Taylor Swift, Sex Scenes, Human Behavior

Steven Soderbergh in Karlovy Vary.

Courtesy of the Karlovy Vary Film Servis Festival

Steven Soderbergh has been traveling through the Czech spa town of Karlovy Vary in recent days. On Monday, he shared with a group of journalists his views and thoughts on topics such as artificial intelligence, sex scenes, movie release windows, the current Hollywood “correction”, new projects and even the success of Taylor Swift.

The prolific director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer is the star guest at the 58th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (KVIFF), which runs through Saturday. In the Franz Kafka retrospective, scheduled to mark the 100th anniversary of the writer’s death in June 1924, Soderbergh is screening his two Kafka films, to know Kafka (1991) and its 2021 reissue Mr Kneff – both starring Jeremy Irons as an insurer and writer.

The filmmaker was warmly welcomed by the appreciative festival audience. Among other appearances, he took time to participate in a roundtable discussion with members of the press that ended with an in-depth discussion that also touched on Kafka, why he burned 44 years of newspapers and prefers books to films.

Read excerpts from Soderbergh’s roundtable interview below.

How do you think Kafka would feel about all the attention he’s receiving here at the festival and at events around the world this year?

I think how horrified he would be, first of all, that (his friend and author) Max (Brod) betrayed him by publishing his work. And yes, the idea that there would be a festival – I don’t think he would have been able to understand that. But I’ve been thinking about this specific question recently because a few months ago I burned 44 years of notebooks and journals.

For what?

I just felt like I needed to get rid of the past. It was very cathartic. I would take each book and just flip through it for a second to get a sense of the time period it happened in, and I would take out a sentence or something, and then I would throw it in the fire. And it was really good. And I didn’t think, “Oh, I should have kept this or that.” I still keep a notebook; it’s not a diary, but I write down everything I look at, everything I read. If I have ideas for a project I’m working on, lines of dialogue, or if I need to get rid of a scene, then I create a new pile. But it felt good to get rid of it. We accumulate so much stuff.

What I enjoy most are the books I have. If you asked me to choose between watching movies or reading books, I would choose books without hesitation.

For what?

Because I think what’s going to help me get better at my job is actually a deeper understanding of human psychology and why we behave the way we behave. And I think novels, in particular, are the closest thing you can get to someone else’s consciousness. You know, when you read a novel, you’re completely enveloped in their head. I find it particularly satisfying and engaging and feel like I’m learning more. At some point, your technical knowledge of directing hits a ceiling. If you don’t have the extreme gifts of some filmmakers, there are only so many ways to film something, so I don’t feel the need to keep watching films to better master the technical aspects. What I need is a deeper and broader understanding of why people are the way they are.

How is what happens in viewers’ brains different when they watch a movie than when they watch a book?

Well, it’s different. Every person who reads this novel creates their own movie in their mind. And that’s what makes it great. Whereas when you make a movie, it never changes. It’s that movie. Your response may be subjective, but the movie itself doesn’t change, which is why I’ve fortunately never been moved by the critical response to anything I’ve done because in 10 or 20 years, people might feel differently… or not. I stopped reading anything with my name on it in 2000.

Kafka did not receive the best reception...

It was frustrating because I wasn’t happy either. So it was hard to be upset when people took issue with the film because I had issues with the film. I worked really hard just to get to where he was. I reshot 20% of the film and huge sequences that I completely reimagined and built new sets. I worked really hard just to get somewhere. And so I was aware of the combination of the movie not feeling completely unified and the expectation of what the second movie would be. There’s also the fact that it wasn’t a normal biopic. It in no way attempts to portray the real Franz Kafka. You see a lot of biopics, and they just say, “This happens and this happens.”

Do you see any Kafkaesque influences in your non-Kafkaesque films?

Of course. I think the reason it resonates is the evocation of being controlled by systems that you can’t control but have power over you. Almost every project I’ve worked on deals with protagonists trying to exert more control over what happens to them and usually failing. But I think the fight is always worth fighting to have some control over your life. But at the same time, control is an illusion, and you may think you have it, but you don’t. I’ve certainly learned in my life not to burn a lot of calories on things I can’t control, like reviews or other people. I can’t control other people. And so, when someone does something that frustrates me, upsets me, or upsets me, I remind myself that I don’t control people and I’m just going to move on.

My Che (Guevara) films were the most extreme example of a character trying to exert control, not only over his own life, but also over the social situation that an entire country was in. So it was an interesting project. Everyone assumes: you’ve made two Che films, you must like Che. I think, “Che would have hated me. I’m exactly the kind of thing he was trying to get rid of. I’m just interested in a person who twice left behind a very comfortable life to find himself in a deadly situation and fight for people he didn’t know and had no history with.

Does being a director give you some of the control you want to have?

There’s a running joke I make with my think tank: in a film, everyone makes their own film. We think we’re all making the same movie, and then someone from the cast or crew will say or do something that makes you realize, “What are you working on?” » So you have to remember that I can’t control this. That’s certainly a level of influence on people in a situation that’s not realistic. It’s unique in that regard. But if I were to try to control it, rather than guide it, I would kill something. So I want to surf it, rather than cut it up.

You created a second version of Kafka in Mr. Kneff. People sometimes become suspicious when directors revisit a film.

They should. So I’ve made seven films that I now own the rights to. And on two of them, I went back and made some adjustments, Full frontal And Schizopolis. I shortened them. I think that’s what you should do. If you want to go back, you should probably shorten them.

In which of your films would you not change a single shot?

There aren’t many. But Out of sight I was really happy. The informer! I was really happy to, Behind the candelabra I was really happy with it. Those are three areas where I don’t know what I would do differently. And then I was talking in an interview earlier about a movie that turned out exactly the way I had in mind, but people really hated it: Good GermanI wouldn’t change anything about that. It’s just that people don’t like it.

Can you tell us about the atmosphere in Hollywood?

Well, I can tell you that everybody is terrified of everything. We’re in the middle of a correction that was inevitable. It was the Wild West for a while, you know, from 2010 to 2020, where it was like streaming companies were emerging, and tons of crap was being made, and people were getting paid too much money. I was aware of what was happening and I was taking advantage of it. But I thought, “This is not sustainable. This can’t continue.” So I always knew there was going to be a correction. But I also had the sense, or the hope, that it would be kind of a calmer, softer landing. And two things happened: COVID and then the strikes. So the course correction happened, but it was bumpy and it was hard. And so now, I think people are very anxious.

I’m not afraid of AI. I don’t see it as a threat. I think it’s an interesting tool. But it can’t replace, ultimately, it can’t replace people in a threatening way. I’ve worked with all the different tools. You have to remember: if you said, “Make a movie where everything, the actors, even if they’re famous actors, the location, everything has been generated, and it looks, quote, real, people are aware of the experience. I think the audience, at some level, will never accept a movie that’s entirely generated by AI, because it feels like a threat to them. They feel like the human experience has been hijacked by technology. And I think if you showed someone the same thing and told them it was generated by AI, they would have a different reaction. Even if it wasn’t true. We have a kind of savage reaction to the idea of ​​being excluded from a work of art. So I just use it in a way that I think is useful, which allows you to iterate quickly, but it can’t finish anything. A human has to finish it eventually. It can give you one version of something.

But I’m telling you, you need a…