SOURCE: Soderbergh, Steven, and Sheila Johnston. “The Flashback Kid.” Sight and Sound 9, no. 11 (November 1999): 12–14.

In the following interview, Soderbergh discusses his approach to filmmaking and his relationship with Hollywood.

When sex, lies, and videotape won the Palme d'or in Cannes ten years ago, before making more than ＄100 million worldwide (on a budget of ＄1.2 million), Steven Soderbergh, then 26, became overnight the poster child of independent American cinema. The blockbuster event movies pioneered by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg in the mid 70s had dominated international markets for over a decade; Soderbergh's brilliant debut pointed to a different way forward. But then his next movies bombed: the angst-ridden Kafka (1991); King of the Hill (1993), the story of a small boy struggling to survive the Depression; the glacial film noir The Underneath (1995). Interviewed about the last, Soderbergh launched into a long, morose attack: “I've lost interest in the cinematic baggage you have...