Steve McQueen's film Shame leads UK charge to win Golden Lion in Venice
John le Carré's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights also in the running for the top prize
Steve McQueen's film Shame has been nominated for the Golden Lion award at Venice film festival. Photograph: Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images
The Brits arrived at the world's oldest film festival today/ and brought more graphic sex than you can shake a stick at in the shape of artist Steve McQueen's second movie Shame, starring Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan.
The film, McQueen's second after Hunger which dealt with Bobby Sands and the IRA hunger strikes, was enthusiastically received after its first screening in Venice. It leads something of a British charge as one of three UK movies in competition for the festival's top prize, the Golden Lion.
Tomorrow, Andrea Arnold brings her keenly awaited version of Wuthering Heights, while today, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch are in town for a new film version of John le Carré's classic spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, boosted by a statement from Le Carré himself heaping praise on the film by the Swedish director Tomas Alfredson.
Shame tells the story of Brandon, a single thirtysomething man in New York who is addicted to sex in any of its forms as long as it does not involve love or intimacy. His ordered lifestyle is thrown into a sort of chaos with the arrival of his needy sister, played by Mulligan.
McQueen said that after making Hunger, a film about a man with no freedom, he was interested in making a film about a man who had access to anything. "They are both films about politics and freedom," he said.
Neither of the lead actors was shy of getting their clothes off and the film, because of its subject, does contain a mighty lot of sex – whether sex with escorts, internet sex, threesome sex, solo sex in the office toilet, sex in a window of the Standard Hotel or backroom gay sex – much of it accompanied by Bach.
For Fassbender it comes just two days after he was in Venice for the David Cronenberg film A Dangerous Method in which he has sex with and spanks his patient, played by Keira Knightley.
Fassbender said the graphic sex scenes had been uncomfortable to film. He added: "The most important thing is to make sure that everybody involved is comfortable, as much as you can be, and then just kind of go for it so you don't have to do too many takes."
Mulligan is in Australia filming The Great Gatsby with Baz Luhrmann so it was left to McQueen to answer a question on her nudity. "She's an actress," he said. "Who cares? It's not a big deal. She's an artist."
McQueen's first film, Hunger, has not been released in Italy and the director said he understood it was because of the male nudity, so goodness knows what will happen to Shame.
McQueen said he loved his main character. "He's not a bad person. He's a person living now, with all the trappings of now. Of course it shapes you, taints you. As a character I think he's very familiar to all of us."
The film was written by McQueen and Abi Morgan, whose series The Hour recently finished on BBC1. They interviewed many men who have this kind of addiction, they said, and the word that kept coming up time and again was shame – hence the title.
The film contains some impressive acting and a memorable rendition of New York, New York from Mulligan. "For me it's a very sad song, very much blues," said McQueen. "It was an extraordinarily emotional day when we recorded that. It was amazing."
It is very much a British film, co-produced by Film Four with money from the defunct UK Film Council. Asked why it is set in New York with American characters, McQueen said it felt right as a 24-hour city of both "excess and access".
The film was enthusiastically applauded at its first screening on the Venice Lido.
For many, the remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy means just one thing: heresy, given the celebrated 1979 TV series starring Alec Guinness.
In a statement, Le Carré said he had felt much the same way. "The television series had needed seven episodes," he said. "And slice it how you will, television drama is still radio with pictures, whereas feature film these days barely talks at all."
But, he said: "My anxieties were misplaced. Alfredson has delivered a film that for me works superbly, and takes me back into byways of the novel and its characters that the series of 32 years ago didn't enter."
The writer was also full of praise for Oldman's George Smiley, who evokes the same "solitude, inwardness, pain and intelligence" that Guinness brought to the part, but Le Carré added: "If I were to meet the Smiley of Alec Guinness on a dark night, my instinct would be to go to his protection. If I met Oldman's, I think I just might make a run for it."
There is something of a buzz for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, whereas with Arnold's Wuthering Heights, no one knows quite what to expect. Arnold has made two acclaimed contemporary dramas, Red Road and Fish Tank, so there is a lot of interest in seeing her adapt Emily Brontë's classic novel.
