Not just as a director-for-hire, but also as an executive producer. Not only that, but he ended up helming every single one of the medically-inclined period drama’s 20 episodes across both of its seasons. After that, did he recede gracefully into the night and carry on with his exile? No, of course, he didn’t.
Soderbergh would then edit Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Gus Van Sant’s shot-for-shot remake together into a cohesive whole dubbed Psychos. He executive produced Prime Video’s three-season dramedy Red Oaks, oversaw the anthologised small-screen adaptation of his intimate drama The Girlfriend Experience, and co-created and directed all six instalments of HBO’s interactive murder mystery Mosaic. The latter unfolded as both a TV series and a choose-your-own-adventure style experience. In addition to that, he served as the cinematographer, editor, and camera operator on Magic Mike XXL.
If that wasn’t enough, he directed the off-Broadway play The Library, took the scissors to Michael Cimino’s infamous Heaven’s Gate and released a 108-minute version he called ‘The Butcher’s Cut’, and re-edited Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark into a black-and-white silent film using elements of the score from The Social Network. Retirement? To quote The Princess Bride, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
When Soderbergh did eventually signal his return to directing in Logan Lucky, it felt as if he’d never been away. After acting as a writer, director, producer, editor, or creator on at least ten projects during the interim, that’s probably because he couldn’t keep himself away at all.
