Shame, which releases in the UK on 13 January, has become one of the most talked about features of recent months. Anticipation has built around the caliber of its leading actors – stars-in-ascendance Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan – not to mention the provocative subject matter, of a man tormented by sex addiction in present-day New York. Just as intriguing however is the reputation of its director Steve McQueen. The acclaimed British artist first made his name in the contemporary art world with his remarkable film installations and fine art photography, and was justly recognized with a Turner Prize win in 1999. It was therefore no surprise when his first foray into feature film-making, a startling account of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands was of equally exemplary form, winning the Camera D’Or prize for best first feature at Cannes Film Festival in 2008.

McQueen’s profile in the global film industry has risen alongside a selection of his peers, those established artists who have made mid-career leaps from the gallery to the cinema. The following article will take a look at the fine art background as a springboard to feature film-making – or indeed, how film-making can often be a natural continuation of artist practice – in a commercial environment that grows increasingly receptive to artist’s film.

Steve McQueen: Content and Form

Established artists who have made mid-career moves from the gallery to the cinema often have to tackle the transition to a completely different set of audiences and industries. London’s ICA, who this month are running a focus on such artists remind us that these transitions are not always successful – Robert Longo, David Salle, and Cindy Sherman never got any further than their first attempts. Nevertheless, an increasingly rewarding trend is emerging of acclaimed British artists – Douglas Gordon, Sam Taylor-Wood, Gillian Wearing – who have successfully transposed their vision from gallery to cinema, spearheaded by Steve McQueen.

For McQueen, the decision to move into feature film-making was not a conscious choice. In his philosophy, the focus is on the idea, rather than one particular medium. As he put it in a recent interview with Little White Lies, “the subject matter tells me what to do. Bobby Sands [the subject of his debut feature, Hunger] was crying out for a narrative, a feature film, same with sex addiction, but other times it doesn’t work that way. The next one might want me to make a sculpture, it might want me to do a print.” In other words, the content decides the form.

Nor does he see film-making as a substantial departure from his previous practice, which has encompassed sculpture, photography and video art. In his own analogy, he likens his progression from artist to film-maker to that of someone who writes poetry going on to write a novel. There is, he points out, a compactness or preciseness about the nucleus of a poem, in comparison to the form of a novel which is much more elongated and linear. We are invited to draw the same conclusions about the structure of his works.

As an artist McQueen was perhaps best known for his silent, black-and-white film installations such as Bear (1993) and Deadpan (1997), which were characterized by their visual economy and minimalist, anti-narrative approach. In much the same way, Hunger, made for a delicate £1.63m budget in 2008 displays tightly controlled experiments with formal film language and cinematic conventions. Sparing use of dialogue, subtly disorientating camera angles and long, uninterrupted single takes led some commentators to call his film-making architectural, and even sculptural, whilst another critic compared McQueen to Rembrandt in one breath and Tarkovsky in the next.

Still from Hunger

An artist’s mindset is also evident in McQueen’s latest feature, Shame. In an interview with Little White Lies, actress Carey Mulligan discussed his methods: “Steve’s whole approach, with me at least, was that we were artists. He believes in making art – the film is a piece of art. He doesn’t believe in ‘acting’, he believes in people just being real on camera and him capturing it.” She recounts an amusing anecdote to this end when the film’s relatively limited budget (Mulligan admits the film was only financed through the attachment of the increasingly bankable Michael Fassbender) meant that the production could not afford any music rights in a scene in which she was required to sing. Momentarily bewildered at having to improvise a song on the spot, McQueen’s response was: “You’re an artist aren’t you? Make one up!”

Film-making as a continuation of artist’s practice

The tendency to see film-making as a natural continuation of artist practice rather than a radical transition can be traced back to the latter generation of YBA’s, the Young British Artists of the late 1990s who saw film as simply another medium of fine art. A 2009 article in the Guardian drew comparisons between today’s artist film-makers and previous generations of leading British film-makers such as Ridley Scott and Alan Parker, who made the switch to feature films from the world of advertising. The YBA’s interest in new media and in moving images during the late 1990s created a similar path for them into the world of mainstream cinema.

One of the best known of the YBA alumni to branch into feature film-making is the 1997 Turner Prize nominated artist Sam Taylor-Wood, whose debut feature Nowhere Boy was released in 2009 to widespread critical and commercial success. Supported by the UK Film Council and Film4, the film’s relatively large budget – £13m – perhaps owed much to her existing high profile video art and photography work, including her 2004 Crying Men series which featured many of Hollywood’s glitterati crying, including Robin Williams, Sean Penn, Laurence Fishburne, and Paul Newman. A much lauded short film, Love You More, premiered at Cannes in 2008 providing further groundwork for a directorial career.

Further evidence of experimentations with film form in the art world as a precursor to feature film-making is evidenced in the work of Gillian Wearing, the Turner Prize winner for 1998. Her debut feature Self-Made (2010) in which members of the public divulge their innermost secrets via method-acting workshops is a clear continuation of the ‘editing life’ approach developed in her early photography and film installations. Elsewhere, the Turner Prize winning artist Douglas Gordon premiered a critically acclaimed football film Zidane, A 21st Century Portrait at Cannes Film Festival in 2006, whilst contemporary artist Tracey Emin and Turner prize winners Damien Hirst and Wolfgang Tillmans have also made short films.

Artists and the British film industry

The last few years have seen a marked increase in the recognition of artist’s film within mainstream cinema. Whilst arthouse and experimental film-making has always had a home in British cinema through the work of distributors such as Artificial Eye, in 2009 artist’s film was given a vote of confidence by the public sector with a £15m fund from the UK Film Council aimed at promoting more work from first-time feature film directors – particularly those who were already established names in British art galleries. Gillian Wearing’s Self Made was one such recipient of this fund, as well as Clio Barnard’s innovative 2010 documentary The Arbor. Within Film London, the Artist’s Moving Image Network (FLAMIN) supports London-based artists working in moving image in all its forms, and has commissioned works such as Ben River’s award-winning 2011 debut feature Two Years at Sea.

Though now unfortunately defunct, the UKFC’s then chief executive John Woodward said that funding new and second-time film-makers, some from other creative areas, was the best way of “balancing out an increasingly nervous marketplace.” It could also be argued that the freedom film installation gives to artists to experiment, and the nurture contemporary moving image artists receive from the likes of the Turner Prize and the Hayward Gallery results in original, innovative feature film work that provides a refreshing alternative to the sometimes cynical commerce of the British film industry. The warm response to films like Hunger and The Arbor suggests that British audiences welcome such change.

As the global recession continues and public sector belts tighten further, the future of art cinema in the UK is once again thrown into doubt. Commenting on his recent successes in the mainstream film world, Steve McQueen reported that he was “just trying to make the films that have a reason to be made.” One would hope that given the wealth of potential talent available in the form of the UK’s artists and experimental film-makers, British audiences will continue to see the films that have a reason to be seen.

Shame is out on general release from today