If any of the three do win on Saturday they will be only the second British film in 20 years to win the Golden Lion, with Mike Leigh's Vera Drake taking the prize in 2004. Other films in contention are Todd Solondz's Dark Horse and Roman Polanski's middle-class angst drama Carnage
The film, McQueen's second after Hunger which dealt with Bobby Sands and the IRA hunger strikes, was enthusiastically received after its first screening in Venice. It leads something of a British charge as one of three UK movies in competition for the festival's top prize, the Golden Lion.
Tomorrow, Andrea Arnold brings her keenly awaited version of Wuthering Heights, while today, Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch are in town for a new film version of John le Carré's classic spy novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, boosted by a statement from Le Carré himself heaping praise on the film by the Swedish director Tomas Alfredson.
Shame tells the story of Brandon, a single thirtysomething man in New York who is addicted to sex in any of its forms as long as it does not involve love or intimacy. His ordered lifestyle is thrown into a sort of chaos with the arrival of his needy sister, played by Mulligan.
McQueen said that after making Hunger, a film about a man with no freedom, he was interested in making a film about a man who had access to anything. "They are both films about politics and freedom," he said.
Neither of the lead actors was shy of getting their clothes off and the film, because of its subject, does contain a mighty lot of sex – whether sex with escorts, internet sex, threesome sex, solo sex in the office toilet, sex in a window of the Standard Hotel or backroom gay sex – much of it accompanied by Bach.
For Fassbender it comes just two days after he was in Venice for the David Cronenberg film A Dangerous Method in which he has sex with and spanks his patient, played by Keira Knightley.
Fassbender said the graphic sex scenes had been uncomfortable to film. He added: "The most important thing is to make sure that everybody involved is comfortable, as much as you can be, and then just kind of go for it so you don't have to do too many takes."
Mulligan is in Australia filming The Great Gatsby with Baz Luhrmann so it was left to McQueen to answer a question on her nudity. "She's an actress," he said. "Who cares? It's not a big deal. She's an artist."
McQueen's first film, Hunger, has not been released in Italy and the director said he understood it was because of the male nudity, so goodness knows what will happen to Shame.
McQueen said he loved his main character. "He's not a bad person. He's a person living now, with all the trappings of now. Of course it shapes you, taints you. As a character I think he's very familiar to all of us."
The film was written by McQueen and Abi Morgan, whose series The Hour recently finished on BBC1. They interviewed many men who have this kind of addiction, they said, and the word that kept coming up time and again was shame – hence the title.
The film contains some impressive acting and a memorable rendition of New York, New York from Mulligan. "For me it's a very sad song, very much blues," said McQueen. "It was an extraordinarily emotional day when we recorded that. It was amazing."
It is very much a British film, co-produced by Film Four with money from the defunct UK Film Council. Asked why it is set in New York with American characters, McQueen said it felt right as a 24-hour city of both "excess and access".
The film was enthusiastically applauded at its first screening on the Venice Lido.
For many, the remake of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy means just one thing: heresy, given the celebrated 1979 TV series starring Alec Guinness.
In a statement, Le Carré said he had felt much the same way. "The television series had needed seven episodes," he said. "And slice it how you will, television drama is still radio with pictures, whereas feature film these days barely talks at all."
But, he said: "My anxieties were misplaced. Alfredson has delivered a film that for me works superbly, and takes me back into byways of the novel and its characters that the series of 32 years ago didn't enter."
The writer was also full of praise for Oldman's George Smiley, who evokes the same "solitude, inwardness, pain and intelligence" that Guinness brought to the part, but Le Carré added: "If I were to meet the Smiley of Alec Guinness on a dark night, my instinct would be to go to his protection. If I met Oldman's, I think I just might make a run for it."
There is something of a buzz for Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, whereas with Arnold's Wuthering Heights, no one knows quite what to expect. Arnold has made two acclaimed contemporary dramas, Red Road and Fish Tank, so there is a lot of interest in seeing her adapt Emily Brontë's classic novel.
If any of the three do win on Saturday they will be only the second British film in 20 years to win the Golden Lion, with Mike Leigh's Vera Drake taking the prize in 2004. Other films in contention are Todd Solondz's Dark Horse and Roman Polanski's middle-class angst drama Carnage
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