soderbergh

In defending his decision to shoot the four-hour Spanish-language epic Medellin Che, Stephen Soderbergh  says: “I came to him as a sort of agnostic. I’m not from South America. I don’t want to build him up or tear him down. I’m just compelled by the fact that he twice gave up everything and put his ass on the line for someone else’s benefit.” (Potter’s italics)

Slept in for a change. The Cannes programmers gave us a break today, clearing out the schedule to leave our palates fresh for this evening’s premiere of Che, Steven Soderbergh’s four-hour-plus epic about Che Guevara. For once it was sunny. I was tempted to hit the beach, and almost did. But dark rooms exert an addictive pull in this place, along with the fear of missing something unmissable. So this afternoon I caught the final market screening of Hunger, which opened the Un Certain Regard sidebar last week. It’s a much-buzzed feature debut from British visual artist Steve McQueen (you think he’d at least call himself Steven to avoid confusion with the dead actor on IMDB.)