Steven Soderbergh

At the age of 26, Steven Soderbergh permanently altered the face of independent cinema when he became the youngest-ever winner of the Palme d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival for sex, lies and videotape, his feature-film directorial debut. A simmering exploration of the nature of modern relationships and the links between sexuality and voyeurism, the film was an international sensation that established its director as one of the golden boys of world cinema.Born in Georgia on January 14, 1963, Soderbergh grew up in Baton Rouge, LA, where his father was the Dean of Louisiana State University's College of Education. While still in high school, Soderbergh enrolled in the university's film animation class and began making short 16 mm films with second-hand equipment. After he graduated from high school, he went to Hollywood, where he worked as a freelance editor. Soderbergh's time in Hollywood was brief, and he soon returned home, where he continued making short films and writing scripts. One of his films, a documentary about the rock group Yes, earned him an assignment to direct a full-length concert film for the band. The finished product, 9012 Live, was nominated for a 1986 Grammy.Following this achievement, Soderbergh filmed the short subject Winston, a study of sexual gamesmanship that he would expand into sex, lies and videotape. In the wake of the 1989 film's great success, Soderbergh made Kafka, a darkly comic fictional account of the author's life. The austere film turned out to be something of a disappointment, as did the modest King of the Hill, Soderbergh's 1993 portrait of a young boy's coming-of-age during the Depression. The Underneath, his 1995 film, was a post-noir crime drama that offered further existential meditation and an exploration of the destructive effects of sexuality: unfortunately, like Soderbergh's previous two efforts, it remained mired in relative obscurity. The same could be said of Schizopolis and Gray's Anatomy (both 1996), the former a loopy, inventive look at the intricacies of communication that Soderbergh termed an "artistic wake-up call" to himself, the latter a filmed performance of one of Spalding Gray's monologues.In 1998, Soderbergh made good on his "wake-up call" with Out of Sight, his most critically and commercially successful film since sex, lies and videotape. Adapted from the novel by Elmore Leonard, it was an irreverent, enjoyable affair that remained true to the book's spirit and featured believable chemistry between leads George Clooney and Jennifer Lopez. The following year, Soderbergh continued on his critical winning streak with The Limey, the generally well-received tale of an ex-con (Terence Stamp) bent on revenge for his daughter's mysterious death. He earned even greater plaudits in 2000 as the director of Erin Brockovich; starring Julia Roberts as its eponymous secretary-heroine who uncovers a major environmental scandal, the film was enthusiastically embraced by audiences and critics alike.Later that same year, Soderbergh raised the bar on issue-oriented drama with Traffic, a multi-layered, multi-character look at the United States' "War on Drugs." The long-gestating project started life as a British miniseries in the early '90s; when Soderbergh realized director Ed Zwick was working on his own exposé on the same subject, the two joined forces, with Zwick producing. Originally developed at Fox with Harrison Ford in the lead, Traffic then switched hands to the major-indie studio USA Films when Ford dropped out, and Michael Douglas snapped up the part. Easily Soderbergh's most ambitious effort, the 50 million-dollar production boasted a seven-city shooting schedule with over 100 speaking parts; almost a third of which were spoken completely in Spanish. What's more, the director insisted on serving as cinematographer for the primarily hand-held, naturally lit film. (Soderbergh originally wanted his credit to read "photographed and directed by," but since WGA regulations prohibit a cinematographer to be credited over a screenwriter, he opted for a pseudonym, Peter A ~ Rovi