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PLANET WAVES
FOUND IN SPACE: George Clooney as the astronaut who falls under the
spell of the mysterious planet in Solaris,
the first sci-fi
film from director
Steven Soderbergh
solaris
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“This film
takes
you to
the farthest
reaches
of the
universe,
and what you
find there
is yourself”
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I’ve been lucky because Steven has worked in so many genres,” says prediction-defying Hollywood director Steven Soderbergh’s regular production designer, Philip Messina. “His films have been so varied in their look and their approach. Erin Brockovich had a blue-collar look to it while Traffic had a vérité approach, and Ocean’s Eleven had a very slick Vegas look. Now he’s taken me into space!”
film director Steven Soderbergh
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Messina is speaking on the 150-foot-by-200-foot space station set of Solaris, Soderbergh’s new film, which indeed marks the director’s first foray into science fiction. But Solaris is emphatically not a movie about light sabres and intergalactic battles. It is based on a novel by the Polish writer Stanislaw Lem, which has previously been filmed (in 1972) by none other than
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ADAPTING THE CLASSIC SCIENCE-FICTION NOVEL SOLARIS FOR THE SCREEN, STEVEN SODERBERGH FOUND IN IT SOMETHING VERY DIFFERENT FROM HOLLYWOOD’S USUAL SCI-FI EPICS. ELEANOR SINGER FINDS OUT WHAT INTRIGUED THE DIRECTOR.
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Andrei Tarkovsky. And, while western writers (and directors) are generally drawn to the genre by the opportunity to imagine the future and create epic confrontations, Eastern European writers tend to view science fiction as a way of exploring more philosophical issues - issues such as right and wrong, the limits (and possibilities) of time, and the nature of the human soul.
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