Steven Soderbergh says he’s “a believer in exploration” as he defends his use of generative AI in John Lennon: The Last Interview—built around a December 8, 1980 New York radio conversation and supported by more than 1,000 archival images. He says AI is used s
Steven Soderbergh first walked into Cannes in 1989—carrying a debut feature, Sex, Lies, and Videotape—and walked out of history. At 26, he became the youngest solo director to win the Palme d’Or. “How little we expected,” he says. “We slipped into the competition because of another film dropping out, so it all just felt like pure upside.”.
That sense of surprise still runs through how he talks about his work. including the latest one pushing at the edges of filmmaking craft. In John Lennon: The Last Interview. Soderbergh leans into generative AI. pairing an in-depth radio interview with a visual experiment designed to mirror the way Lennon’s words move—thoughtful. open. and unexpectedly intimate.
The documentary draws from a radio conversation John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave in New York on December 8, 1980. Lennon was killed later that day. making the audio feel heavier than a typical archive record—an encounter preserved in voice after the world had already shifted. In the interview, Lennon spoke plainly about art, music, being a parent, and his relationship with Ono.
Soderbergh describes the first time he listened to the audio as something like finding treasure beneath the sea. “It really felt like the creative equivalent of finding this Spanish galleon sunken off the coast of wherever and it’s filled with. like. gold coins. ” says Soderbergh. “I just couldn’t believe it.”.
What he couldn’t un-hear, he set out to show.
To build the film’s visual journey. Soderbergh used more than 1. 000 archival images he had access to through the Lennon estate and Sean Lennon. the son of the two musicians. He then partnered with Meta to use AI technology for about 10% of the film—specifically during stretches when Lennon’s comments turned more philosophical.
The AI sequences are intentionally unreal. The film includes images like flowers blooming, cavemen, and babies crying. Soderbergh says the point wasn’t to blur the line between archive and fantasy. The sequences are very clearly not realistic, and that distinction is part of the design.
After the film debuted at Cannes, Soderbergh addressed his approach to the technology in an interview with Vanity Fair. He explained why he’s comfortable being a spokesperson for AI. and what he would tell other filmmakers—specifically naming Guillermo del Toro. a friend—about resistance to the new tool.
Taken together. the story feels built around a single tension: the intimacy of Lennon’s final-day radio voice versus the decision to surround it with vivid. impossible images. Soderbergh doesn’t hide from the contradiction. He makes it visible. and he times it—keeping AI to about 10% of the film and placing it where the audio shifts into reflection.
John Lennon: The Last Interview landed with that same careful balance at the festival. It’s an archive documentary that doesn’t just preserve Lennon’s words. It tries to translate the emotional texture of them—then draws a bright line around what belongs to history and what belongs to imagination.
Steven Soderbergh John Lennon: The Last Interview generative AI Meta Cannes Palme d’Or Sex Lies and Videotape Unsane Sean Lennon Yoko Ono December 8 1980