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Filmmaker Steven Soderbergh has defended his decision and explained, to use generative artificial intelligence in his upcoming documentary about John Lennon’s final interview.
Announced last year, “John Lennon: The Last Interview” contains audio of an interview that Lennon and Yoko Ono gave on RKO Radio on December 8, 1980 – a few hours before Lennon was murdered. Soderbergh combined the majority of the audio material with archival recordings provided with support from Lennon’s estate. But in the moments when Lennon and Ono became philosophical and abstract, a different kind of imagery was needed.
It was already known that Soderbergh used AI for these passages. In a new interview with Deadline, he provided a detailed explanation of his use of AI and the reasons behind it. He also revealed that the film’s AI sequences were created in collaboration with Meta – the company provided both technical tools and financial resources.
Ten percent AI
As Soderbergh explained, the more abstract interview passages, which he accompanied with AI images, make up “about ten percent of the entire film.” He was looking for “images that reinforce” what Lennon and Ono say, “but in a metaphorical way” – the whole thing he calls “thematic surrealism.”
The director acknowledged that AI is “a very emotional topic,” adding that he believes a lot of those emotions are “legitimate” – especially when it comes to the use of AI in non-creative contexts and how it “impacts our lives.” However, he insisted that he was not using AI in his documentary to “deceive” or “manipulate” viewers “to create an image that he wants them to believe is real.” Instead, Soderbergh says, it will be used “essentially the way you would use VFX or CGI or any other non-photographic technology.”
Soderbergh described two sequences from the film that illustrate why AI “turned out to be perfect for” the film. In one, he said, “a bunch of one-year-old babies in sixties outfits are crying heartbreakingly; it’s a funny illustration of something John is talking about. You can’t shoot that. And even if you could somehow manage it – if you could find a justification for filming a bunch of one-year-old babies in tie-dye outfits crying – even then it wouldn’t be funny if people knew it was real. And we wanted to be funny here.”
Cavemen and transparency
The other sequence shows “cavemen acting out some of the things John talks about in terms of male behavior. Actually shooting those images of men dressed and made up as cavemen: not so funny. It’s funnier when you know it’s not real.”
Soderbergh pushed back against what he thought was the worst conclusion people drew when news of his AI use broke: “He’s going to try to bring John Lennon to life.” The director replied, “And all I can say is: Do we know each other? Do I look like someone who would do that? So it’s a little hard to talk about, too, because I feel like once you see the movie you’re like, ‘Oh, of course.'”
He continued: “My moral obligation to myself, to Sean and Yoko, and to the audience is to be the best version of this movie, period. And we were fortunate enough – through good timing – to get our hands on tools that I know led to the best version of this movie. And all I can do in all these discussions about AI is to be transparent. That has to be the first rule when you’re trying to figure out how to use these things: to be transparent. I want a minimum of secrecy here. I I believe that in addition to the duty to do the best job possible, I also have a duty to people to be honest about how we achieved certain things. That’s fair.”
Meta’s role in the project
Regarding Meta’s involvement, Soderbergh said his manager and producer Michael Sugar brought the idea to him and pointed out the company’s new video generative tools. “They were open and wanted to see the film, so we showed them the film and they said, ‘Well, this is timely because we would really like and need a filmmaker to put some of these tools we’re working on through their paces. And if you agree to be our test case, we’ll provide the technology and finance the completion of the film,'” Soderbergh recalled. “So I said, ‘Yeah, let’s do this.’ And that was kind of the final phase: building these sequences that contain images that are impossible to shoot.”
