ReFocus : the Films of Steve Mcqueen / edited by Thomas Austin.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Austin, Thomas, editor.

Series:

Refocus.

ReFocus

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Motion picture actors and actresses--United States--Biography.

Motion picture actors and actresses.

McQueen, Steve, 1930-1980.

McQueen, Steve.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (288 p.) : 17 B/W illustrations 17 b&w images

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Edinburgh, Scotland : Edinburgh University Press Ltd, [2023]

Language Note:

In English.

Summary:

Explores British director Steve McQueen's diverse output, from video installations to independent cinema to Hollywood to the BBCThe first full book-length study of McQueen to be published in EnglishInvestigates the landmark television series Small Axe, in addition to his Hollywood films (Widows, 12 Years A Slave), independent titles (Shame, Hunger) and gallery installationsDraws on multiple methods to explore this wide body of work, including political contextualisation, textual analysis, institutional studies and intertextual comparisonsWorking across a range of formats, from video art and gallery installations to independent cinema to Hollywood to the BBC, Steve McQueen's prodigious output has been marked by formal ambition and political urgency.This vital collection interrogates his body of work, its political, aesthetic and institutional dimensions, and the interfaces between them. It offers critical insights into McQueen's engagements with race, gender, the body, love and pain, and his abiding self-reflexive interest in the potential of multiple audio-visual forms. The first director to win both the Turner Prize and an Oscar for best picture, McQueen is probably the most important working British film maker. This book explores the controversies as well as the achievements in his stellar career so far.

Contents:

Intro

List of Figures

Notes on Contributors

Acknowledgements

Introduction: Why Steve McQueen Matters

Part 1

1 From Exodus to Small Axe: Steve McQueen's Filmic World of Two Halves

2 Surplus Liveness and Black Male Performance in Girls, Tricky

3 Eye Witness: Memorialising Humanity in Steve McQueen's Hunger

4 Shame and the City: Subverting Neoliberal, New York Singleton Culture in Shame

5 If it is to be done, how?: Considering a Robeson Biopic

6 The Slave Narrative and Filmic Aesthetics: Steve McQueen, Solomon Northup and Colonial Violence

7 Working for/working with/working against - Widows and the Politics and Poetics of Genre

Part 2

8 Is Small Axe Cinema or Television and does it Matter? Discourses of Authorship and Production in the Publicity for Small Axe

9 Small Axe and/as Cinematic Television

10 Love in a Cold Climate: Lovers Rock

11 A Different Kind of Dread: Dub, Ecstasy and Collective Memory in Lovers Rock

12 The Burden of Expectation: Where are the Women in Steve McQueen's Small Axe Films?

13 Boy with Flag and Black British Experience in Handsworth Songs and Red, White and Blue

14 Small Axe is a Start: An interview with Bernard Coard

Films and Television Programmes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Nov 2023)

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

1-3995-1095-9