Who is Steve McQueen? I’m not referring to the blonde-haired, blue-eyed action star of Bullitt and The Great Escape.
The Steve McQueen whose name is currently making the rounds in the film industry may end up having an even bigger impact on cinematic history.
The 44-year-old, soft-spoken Steven Rodney McQueen is a London-born black director and screenwriter, whose filmography is currently comprised of just three movies: Hunger, Shame, and 12 Years a Slave.
All three are critically acclaimed, albeit hard-to-watch, dramas. The latter has put Mr. McQueen’s name in the spotlight this past year.
With 12 Years a Slave, based on the 1853 autobiography of a black carpenter-turned-captive named Solomon Northup, McQueen has reached the current apex of his craft.
The film moves like a slideshow of paintings, but the imagery is devastating. It is perhaps the most brutal, uncompromising view of slavery in any major release to date.
McQueen’s effort has been nominated for 10 Oscars, and has promising chances at the upcoming awards (several sources put it at 1-to-3 odds for winning Best Picture).
What else makes McQueen worth talking about? For starters, he is not defined by his race, nor held back by it. As a film major, I constantly hear his work cited as some of the best in mainstream moviemaking.
The talented auteur has overcome obstacles and ultimately excelled beyond even many white directors.
This year, he is the second favourite to win Best Director after Gravity’s Alfonso Cuaron, coming in ahead of Caucasian, and very accomplished, directors David O. Russell, Martin Scorsese, and Alexander Payne.
McQueen hasn’t gone without difficulties concerning his race.
Despite his clear gifts and intellect, at 13 his school separated him from the academically adept, and even “OK, normal kids.” He was grouped in amongst those expected to perform manual labour.
McQueen doesn’t speak often about such racial segregation, but has occasionally noted his disdain for the system.
McQueen also mentioned the issue of race in a roundtable with fellow directors during the 2011 awards season, as it pertains not only to people behind the camera, but also in front.
“I’m always astonished by American filmmakers, particularly living in certain areas, when they never cast one black person,” McQueen said.
He went on to call it “shameful,” asking “how can you live in New York and not cast black or Latino actors?”
McQueen describes his mandate in the interview as simply “wanting to make movies about what’s going on.” He even suggests it’s not harder to be a black director, it’s simply a “matter of opportunity.”
All of this points to a man with a clear goal, not exclusively determined by his ethnicity or his culture. In 2014, McQueen is providing inspiration to people of all races.
Shame is a favourite among film production students, praised for its mastery of deliberate storytelling, beautiful cinematography (filmed by McQueen’s ever-reliable cameraman Sean Bobbitt), and powerful acting by frequent collaborator Michael Fassbender.
Film critic Richard Roeper said the movie was “on par with Midnight Cowboy,” while the late Roger Ebert, who gave it a perfect score, labelled it “a great act of filmmaking.” Neither mentioned McQueen’s race, but they went into exhaustive detail about his technique.
Part of McQueen’s appeal is how he blends classic filming methods with brazen innovation. McQueen credits Andy Warhol, Buster Keaton, Billy Wilder, and Sergei Eisenstein (a polarizing Russian director famous among film theorists) as influences.
He could be seen as a meld of these distinguished artists who creates something new through their fusion.
Hunger, for instance, includes a 17-minute long take, which refuses to edit away from hunger striker Bobby Sands (Fassbender) and Belfast priest Father Moran (Liam Cunningham) for an incredibly uncomfortable duration.
The scene has shades of Hitchcock, but should generally be deemed a novel approach to capturing key sequences of dialogue — in McQueen’s feature debut no less.
12 Years a Slave features a scene in which Solomon (played with bruised intensity by Chiwetel Ejiofor) is hung from a tree, his toes just reaching the ground and keeping him alive. McQueen forces us to keep looking, as the day passes around him and other slaves and owners carry on.
Shame follows Fassbender’s Brandon as he jogs through the streets of New York. It is Bobbitt who keeps a steady pace with Fassbender, as the city lights whir by, but it is McQueen who continually invents such visual, visceral experiences.
Of McQueen’s three movies, only one tackles what could be called “black” subject matter.
But even 12 Years a Slave is not refracted through a lens of “black attitude.”
McQueen frames one of humanity’s greatest atrocities relatively objectively. The director is almost – almost – numbed by the cruelty he depicts, leaving much of the feeling up to us.
Steve McQueen is a virtuoso of the filmmaking craft, who will likely be considered one of the industry’s best in years to come.
I had already seen two of his films before I even knew he was black, and if I hadn’t Googled his name, I likely could have seen dozens more none the wiser.
McQueen is filming in an array of colours, not black and white.
Dustin Dyer
Features Editor
