03/16/2001

By Chris Vognar / The Dallas Morning News

Last year at this time, Steven Soderbergh was one week away from seeing the release of his Erin Brockovich. Hitherto known as a mainstay of the American independent scene – Out of Sight had been his largest production – he appeared primed to step into the limelight.

And how. Twelve months and one week later, Mr. Soderbergh finds himself in the awkward position of competing with himself for a best-director Oscar. And with his two nominated movies, Erin and Traffic, occupying opposite poles of the Hollywood universe, we can see signs of the new and the old Soderberghs in the coming battle. To his credit, both represent a blast of hope for the Hollywood establishment.

Erin Brockovich is a smart but sentimental winner, the movie that positioned Hollywood favorite Julia Roberts as the easy favorite in the best actress bracket. It was a box-office hit, earning $125 million in the U.S. to date. It made Mr. Soderbergh an instant industry player.

Traffic, meanwhile, is the kind of penetrating epic that Hollywood made as recently as the '70s, with Nashville and the first two Godfather movies. Though a big Hollywood production, it's closer in spirit to the edgy, literate thrillers – sex, lies & videotape; The Limey – for which Mr. Soderbergh was previously known.

One film represents the best of current Hollywood formulas. The other is a reminder of the artistic glory that lies largely in Hollywood's rear-view window.

So is Mr. Soderbergh turning his back on his indie roots? Hardly, he says. He's just bringing his background and style to bear on an industry that sorely needs them.

"Everybody should know by now that they can't assume anything about me," he explained a few months back in Los Angeles. "The last thing I did was just the last thing I did. There's a sense that the independent material that you develop on your own will always be there, but it's not often that you get good studio material that you feel you're right for. When that does happen, you have to jump. The other stuff will wait."

And a double Oscar nomination, in all probability, will not.

The nominees

Steven Soderbergh
Traffic
Oscar Quotient: 7.5
Born: Baton Rouge, La., Jan. 14, 1963
Nominated: Traffic, an epic tale of the drug trade and one of the most important movies of the last quarter-century.
Career highlights: Two Oscar noms in the same year ain't bad. But he also helped jump-start the contemporary indie movement with his festival smash sex, lies & videotape, and he has made some of the finest crime films of recent years (The Underneath, Out of Sight, The Limey).
What Oscar would mean: The Academy put his better film ahead of his more popular one.

Ang Lee
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Oscar Quotient: 5.0
Born: Pingtung, Taiwan, Oct. 23, 1954
Nominated: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, the high-flying (and high-grossing) martial arts indie sensation.
Career highlights: He's Mr. Versatile, having taken on Jane Austen (Sense and Sensibility), love and food in Taipei (Eat, Drink, Man, Woman), suburban malaise (The Ice Storm) and the Civil War (Ride With the Devil).
What Oscar would mean: Hollywood has the guts to go East and honor the most successful foreign language film of all time.

Steven Soderbergh
Erin Brockovich
Oscar Quotient: 4.5
Born: See above.
Nominated: Erin Brockovich, the plucky tale of an unlikely heroine (Julia Roberts) who takes on a corporate leviathan.
Career highlights: See above.
What Oscar would mean: The Academy put his more popular film ahead of his better one.

Ridley Scott
Gladiator
Oscar Quotient: 3.5
Born: Durham, England, Nov. 30, 1937
Nominated: Gladiator, the sword-and-sandals epic that made a megastar of Russell Crowe.
Career highlights: A nomination for 1991's Thelma and Louise. A long, sometimes distinguished slate of work that includes the sci-fi classics Alien and Blade Runner.
What Oscar would mean: A nice nod to an old pro ­ and proof that the Academy still puts box-office totals on equal standing with artistic merit.

Stephen Daldry
Billy Elliot
Oscar Quotient: 1.0
Born: England, UK, 1960
Nominated: Billy Elliot, the peppy sleeper hit about an English lad (Jamie Bell) who prefers ballet shoes to boxing gloves.
Career highlights: A five-year stint as artistic director of England's Royal Court Theatre. Director of the Tony-winning revival of An Inspector Calls. Billy marks his feature film debut.
What Oscar would mean: Oscar is willing to go for another theater veteran/film rookie, a description that also fits last year's winner, American Beauty's Sam Mendes.