<P> Steven Soderbergh's cinema-making star has blazed with <I>sex, lies, and videotape</I>, sputtered with <I>The Underneath</I>, and flared again with the acclaimed movie <I>Traffic</I>. <P> <I>Steven Soderbergh: Interviews</I> charts the rise and fall and rise of the writer-director-producer's surprising career from 1989 to 2001. From his "flavor of the month" status with his debut film <I>sex, lies, and videotape</I> to his Academy Award-winning feature <I>Traffic</I>, Soderbergh's road to success is fraught with ups and downs. <P> On each and every film, the book details such experiences as his creative crisis surrounding his fourth film, <I>The Underneath</I>, and his rejuvenation with the ultra-low budget free-style <I>Schizopolis</I>, and the mainstream achievements that followed with <I>Erin Brockovich</I> and <I>Traffic</I>. <P> Spanning twelve years, these conversations reveal Soderbergh (b. 1963) to be as self-effacing and lighthearted in his later more established years as he was when just starting out. He comes across as a man undaunted by the glitz and power of Hollywood, remaining, above all, a truly independent filmmaker unafraid to get his hands dirty and pick up the camera himself. <P> Not only do the interviews provide a glimpse into the filmmaker's aesthetics, but they also offer a history of the U.S. independent film movement in the late 1980s and 1990s--the explosion of "independent films," studios and film festivals, and the Hollywood co-optation of such talents, Soderbergh included. The collection also reveals the increasingly blurred boundaries between independent and mainstream and Soderbergh's commitment to revitalizing cinema from inside the system. <P> Anthony Kaufman is the former senior editor of <I></I> and is currently a Contributing Writer to , and is an instructor of film and media journalism at New York University. He has been published in numerous periodicals such as the <I>Village Voice</I>, <I>Cineaste</I>, <I>Time Out New York</I>, and the <I>Independent Film & Video Monthly</I>.