Soderbergh upbeat about ambitious two-part bio-drama 'Che'

Steven Soderbergh continues to earn his reputation as one of the most innovative and fearless filmmakers of his or anyone else's generation.

In recent years, the 45-year-old Atlanta native is mostly known for his trio of crowd-pleasing "Ocean" capers ("Eleven," "Twelve" and "Thirteen") along with "Erin Brockovich," the fact-based drama that netted Julia Roberts her first and only Best Actress Oscar.

But film buffs know Soderbergh to be a thoughtful, risk-taking, multifaceted artist (director, producer, writer, editor, cinematographer) who delves into fiercely independent productions such as "Bubble," a feature (with amateur actors) that enraged the exhibition industry when it was released simultaneously in theaters and on HDNet, then on DVD days later.

Soderbergh's latest project is the ambitious two-part bio-drama "Che," based on the life of infamous Argentine freedom fighter Ernesto "Che" Guevara, starring Oscar-winning actor Benicio Del Toro in the title role.

"Che Part 1" (129 minutes) and "Che Part 2" (128 minutes) will be shown back-to-back with a 30-minute intermission starting Friday at the Century Centre Cinema in Chicago. Part 1 recounts Che's role in helping Fidel Castro take over Cuba. Part 2 details his later campaigns in Bolivia.

The filmmaker recently came to Chicago to speak about his arduous project, which he started shooting exactly two years ago this month.

Q. What attracted you to this project so much that you would spend two years working on it?

A. Nothing. I didn't know anything about him (Che). I knew at the very least that I was going to get paid to educate myself. But it turned out, I ended up paying. I knew it was going to be an opportunity to immerse myself in a subject and learn about it in a way that very few people would have. Speaking to the people who were there. Speaking to his family. Traveling to the places he traveled. It's a great way to learn about something. To be that close to history.

Q. What was the toughest challenge in mounting this production?

A. We had to shoot the second part first, which was kind of weird. And we had to shoot it backward because all the actors had lost weight and grown their hair out. It was not an ideal situation to be shooting the climax of the second film on the first day of shooting. That was a little terrifying.

We're shooting the last 30 minutes of the film and you're committing to something without knowing if it's going to fit what you want to do with the story seven years earlier.

Q. And?

A. Ten days in, I saw an assembly of the last half-hour of the second film and felt that we were going to be fine.

Q. Every detail in the movies seems meticulously authentic.

A. I feel pretty confident in the veracity of the movie. There isn't a single scene in it that was invented. There are some scenes that have been combined. There are characters that have been combined. We can source every scene in both parts.

We can indicate what the real incident was and who was there. We knew we were going to get attacked for a variety of things. We didn't want that to be one of them. someone coming up and saying, "But that never happened."

Q. You have a different look for each film. Why?

A. I was looking for every possible way of distinguishing between the feel of these two campaigns. The Cuban campaign is almost a classic Hollywood movie in a way. They start out with 82 guys. They're down to 12. Looks like they're finished. They get all the breaks. They manage to get the people behind them. To me, it had a very classic trajectory.

Q. Each film has a different aspect ratio with Part 1 in widescreen and Part 2 with a taller image. Why?

A. The first part seemed to scream out for a more friendly style, the more wider frames, the more classical compositions. The very vibrant colors and all that.

The second one, the part of his life that people don't know much about, I was looking for a style that felt a little more arrhythmic and a little less friendly. The colors aren't as enticing. The camera is always hand-held. Right out of the gate, I wanted to create a sense of dread. I just wanted the sense of wow! This doesn't feel friendly.

Q. Part 1 has one of the most realistic and spectacular train wreck scenes I've ever seen. How did you do it?

A. There was a lot of talk about doing it with CG (computer graphics) and I said, we just can't. We've got to build this thing ... We had it (a period locomotive) built in L.A. and then had it shipped down to Mexico. It was tense rehearsing that scene because it was sort of a one-shot - we couldn't wreck it again. I thought, "My God, if we blow this, we're really going to be in trouble!" We rehearsed it six times. The seventh time is in the movie.

Q. You don't treat Che with any sentiment or romance. Why not?

A. One of the things that comes across in his interviews is that you would never find a person who would use the word "warm" to describe him. As his leadership qualities came out and he was turning into the Che that most people are familiar with, that sort of distance ended up playing in his favor a little bit because it enabled him, I think, to make very difficult decisions very quickly in an appropriately dispassionate way. I think Fidel looked him at said, "This guy's a bulldog. I want to make use of him."