I am slowly becoming obsessed with Steve McQueen. He is pretty cool. I’ve been reading about him here and here. I still don’t really feel like seeing his first two features “Shame” and “Hunger” (they both seem way too indulgent and melodramatic for me), but “12 Years a Slave” is a work of art. I cannot recommend it enough. In one of the interviews, he mentions location scouting in Louisiana and running into Quentin Tarantino, who was in town filming “Django Unchained,” who says “I hope there is room for more than one movie on slavery.” When asked about Tarantino’s film, McQueen answers “you know, it brings attention to the issues and hires actors who normally wouldn’t work, so I can’t knock it” — which means, he does have some issue with it, and I want him to email and tell me what it is. I want to know!!!!
He talks about visiting the tree where he stages a lynching scene. It is a tree where African Americans were actually lynched, so he talks about asking permission from the spirits there to film, and all his stories just seem so wild.