Sydney: Fair 19ºC | 15ºC

or use

Steve McQueen on Shame

Film

The uncompromising director has created a harrowing portrait of a sex addict. By Dee Jefferson

First published on 3 Jan 2012. Updated on 4 Jan 2012.

Steve McQueen’s second feature opens this month off the back of a flutter of ratings controversy, having received the NC-17 (usually considered a box office kiss of death) for its US release, and an R18+ in Australia. In a double-barrelled discharge of irony, however, not only does the rating look set to increase the allure of this film about sex addiction, but for all its full frontal nudity, Shame is a decidedly un-sexy film.

“Somehow what I was interested in doing was turning [my first film, Hunger] upside down; what would happen?” says the London-born artist and filmmaker. “From a prison cell in Northern Ireland – what’s the opposite? New York of course is a Mecca – for me, at least it was – of capitalism; a Mecca of access and excess.”

Where Hunger starred Michael Fassbender as IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands, Shame features him as another kind of anti-hero – a loner whose hypersexuality is disrupted when his emotionally damaged sister (Carey Mulligan) comes to stay with him. “With Sands, the body becomes a weapon, a vessel for protest, and of course his own sort of idea of freedom,” the director explains. “The reverse to that is Brandon, who is sort of using his body in a way to sort of escape something; and through having sex with prostitutes or watching porn on the internet, he’s using his body in a very destructive way.”

McQueen readily admits that at first the idea of sex addiction was comical to him. “It’s just like when you laugh at the guy who drinks too much; but of course when that guy drinks to excess, and he’s relying on that alcohol to get through the day, it’s not a joke anymore. And it’s not about pleasure. When myself and [co-writer] Abi Morgan were talking to specialists in the field [of sex addiction], someone made a very interesting point – that sex addiction has as much to do with sex as alcoholism is to do with thirst.”

Speaking in the aftermath of the film’s triumphant premiere at Venice Film Festival in September, McQueen was unfazed by the inevitable ratings gauntlet the film would have to run to achieve American distribution. “I really don’t care. I’m a European director; I make films, I do what I want to do. If people don’t want to see it, they don’t have to see it. You know, I’m not here to make money, I’m here to make films; if I wanted to make money, I’d be doing something completely different let me tell you [laughs]. So I’m just happy to be able to make the films.

“I will never cut the film,” he adds. “It’s kind of crazy to think that 40 years ago you had things like Deep Throat and Last Tango in Paris in the cinemas, and now we’re talking about cutting things! If cinema is going to survive, we have to deal with things that need immediate attention. If we’re going to just keep doing costume dramas or historical films, who’s going to go? Just read the book! If cinema is going to survive, it has to be like rock’n’roll.”

Shame screens from 9 Feb

More films, film reviews, film festivals and special screenings in Sydney? Sign up for our weekly newsletter

By Dee Jefferson