Soderbergh's ELEVEN

By: MICHAEL TUNISON
Date: Tuesday, December 11, 2001

What is it about director Steven Soderbergh that has Hollywood's top stars clamoring to work with him? Aside from a recent track record that threatens to knock Spiel-what's-his-name from his perch as the movie biz's favorite Steve, that is.

"Mostly you feel sorry for the guy, because he can't get work," quips two-time Soderbergh leading man George Clooney. "He's on his last leg, and we sort of wanted to help him out."

Clooney's being

facetious, of course, but the fact is there was a time when Soderbergh arguably could have used a little A-list star aid in the box-office department. After making a spectacular breakthrough with the thoroughly original 1989 romantic drama SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE, which won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes International Film Festival and helped kick off the American indie wave of the '90s, the Georgia-born filmmaker exercised his talents on a wide range of genres, hopping from the acclaimed coming-of-age-drama KING OF THE HILL and the Texas noir caper film THE UNDERNEATH to the indescribably eccentric comedy SCHIZOPOLIS (starring himself in two different roles) and a filmed version of a Spalding Gray stage monologue, GRAY'S ANATOMY.

By the mid-'90s, the biz was starting to pigeonhole Soderbergh as a quirky arthouse auteur with creative ideas but not much popular juice. Many of the critics who had championed SEX, LIES began to scratch their heads - if they even went so far as to catch the latter films during their brief theatrical runs.

Then came his Clooney- and Jennifer Lopez-starring 1998 adaptation of Elmore Leonard's sexy crime novel OUT OF SIGHT, and Soderbergh suddenly exploded as a major player within the industry, a favorite of actors and - once again - a special darling of critics. Indeed, as his hot streak continued with the modestly budgeted action drama THE LIMEY in 1999 and the one-two punch of last year's Oscar-nabbing ERIN BROCKOVICH (Best Actress for Julia Roberts) and TRAFFIC (Best Director for Soderbergh, Best Supporting Actor for Benicio del Toro, as well as Editing and Best Adapted Screenplay), reviewers sometimes seemed to be in a national gushing contest in terms of who could dole out the most praise for his crisp storytelling style and knack for drawing memorable work from actors.

Soderbergh's love

affair with Hollywood showed no signs of losing any of its steam with last weekend's release of OCEAN'S ELEVEN, his fun-loving remake of the 1960 Rat Pack heist flick. With Clooney taking over the Frank Sinatra part as a dashing crook named Danny Ocean who recruits 11 men to rip off multiple Las Vegas casinos at the same time, the film hit the proverbial jackpot with audiences, pilfering $38.1 million from domestic box offices in its opening weekend the biggest December opening ever. While critics acknowledged the lighthearted popcorn flick as perhaps Soderbergh's least substantial and most overtly commercial effort, few were unaffected by the mega-watt charm of Clooney and his all-star cohorts, including Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Soderbergh regular Don Cheadle (OUT OF SIGHT, TRAFFIC), comedy legend Carl Reiner and, in a token love interest role she probably wouldn't have played for any other director, America's Sweetheart Roberts.

Asked at a press conference for OCEAN'S ELEVEN to sum up what makes Soderbergh such an effective force behind the camera, Roberts makes an attempt to give an uncharacteristically serious answer.

"I think he has a very deep respect and appreciation for movies and a great story told well," she says. "And I think that in conjunction with his own intelligence and his having to contractually hire the handicapped when it comes to acting, you know, is a good combination."

The creative chemistry of Roberts' ongoing collaboration with Soderbergh (the two are currently in production once again on his upcoming comedy FULL FRONTAL) comes down to her having "a kind of reckless abandon when it comes to my job, and he has precision, and I think those two things together work most of the time," she says as an amused-looking Soderbergh listens at the press conference.

"It is so hard to talk about you when you're here!" Roberts adds.

Clooney, who

has teamed with Soderbergh in a production company called Section Eight (upcoming projects include Clooney's directorial debut, CONFESSIONS OF A DANGEROUS MIND, and director Christopher Nolan's follow-up to MEMENTO, the Al Pacino-starring INSOMNIA), sums up the appeal of working with his partner more succinctly.

"Look, you just want to work with the best directors you can period," Clooney says. "That's sort of the gig."

For his part, Soderbergh is as full of praise for his OCEAN'S ELEVEN actors and filmmaking collaborators as they are for him.

"The common element to everybody in the cast and crew is get to the solution as quickly as possible with a minimum of drama," he says. "That's all it's about. Everybody on the set, all the actors -- 'What's the answer? What's the solution? How does it get better? How do we make this fly? How do we bring it alive?' And in that atmosphere, if you start with a good screenplay, you've got a running shot at making a good movie."

As for how he ended up with a group of such cooperative, collaborative stars - that's no accident, Soderbergh says.

"There are actors I won't work with by reputation," he says. "People talk and I do my homework. Directors know not to lie to each other, because if you do, you've just screwed somebody for a year and a half, because you've basically allowed them to have a bad experience. So I pick my cast very carefully."

When it

comes to the sometimes-tricky business of remaking earlier films such as OCEAN'S, Soderbergh's approach isn't very different than it is when he's working with an original screenplay or a book adaptation like OUT OF SIGHT.

"The best analogy I can use is I think it's best if you come up with a take on the material that from top to bottom revises and re-imagines everything about the movie," he says. "It's sort of the equivalent of like Joe Cocker's version of 'With a Little Help From My Friends.' Great original song you think, 'Beatles song, I don't want to touch that.' [Cocker's] version of it is amazing and completely different than the original song, and I think that's the way you have to think. You have to start from the ground up and just rebuild it, and that's what [OCEAN'S screenwriter Ted Griffin] did with the script, and I sort of followed that."