By Johnny Ray Huston
Steve McQueen’s Hunger brings the story of Bobby Sands to the movie screen. As far as directorial debuts go, McQueen’s is a prodigious, visceral one. While a lot of filmmakers try to create Hitchcock-style suspense movies, in Hunger, McQueen goes deeper than those surface concerns to deliver the type of formal daredevilry and structural experimentation worthy of Hitch. He revives the bio drama genre — more specifically, the political bio drama — with a story of one man starving to death. I spoke on the phone with the Turner Prize-winning artist in January about Hunger and topics ranging from his Queen and Country project (Royal Mail stamps depicting recently deceased UK soldiers) to the 1982 Wimbledon final.
SFBG What is the status of Queen and Country at the moment?
Steve McQueen The Art Fund in England has supported the project, and aligned with me and the relatives. It’s a process. People have to be convinced. I spoke to Gordon Brown a couple of months ago, and he wrote back and is looking into the logistics. It’s something I don’t want to let go of until we get it done.
Steve McQueen photographed by his Queen and Country art project
SFBG It seems there has been a heightened back and forth between the UK art world and feature film, with you and Douglas Gordon, or going back further, people such as Isaac Julien. And also there are filmmakers such as Gus Van Sant, David Lynch, and Michel Gondry, who have had gallery-related projects. By extension, considering you’ve made short works in the art world, I wondered what drew you to want to make a feature for commercial theatres.
SM I can’t answer the question as far as other people are concerned, I can answer simply for me. When I was in art school I wanted to be in film school, and when I was in film school, I wanted to be in art school. I was in NYU for three months but I hated it and left because they wouldn’t allow me to throw a camera up in the air. I went back to London to continue where I’d left off there, within an art context.
That back and forth has always been happening, though. It isn’t exclusive to now. Obviously there’s Warhol and Man Ray. And Ken Russell and so forth.
SFBG I’m glad you bring up Ken Russell — the descriptions I’ve read of [McQueen’s 1993 short film] Bear remind me of the wrestling scene in Women in Love.
SM I never saw it. I saw Tommy.
Still from Steve McQueen’s Bear
SFBG For whatever reason, though, publications such as Artforum have really shifted their emphasis more to film and film-related art in recent years.
SM Feature film is more populist in its content and approach – it reaches more people. The net gets cast broader or wider year after year within the arts.
Also, film has a certain glamour and appeal to the mass public, and if you can cross over, then people love you even more.