In 1988, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" asked all the right questions about secrecy, technology, and female orgasm. The elite clan at Cannes awarded the maverick production the Palm d'Or, and mainstream theaters opened their doors to Andie McDowell asking the camera...
[more]In 1988, "Sex, Lies, and Videotape" asked all the right questions about secrecy, technology, and female orgasm. The elite clan at Cannes awarded the maverick production the Palm d'Or, and mainstream theaters opened their doors to Andie McDowell asking the camera -- and the mainstream audiences behind it -- if they could give her the big O. Independent film would never be the same. Ostensibly, any young up-and-comer could become the next Steven Soderbergh, a bayou boy who had launched his career by shooting a full-length rock documentary (which would garner a Grammy nomination) for the 1980s band Yes.
Georgia-born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana (the shooting locale for "Sex, Lies, and Videotape"), Soderbergh began making films at the precocious age of 13 (15 by some accounts). The adolescent artist held his course, moving from pubescent auteur to rock video creator to acclaimed director/producer of feature films.
His follow-up to "Sex, Lies, and Videatape" was the lightweight "Kafka," a mystery as whimsical as it is surprisingly unliterary. His next piece, the noir-ish "The Underneath" (1995), is an existential thriller. But with 1996's "Schizopolis," Soderbergh returned to his artistic roots and reinvested in low-budget, experimental film. That same year he finished work on "Gray's Anatomy," monologue-master Spalding Gray's narrative journey through the world of medicine. In 1998, Soderbergh enigmatically broke character to direct his first piece of blatantly commercial work, "Out of Sight," but returned to his special blend of art-house cinema and popular success with "The Limey."
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