The Other Steve McQueen

The 1981 IRA hunger strike, sex addiction, and American slave trading in the 1800s; these are the subjects of the first three feature length films by British director Steve McQueen. Don’t get him confused with the American born, 60s-70s era actor of the same name and long-time “King of Cool”. To passionate film geeks, McQueen has already done enough to escape any confusion. Both of the director’s first two films, 2008’s Hunger and 2011’s Shame, pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of making stunningly beautiful films out of grimy subject matter. He also wrote both films, as well as Twelve Years a Slave, a film set to release later this year.

The starring role in every McQueen film to date has gone to British actor Michael Fassbender, whose career has exploded in the past few years. In Hunger, Fassbender played Bobby Sands, the leader of the aforementioned IRA hunger strike, who becomes a martyr following his death by starvation. His sometimes fiery but often understated performance elevated the film from a visually entrancing work of art to a truly engrossing character study of a man. The film centers on the final 6 weeks of Sands’ life, and details the inhumane treatment (imposed by both others and self) the imprisoned endured in the pursuit of being classified as political prisoners rather than criminals. The film’s entirety is not devoted to Sands; we view the physical and psychological impact on prison staff as well as family members of those involved. In Shame we see Fassbender as Brandon, a successful advertising executive imprisoned by his own sexuality. Unable to satiate his own sexual desires, Brandon’s descent and immersion into deeper and deeper levels of deviance and perversion make it impossible for him to carry on a relationship without a moral or monetary transaction. Brandon’s sister Sissy (played by Carey Mulligan), unreliable and damaged in her own way, comes back into his life and for better or worse threatens to uproot his lifestyle. McQueen paints Brandon as a very clean individual on the surface. The film looks gorgeous; Brandon’s appearance, apartment, office, and hangouts all give off an air of perfection. Calling him a non-sadist Patrick Bateman isn’t accurate, in the end we see that Brandon is more victim than Lothario.

On the heels of the 2013 movie preview, I realized I forgot to mention Twelve Years a Slave. Being that I may be more excited for this one than any other, I decided it deserved more than a comment under the preview. Thinking further, Steve McQueen is extremely underrated for the incredible work he’s done. At this early point in his film career, he’s made 2 outstanding films. When you take the artful way he’s filmed his other feature length works in combination with the cast and subject matter of Twelve Years a Slave, it’s easy to see why I think McQueen will be acknowledged come award season. Twelve Years a Slave is an adaptation of the 1853 memoir of Solomon Northup, a black man born free in New York who was deceived, drugged, kidnapped, and subsequently sold into slavery in Washington D.C., later being transported to Louisiana where he remained a slave for 12 years. The underrated Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as Northup. The film also will feature Fassbender, Brad Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Michael K. Williams (The Wire’s Omar), Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Alfre Woodard, Taran Killam, and Beasts of the Southern Wild’s Quvenzhané Wallis and Dwight Henry. I don’t think it is a stretch to say this film promises to be epic in nature, a distinct departure from McQueen’s works to date.

-PSon