&lt;div class=&quot;track&quot;&gt;&lt;img alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.22.2/37353?ns=guardian&amp;pageName=Contagion+is+the+latest+change+in+Steven+Soderbergh%27s+chameleon+career%3AArticle%3A1647411&amp;ch=Film&amp;c3=Guardian&amp;c4=Steven+Soderbergh+%28Film%29%2CFilm%2CCulture&amp;c5=Not+commercially+useful%2CFilm+Reviews&amp;c6=John+Patterson&amp;c7=11-Oct-15&amp;c8=1647411&amp;c9=Article&amp;c10=Feature&amp;c11=Film&amp;c13=&amp;c25=&amp;c30=content&amp;h2=GU%2FFilm%2FSteven+Soderbergh&quot; width=&quot;1&quot; height=&quot;1&quot; /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p class=&quot;standfirst&quot;&gt;Star-studded killer virus movie Contagion mixes the spirit of 70s disaster movies with the tone of The Birds&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For a man who recently said he was retiring to pursue painting as his main form of expression, Steven Soderbergh is all around us at the movies right now. In addition to unleashing the bleakest yet most kinetic apocalyptic thriller in years in the form of &lt;strong&gt;Contagion&lt;/strong&gt;, he also had a hand in producing Lynne Ramsay&#039;s We Need To Talk About Kevin. In the States, Contagion is competing against the smart and critically lauded baseball movie Moneyball, which was a long-nourished Soderbergh project &ndash; and still vaguely feels like one &ndash; that ended up being directed by Bennett Miller. In the pipeline are The Man From UNCLE and a Liberace biopic. Then it&#039;s off to his easel, and turpentine.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&#039;ll believe it when I see it. If Soderbergh is retiring, so be it, but while I&#039;ve had my differences with him in the past (hint: The Good German), I&#039;d miss him badly. None of his movies makes my top 10, possibly not even the top 100, but his career is priceless, one of a kind, and is perhaps the real work of art he has created.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Why limit yourself to just director or writer-director? Why not be your own cameraman? That way you can be the artist and the brush and the canvas as well. And why be just one film-maker, his career seems to ask, why not be as many of them as you want? Or all of them: Altman today, Dick Lester tomorrow, Don Siegel on Tuesdays, and Mike Hodges or Alain Resnais whenever the hell he feels like it. And still be Steven Soderbergh all day.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;If that means we have to put up with The Good German or Full Frontal once in a while, then it pays off well enough when he spawns Out Of Sight and The Limey back-to-back, then follows them up with Traffic and Erin Brockovich. Pepper the oeuvre with a Solaris here, a King Of The Hill there, two Ches and three Ocean movies, and much besides, and you&#039;ve got yourself a startlingly diverse, all-Soderbergh, film festival.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Let&#039;s add Contagion to the list, an end of the world movie that feels like the tone of The Birds has been transfused into a 70s retro, time-honoured disaster-movie structure, then toothsomely flavoured with the riotous paranoia of the same era. Soderbergh keeps his perspective global, as a killer virus is transported from city to city &ndash; via a thumbprint on a bus window or airliner, say &ndash; and humankind falls apart in terror and panic. Stars are everywhere &ndash; Fishburne, Cotillard, Winslet, Damon &ndash; but no one stands front and centre, the real star is the virus.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And there&#039;s your Soderbergh touch right there. Apocalypse comes cheap in the movies today: whatever happened to create the blasted and underpeopled landscapes of The Road, The Book Of Eli or Zombieland may have its far more plausible roots in something like what we see in Contagion. Hey Steven, don&#039;t retire just yet.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;related&quot; style=&quot;float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;&quot;&gt;&lt;ul&gt;&lt;li&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/stevensoderbergh&quot;&gt;Steven Soderbergh&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;author&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/johnpatterson&quot;&gt;John Patterson&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;br/&gt;&lt;div class=&quot;terms&quot;&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk&quot;&gt;guardian.co.uk&lt;/a&gt; &amp;copy; 2011 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our &lt;a href=&quot;http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html&quot;&gt;Terms &amp; Conditions&lt;/a&gt; | &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.guardian.co.uk/help/feeds&quot;&gt;More Feeds&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;p style=&quot;clear:both&quot; /&gt;