Steve McQueen: Interviews is the first collection of conversations with the acclaimed filmmaker, and one that spans his career to date. Included are McQueen’s discussions with artists, critics, curators, and public intellectuals such as Donna De Salvo, Paul Gilroy, David Olusoga, Tricky, and Cornel West. In these conversations, McQueen (b. 1969) discusses some of his preoccupations and recurring themes throughout his oeuvre including nationalism, martyrdom, and violence; obsession and desire; and the intertwined histories of racism, surveillance, and carceral politics. Most interestingly, he also discusses his love for his fellow artists, past and present, including Miles Davis, Jean-Luc Godard, Prince, Yvonne Rainer, Paul Robeson, Jean Vigo, and Andy Warhol.
McQueen is one of the most celebrated British filmmakers of his generation, an artist as committed to avant-garde film and lyric forms of documentary as he is to producing landmark historical dramas. A deeply humane artist with a clear ethical drive, McQueen nevertheless explores the sublime sense of scale that cinema affords its viewers in his films.
While he remains best known for his feature film 12 Years a Slave—winner of three Academy Awards including Best Picture—McQueen has been a fixture of major contemporary museum and gallery exhibitions for decades, beginning with the short experimental works that garnered him the prestigious Turner Prize in 1999. His acclaimed installations include the diptychs Caribs’ Leap/Western Deep and Gravesend/Unexploded, works that interrogate film form as they challenge documentary norms, not unlike his recent four-and-half-hour epic Occupied City that investigates the Nazi occupation of Amsterdam.
Edited by:
Geoffrey Lokke
Imprint: University Press of Mississippi
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 152mm,
ISBN: 9781496858818
ISBN 10: 1496858816
Series: Conversations with Filmmakers Series
Pages: 216
Publication Date: 15 September 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Introduction Chronology Filmography Buster Keaton Routines as Art Installations? Don’t Laugh . . . Jonathan Jones / 1999 Driven to Abstraction: Steve McQueen Sabine Durrant / 1999 Interview Transcript: Tricky Steve McQueen / 2001 Interview with Steve McQueen Hans Ulrich Obrist and Angeline Scherf / 2002 Life in Film: Steve McQueen Steve McQueen / 2007 Steve McQueen, Director: Intimacy and Distance Fabien Lemercier / 2008 Steve McQueen on Film Armelle Leturcq / 2008 You Use Your Body to Die: An Interview with Steve McQueen Zachary Wigon / 2009 Steve McQueen: Q&A with the Director of Hunger Chris Tinkham / 2009 The Human Body as Political Weapon: An Interview with Steve McQueen Gary Crowdus / 2009 Sex Addiction and the City: Steve McQueen on Shame Jamie Dunn / 2012 Interview: Director Steve McQueen on 12 Years a Slave Matthew Toomey / 2014 Steve McQueen and Donna De Salvo in Conversation Donna De Salvo / 2016 Steve McQueen and Dr. Cornel West on Paul Robeson, Art, and Politics Cornel West / 2016 Steve McQueen on Widows, Viola Davis, the Politics of Chicago, and More Gregory Ellwood / 2018 Interview: Steve McQueen Q&A Simon Grant / 2019 Every Story Has Already Been Told: Steve McQueen Interview and Portfolio William J. Simmons / 2020 Transcript: In Conversation with Steve McQueen Paul Gilroy / 2020 ""These Are the Untold Stories that Make up Our Nation"": Steve McQueen on Small Axe David Olusoga / 2020 ""Sometimes the Present Erases the Past, and Sometimes the Past Erases the Present"": Steve McQueen on His Cannes-Premiering Occupied City Nicolas Rapold / 2023 Interview with Steve McQueen and Bianca Stigter about Their Documentary Occupied City Susan Kouguell / 2023 Additional Resources Index
Geoffrey Lokke is a PhD candidate in theatre and performance at Columbia University. His work has appeared in such publications as PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, TDR: The Drama Review, and Textual Cultures. He is editor of Gaspar Noé: Interviews, published by University Press of Mississippi.
