Rebels on the Backlot by Sharon Waxman Read Free Book Online

smokehouse, looking to become a gentleman filmmaker.
    Why Charlottesville? It was the place where the director had the most happy memories. As a child, his father was the head of the university writing department here, while the young Steven pitched no-hitters for a local baseball team. Moving to Charlottesville was a conscious—or maybe subconscious—attempt to recapture a happy moment of his youth. “The whole idea at the time was that Hollywood was the last thing he wanted to be,” said David Jensen, who has known Soderbergh since Louisiana State University. “He wanted to be an independent filmmaker. If Steve hadn’t hit that wave with
sex, lies and videotape
, he would have been a great filmmaker doing something else.” Ultimately, though, Soderbergh spent very little time at the farm.
    In the meantime, he and Brantley were unhappy in Los Angeles, with Sarah attending an upscale private school on the West Side of town.
    Brantley chose not to act in Soderbergh’s films during their marriage but continued to pursue her acting career, landing a small part in Robert Redford’s calamitous flop
Havana.
At the time, Redford was producing Soderbergh’s next film,
Kafka
, which did not turn out any happier. Brantley, who does not suffer fools or movie stars gladly, had chilly relations with the charismatic Redford. He would come to the set and feign humility, telling her, “Have Steven callme.” Brantley finally snapped back: “Here’s his phone number. He’s home writing. Call him.” Redford avoided her after that.
    But back home with Soderbergh, tensions continued. Recalls Brantley: “I’d done all my traveling, I’d done enough work. I was happy to have a family, live on a farm.” She was thirty-five years old when she married Soderbergh, and she’d been divorced once before. Soderbergh, then twenty-eight, wasn’t willing to settle down; his career was just taking off—and it was a good excuse for him to avoid his crumbling marriage. He left a lot.
    Not that Soderbergh denied his inability to open up. He told one interviewer about a later relationship that wasn’t working: “I tried to go into therapy, and it was a mess. I lied to my therapist. I went to three sessions and walked in one day and said, ‘Look, I’ve got a handle on this. I’m making real progress, and I feel really good about myself.’ I mean, I just lied my ass off.”
    In his revealing book,
Getting Away with It
, Soderbergh makes this introspective outline of his approach to the opposite sex:
    The author’s “relationships” follow this pattern: 1. Extreme infatuaton with a person the author has no current relationship with, or better yet, used to have a relationship with; 2. Relentless pursuit of object of infatuation…; 3. Sexual intercourse with object of infatuation (this occurs in approx 3 percent of the cases studied); 4. Two or three weeks pass, during which the author may or may not continue to have intercourse with the object of infatuation…; 5. Heartfelt “confession” by the author to object of infatuation that he is attempting to fill an infinite space with a finite element (in this case, a human being), which is futile, since the space to be filled was created by the author for his sole amusement…;6. Relationship with object of infatuation terminates, with the author, in between expressions of extreme remorse, trying to squeeze in a Good-bye Fuck.
    After they split up, Brantley fled back to London, where she felt comfortable. They finally divorced in 1993. But by the mid-1990s,she had to make a decision: either return to the farm or sell it. She couldn’t afford to maintain her life in England and keep the Somerset property. So she came home, and stayed.
    The last gasp of Soderbergh’s marriage to Brantley was on the bizarrely personal
Schizopolis
, the only time Brantley acted in front of Soderbergh’s camera. She played the wife and he played the husband. Sarah, aged five and Soderbergh’s spitting