I guess the bottom line is that it's pointless talk about Hollywood being greedy in this day and age since it's been going on for years and fans are still willing to go to the theatre, pay the ever increasing prices (even for gimmicks such as 3D) for often mediocre (in my opinion) films. Plus, Hollywood is filled with family franchised actors, directors and so forth who simply go in the door because of who they know. If you named 10 random actors you'd probably find 8 of them with ties to either famous hollywood families or powerful, wealthy players within the entertainment industry (like Rooney Mara for example).

It ceased to be true art and passion projects a long time ago.

I'd add that this transaction is much more accurately characterized as manipulation, than as an example of free exchange. There's no doubt the general audience is in full support of it, but that's only because they aren't bothering to look beyond what's being heavily marketed to them and what's most easily available — in other words, beyond what is being force fed to them. The analogy to the process of making foie gras is entirely appropriate.

The second, compounding, level of this problem is that it is essentially instilling a Hollywood grammar inside the heads of audiences, and to some degree inside the heads of our young filmmakers as well. When a film doesn't fall in line with that, the first reaction is not to like it. This is arguably an even more lamentable reality.

The indie directors Soderbergh cites aren't making high art. Soderbergh himself, with vastly superior resources, doesn't make high art. The movies he got fired off would not have been high art, with his participation. Meanwhile, Soderbergh enjoys a level of privilege and freedom never experienced by far more accomplished artists, throughout history.

If the man wants purity, free from commercial considerations, it's there for the taking, in traditional art forms which don't require mass-audiences to sustain production. But those art-forms are unforgiving, and the standards are unforgiving. You won't get rich or internationally famous practicing at the level Soderbergh has achieved in film.

And it would be easy enough to set up a philanthropic film fund, if that's what he really wants to do — he doesn't have get hired as a studio head to do it. All that's needed is to shame his colleagues Spielberg, Lucas, Cameron, etc. who claim to love the medium so deeply, into funding it. What's a few million a year to these people? Absolutely nothing.

But they apparently don't love film *that* much.