Out supporting a screening of his latest movie, Presence, at TIFF, director Steven Soderbergh let slip that he has an entirely new project on the horizon, and it’s not a movie. He is writing a book about movie making in general, and he is using Steven Spielberg’s classic Jaws as a case study.
As he explains, the focus is movie making but Spielberg’s efforts to make Jaws will serve as the continuing narrative case study throughout the book.
According to a report in The Hollywood Reporter, Soderbergh says:
“…this is for people who are interested in films”.
He gave more details about the project:
“I’ve been working on this thing [the book] that is ostensibly about directing and uses as its spine an analysis of the making of ‘Jaws’ day-to-day. This book is not for general consumption. This is for people who are interested in films, either as moviegoers or [who] want to do this job. Because if you’re going to do this job, you need to understand the job. This is the job.
I’m going to walk you through the experience of making [‘Jaws’] as a jumping-off point to talk about problem solving and process.”
Jaws was a famously troubled production that tested a rookie director to his limit. While the production was not marred by mass cast or crew disagreements, it was technical challenges that pushed everyone involved with the movie.
Soderbergh pinpoints Jaws as the first movie that challenged him to think about how movies were actually made. He says it is the first movie that had him thinking about a career as a director. He recalls seeing Jaws at a cinema in St. Petersburg, Florida, at 12 years of age and emerging back into the real world with two questions:
“What does directed by mean? And who is Steven Spielberg?”
Soderbergh is a famously busy filmmaker, with several projects at various stages in flight at once. He does caution that the book may never get finished as once he starts thinking too deeply about Jaws again, he may end up down all sorts of rabbit holes.