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Morning News

On the Big Screen; Soderbergh in the Spotlight

Aired January 5, 2001 - 11:47 a.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Joining me now from New York and "Rolling Stone" magazine is movie critic Peter Travers with the skinny on Steven Soderbergh.

Peter, good morning, good to see you.

PETER TRAVERS, "ROLLING STONE": Good to see you, Daryn, and thank you for letting me follow the puppy. I'll remember this.

KAGAN: Don't they say that in your business, you should never follow puppies and kids or something like that?

TRAVERS: That is right.

KAGAN: You will remember that.

TRAVERS: Well, yes.

KAGAN: Let's talk brilliant director. First on this film, on "Traffic." I know that you have given it some positive reviews, why did you like it?

TRAVERS: You know, you are sure. I even named it the last time we were speaking as the second best movie of the year 2000. Why do I like it? Because it's a brave, courageous, daring, movie about something that people really don't want to hear about, which is the drug industry. And how it affects really all of us. And Stephen Soderbergh, what he has done that is so remarkable in this movie, is that he has put a human face on what would otherwise be a documentary.

You saw Michael Douglas there, who plays...

KAGAN: A lot of big stars?

TRAVERS: Big stars everywhere. But he is the Ohio Supreme Court judge who gets appointed by the president to be the anti-drug czar, and he goes home to his Ohio suburb, and finds that his teenage daughter is free-basing cocaine. There is no way to escape this kind of problem.

And then have you Catherine Zeta-Jones, who is Mrs. Michael Douglas, as we all know.

KAGAN: But not in the movie. TRAVERS: But not in the move. They don't even have a scene together. And she is in San Diego and she is married to a drug lord, doesn't even know that she is, until he is put into jail. And then she has to decide to take over the business. So that's another story.

And the third story in this, which is amazingly affecting, involves a Mexican border cop, played by Benicio Del Toro...

KAGAN: Who I understand is the real breakout performance in this movie.

TRAVERS: It's totally ground-breaking too. And because he speaks all of his dialogue in Spanish with subtitles. So all of you that are worried about "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" in Chinese now have to worry about Spanish. But, please, don't worry, this is an amazing movie.

KAGAN: Now, another amazing part of the story, as the director, Steven Soderbergh becomes the story. This is the same guy that brought us "Erin Brokovich," which is a totally different kind of move.

TRAVERS: Well, "Erin Brokovich," in its way though, is also a muck-raking movie. It's a true story -- and Julie Roberts I think is a shoo-in to win this Best Actress Oscar this year -- who is really helping a community fight city hall, if you want to say it. She is basically going to go out there and help the little people.

This is sort of Norma Ray for, you know, the turn of the century, and another really affected movie that has something to say. Well, who is this guy?

KAGAN: Yeah, a guy from Baton Rouge.

TRAVERS: Yeah, a guy from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and he has got two movies. He is going to be nominated for both of them probably.

KAGAN: Which would be the first time since Francis Ford Coppola in early '70s.

TRAVERS: In the early '70s, Coppola was nominated for "Godfather II" and "The Conversation," yes, and this is really a great precedent for Soderbergh to follow. But, he is doing something even Coppola wasn't doing, he is really trying to get people involved in movies that they don't ordinarily want to see, and he's done it. Now we all remember him, though -- Of course we do, don't we, Daryn? 1989?

KAGAN: "Sex, Lies & Videotape"?

TRAVERS: "Sex, Lies & Videotape" came out of nowhere. Here was a movie that was shot in Louisiana, opened at Robert Redford's Sundance Film Festival, where everybody thought it had no chance, and won the audience award there, and then suddenly everybody was talking. Who is this guy? He was 26 at the time that he won this award. What happens to you? What happens to your head when you get that kind of success? I think Steven Soderbergh had a tough time dealing with that success. He took two years to make is next movie, and sort of learned the business quietly. He said, I am not going to rush into things. I am going to do experimental movies; learn, know what I am talking about; and then come back at it.

KAGAN: OK, take us through the common themes here, through "Sex, Lies & Videotape," "Erin Brokovich," and now "Traffic." what is the common theme we see through all three films?

TRAVERS: I think the common theme is all of these movies is that he is dealing with communities of people. "Sex, Lies & Videotape" is not just a love story. It's a love story that involves two couples and how they interact in the society they live in.

Soderbergh is always involved in how people in groups react. So, the subject can go really far afield. It could be Kafka. That was the second movie that he did, which is set in Prague in 1919. And this was a movie with Jeremy Irons. And everybody after "Sex, Lies & Videotape" said, I guess Soderbergh will give us another sexy movie that is very trendy. Well, he didn't do that. He took us some place we didn't know we wanted to go. "Kafka" to a lot of people was a disappointed at the time because it wasn't as exciting or sexual as the first movie. But if you look at it now, you see how amazingly it really holds up.

KAGAN: OK, real quick, not the last we have heard of Steven Soderbergh. We will be seeing him on Oscar night, no doubt.

TRAVERS: I think, for sure, we are going to see him on Oscar night, whether he wins for "Traffic" or whether he wins for "Erin Brokovich" that is the question, but he is going to be Oscar's fair- haired boy.

KAGAN: Oscar is looking for some hot stories for this year. We will talk more about that on another day. For now, Peter Travers, thanks for stopping by.

KAGAN: Good to see you.

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