Shame

INTERVISTA

STEVE INTERVIEW: IT CAN ONLY GET BETTER… AND FATTER
THE TRUTH AND SHAME ABOUT STEVE MCQUEEN

What about the score of SHAME?

Brendan is a record collector, he prefers vinyl records to cds or digital music and I think it is very specific about a person what he hears his music on. It translates a mood, illustrates a feeling in an abstract way. I thought Brendan’s music should be very mathematical because he wants order.

Why did you choose the song “New York, New York” for Sissy, Brendan’s sister?

I think it was a ritual, you know, wake up in the morning and have a cup of tea, you read the newspaper, you go and have a shower, you put your clothes on…Basically I was interested in following them, and seeing what they do. There are the most mundane things that are incredibly beautiful. Because it is a ritual, a ritual is repeated. I listened  to”New York, New York” again and again and it’s a blue song to  me. Of course, Frank Sinatra and Liza Minelli are singing it more up-tempo, but if you listen to the lyrics, you realize that they are so sad, like “these vagabond shoes are melting away” – this person is singing it from a position of poverty. And Brendan’s sister might never make it there, it is a dream.

What was your greatest source of inspiration when you developed Brendan’s character? Did you draw upon personal experience, research or imagination?

Research, because it has to start from a base of reality. I talked to psychiatrists who dealt with sex addicts. I want to read in  a newspaper about someone having this affliction, but there’s nothing  and people usually don’t  talk to the person or try to  understand what the person does.

Did you take any inspiration of other movies regarding the theme of obsession like American Psycho?

I’m not interested in other movies when making a film. I don’t think about Hitchcock or Scorsese,  but how I make a good movie.

But you must have watched some movies as inspiration when you started your script…

 I’m always practical, been doing stuff, I’m not a fan – you know, filmmaking is about making movies, about thinking how am I going to shoot this.

What type of movies do you like?

The good ones. I’m not a fan of anything. What do you want to tell me? That my film copies other movies?I don’t know, it’s not a question for me, it’s a question for you. You are the critic.

How did you choose the locations for the movie and did it take a long time?

When I worked on Brendan’s character, I researched where he lived, how he travelled to work. I had to do research because I’m an outsider, I don’t live in NYC. So once I found how people move there, how they operate, I was finding out how things happen, how people live, how people work. It was Lower East Side, near the World Trade Center, just a little further up.

Do you think Brendan and Bobby Sands have anything in common?

Sometimes death becomes  life and sometimes life becomes death. For Brendan, having so much sex is slowly killing him while Bobby Sands is starving himself. It’s about these two bodies and what they do to themselves.

I also think that they are both very physical movies. By which means do you make the audience experience the emotional world physically?

Sound. I love radio, it attracts much more attention than TV, for example. Sound is very important, sound is key.

What part of moviemaking do you like best and did you spent a lot of time in the edition room?

The thing I like the most about it is sound. I also like the editing, I worked with a guy called John Walker, a wonderful editor. I also worked with him on Hunger. There are no other crew members, actors, no other people, you just take your coffee. There I have my best time.

You’re already planning your new movie for 2012, “Twelve years a slave”…

Yeah, I hope I’ll be doing that next year. We’re doing the casting right now.

 It’s crazy to do one movie right after the other, but now I have the energy of doing it.

For me it’s a very important movie, a historical movie. I’m looking forward to it

Do you think this sex addiction is really something of our period?

It’s everywhere, but nobody reports on it. There are so many fat people because there is so

much food around.  Sex is like food, you just don’t get fat so nobody

can see your addiction. People also eat or have sex to stimulate themselves in an unhappy situation.

As an artist, do you feel a need to expose to that kind of exuberance in our society?

I would have loved to say yes, but I’m not like that, I’m rather boring. I love to see the result, but the work behind the movie is not sexy. Also walking over the red carpet is not my thing, it’s more a thing for Michael, he’s a rock star.

The objects, the house and also the clothes are kind of masks of the characters, a defense. How did you choose them?

I chose them together with Jimmy Becker who is the art designer. I think contemporary movies are more difficult to design then historical movies. In contemporary movies, you have so many choices.

Do you feel connected to other artists who are now becoming filmmakers, like Julian Schnabel or Pippilotti Rist? Is there a kind of trend going on?

Journalists would like to write about those things. They are artists and that’s about it. I don’t even know them. Artists don’t think about trends, they just experiment and just do what they want.

What’s the difference between making art and movies?

Filmmaking is another language, it’s about storytelling and that’s what I like about it. Everyone can tell a story, that’s amazing.

04:09:2011