AI in the Cutting Room: Steven Soderbergh on Why He Used Meta’s AI for the Lennon Documentary That Shocked Cannes
When one of America’s most respected filmmakers turns to artificial intelligence to complete a project about a beloved cultural icon, the backlash is almost guaranteed. At the 2024 Cannes Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh’s John Lennon: The Last Interview sparked exactly that kind of controversy—but not for the reasons you might expect.
The documentary, which premiered on Saturday at Cannes, draws from a remarkable two-hour interview John Lennon and Yoko Ono gave on December 8, 1980—the very day Lennon was killed. That interview, originally captured by a San Francisco radio crew and conducted from the couple’s home in New York’s Dakota Apartments, was meant to promote their new album Double Fantasy. The interviewers had been explicitly warned: no Beatles questions. Yet Lennon and Ono were stunningly open.
The Day the World Stopped: Revisiting the Lennon and Ono Interview
On that fateful December morning, Annie Leibovitz also shot her now-iconic photograph of a naked Lennon wrapped around a fully clothed Ono. The interview matches that raw intimacy. Lennon, then 40, reflected with remarkable clarity on love, creativity, fatherhood, life after the Beatles, and the songwriting process. He famously said, “I feel like nothing happened before today.”
Soderbergh’s documentary does for Lennon and Ono what Peter Jackson’s Get Back did for the Beatles: it demystifies them. It strips away the mythology and reveals two artists in their element, deeply connected, and fully present.
“I was just so compelled by their generosity of spirit throughout the conversation,” Soderbergh explained in an interview at Cannes on Saturday. “It’s like the world took place in one day, in this apartment.”
The Filmmaker’s Dilemma: Audio Gold, Visual Nothingness
Soderbergh faced a classic documentary challenge. He was determined to let the audio play uninterrupted—the raw conversation was too powerful to cut. He could find archival footage to visualize much of the film, but a significant section remained where the conversation grew philosophical and abstract. There was no footage to match it.
“I worked on everything that could be solved except that for as long as I could,” Soderbergh says. “Then there was the inevitable moment of: OK, but really what are we going to do? We just started playing and ran out of time and money. That’s where the Meta piece came in.”
That “Meta piece” is exactly what triggered the uproar.
The AI Controversy: 10 Minutes That Changed Everything
Soderbergh accepted an offer to use Meta’s artificial intelligence software to generate surreal imagery for the sections of the film—roughly 10% of the runtime—where no visual material existed. When news of this decision leaked earlier this year, the reaction was explosive. A filmmaker of Soderbergh’s stature using AI? In a documentary about a Beatle? It felt like sacrilege to many.
The irony? The AI-generated imagery is, by most accounts, fairly banal. It doesn’t involve deepfakes of Lennon. It doesn’t fabricate his voice or manipulate his image. It’s surrealist visual filler—more akin to special effects than the kind of synthetic content creation that terrifies Hollywood unions.
Yet critics at Cannes overwhelmingly slammed the AI segments. The backlash is real, and it reflects a much larger industrywide debate about the role of artificial intelligence in filmmaking.
Soderbergh’s Defense: Pragmatism, Not Provocation
Soderbergh is no stranger to pushing boundaries. He shot Unsane entirely on an iPhone and released it directly to streaming. He’s a tinkerer, an innovator, and someone who embraces the tools most filmmakers fear.
But his use of AI in John Lennon: The Last Interview wasn’t about making a statement. It was about solving a problem. He had two hours of riveting, intimate conversation. He had run out of time and money. The alternative was either cutting the philosophical sections entirely or leaving long stretches of audio with nothing to look at.
“We just started playing and ran out of time and money,” Soderbergh says, matter-of-factly. The AI was a pragmatic solution, not an artistic manifesto.
The Real Question: Where Do We Draw the Line?
Soderbergh’s decision—and the Cannes reaction—raises uncomfortable questions for anyone working in content creation, marketing, or media today.
When is AI a legitimate creative tool, and when does it cross the line?
Here’s a framework for thinking about it, based on the Soderbergh case:
| Use Case | Example | Acceptable? |
|---|---|---|
| Generating abstract visual imagery for audio gaps | Soderbergh’s Lennon doc | Grey area |
| Deepfaking a person’s voice or likeness | Fabricating Lennon performing new songs | No |
| Enhancing existing footage (restoration, colorization) | Get Back restoration | Yes |
| Replacing human writers or editors | Marketing copy generation | Context-dependent |
| Assisting with data analysis or trend spotting | Predictive analytics in GTM | Yes |
The key distinction: Soderbergh used AI to visualize what was already real. He didn’t use it to create new content or misrepresent the interview. The imagery is surreal, abstract, and entirely separate from the human performance at the center of the film.
Why This Matters for Marketers, Creators, and Revenue Teams
You might be thinking: I’m not a filmmaker. What does this have to do with my B2B growth strategy?
Everything.
The AI debate in Hollywood is the same debate happening in every SaaS company, agency, and content team today. We’re all asking: Where should we use AI? Where should we draw the line? Will using AI hurt our brand or help us scale?
Here are three lessons from Soderbergh’s Cannes saga that apply directly to your GTM playbook:
1. Transparency Is Non-Negotiable
Soderbergh didn’t try to hide the AI use. He announced it, explained it, and defended it. Brands that attempt to stealth-automate content or insights will get caught—and the backlash will be worse than the original decision.
Your playbook: Always disclose when AI is used in client-facing materials. Honesty builds trust. Secrecy destroys it.
2. Solve a Real Problem, Don’t Force a Trend
Soderbergh used AI because he had a gap in his film and no other viable solution. He didn’t build the film around the technology. Too many companies are doing the opposite: adopting AI because it’s trendy, not because it solves a specific, measurable problem.
Your playbook: Audit your workflows. Where are the genuine bottlenecks? Use AI to fix those, not to check a box.
3. The Creator’s Voice Must Remain Human
No one is upset about the abstract AI imagery in The Last Interview. They’re upset because it involves John Lennon, one of the most human artists in history. The same principle applies to your content: AI can help with formatting, distribution, and data analysis—but the core story, the voice, the positioning must come from humans.
Your playbook: Use AI for the grind work (research, outlines, formatting). Write the story yourself. Or assign it to a real writer.
The Bottom Line: Soderbergh Is Willing to Have the Conversation
At Cannes, Soderbergh made it clear he isn’t avoiding the debate. He’s leaning into it. “I’m eager to have this conversation,” he said. That willingness to engage—to defend his choices publicly and transparently—is what separates leaders from followers.
The filmmaker, who has spent his career experimenting with technology (remember the iPhone movies?), sees AI as another tool in the box. The audience and the industry will decide where it belongs.
For now, the Lennon documentary exists as a case study: a brilliant filmmaker, a beloved subject, a practical problem, and a controversial solution. The AI segments may be mostly forgettable imagery, but the conversation they sparked is anything but.
What are your team’s rules of engagement for AI in content creation? If you don’t have a policy yet, Soderbergh just gave you the perfect reason to write one.
The Last Interview premiered in Cannes on Saturday. Whether the AI backlash fades or intensifies will depend largely on how the rest of the industry—and the audience—respond to films that push these boundaries. One thing is certain: Steven Soderbergh won’t stop experimenting. Neither should you—as long as you’re transparent about it.