ReFocus: The Films of Steve McQueen
Published on 29. August 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
240 pages
978-1-3995-1094-3 (ISBN)
Description
Working 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.
Reviews / Votes
This book shines a spotlight on the visual brilliance of Steve McQueen's films. Backed by original research that blends textual analysis with socio-cultural exploration, each chapter offers insights into how McQueen has navigated diverse mediums, aesthetics, and politics. A primary reference point for those interested in the significance of McQueen in contemporary art and culture. -- Sarita Malik, Brunel University LondonMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
17 black and white illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 233 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 14 mm
Weight
354 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-3995-1094-3 (9781399510943)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Thomas Austin is Professor of Film Studies at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the editor of ReFocus: The Films of Steve McQueen (2023); and co-editor of Cinema of Crisis: Film and Contemporary Europe (2020).
Content
Introduction: Why Steve McQueen matters - Thomas Austin
Part One
1. From Exodus to Small Axe: Steve McQueen's filmic world of two halves - Elisabetta Fabrizi
2. Interrogating surplus liveness: Girls, Tricky - James Harvey
3. Eye witness: memorialising humanity in Steve McQueen's Hunger - Eugene McNamee
4. Shame and the City: Subverting neoliberal, New York singleton culture in Shame - Niall Richardson
5. If it is to be done, how: considering a Robeson biopic - Shana Redmond
6. The Slave narrative and filmic aesthetics: Steve McQueen, Solomon Northup, and colonial violence - Philip Kaisary
7. Working for / working with / working against: Widows and the politics and poetics of genre - Matthias Grotkopp
Part Two
8. Is Small Axe cinema or television and does it matter? Discourses of authorship and production in the publicity for Small Axe - Christine Geraghty
9. Small Axe and / as cinematic television - Hannah Andrews
10. Love in a cold climate: Lovers Rock - Thomas Austin
11. Dub, ecstasy and collective memory in Lovers Rock - Kwame Philips
12. The Burden of expectation: where are the women in Steve McQueen's Small Axe films? - Patricia Francis
13. Boy with Flag and Black British experience in Handsworth Songs and Red, White and Blue - Thomas Austin
14. Small Axe is a start: an interview with Bernard Coard
Part One
1. From Exodus to Small Axe: Steve McQueen's filmic world of two halves - Elisabetta Fabrizi
2. Interrogating surplus liveness: Girls, Tricky - James Harvey
3. Eye witness: memorialising humanity in Steve McQueen's Hunger - Eugene McNamee
4. Shame and the City: Subverting neoliberal, New York singleton culture in Shame - Niall Richardson
5. If it is to be done, how: considering a Robeson biopic - Shana Redmond
6. The Slave narrative and filmic aesthetics: Steve McQueen, Solomon Northup, and colonial violence - Philip Kaisary
7. Working for / working with / working against: Widows and the politics and poetics of genre - Matthias Grotkopp
Part Two
8. Is Small Axe cinema or television and does it matter? Discourses of authorship and production in the publicity for Small Axe - Christine Geraghty
9. Small Axe and / as cinematic television - Hannah Andrews
10. Love in a cold climate: Lovers Rock - Thomas Austin
11. Dub, ecstasy and collective memory in Lovers Rock - Kwame Philips
12. The Burden of expectation: where are the women in Steve McQueen's Small Axe films? - Patricia Francis
13. Boy with Flag and Black British experience in Handsworth Songs and Red, White and Blue - Thomas Austin
14. Small Axe is a start: an interview with Bernard Coard