Back to selection
Steve McQueen’s Latest Film? A (NSFW) Burberry Ad Shot in 70mm
Director Steve McQueen hasn’t made another feature since winning an Academy Award for Best Picture for Twelve Years a Slave in 2014. He had been plugging away on the new HBO series Codes of Conduct, which the pay cable network described as Six Degrees of Separation meets Shame. But despite a cast including Paul Dano, Helena Bonham Carter and Rebecca Hall, HBO scrapped the project after initially giving it a six-episode order.
But McQueen has kept busy with short film projects including All Day, a 9-minute video installation featuring Kanye West. Of course, he’s no stranger to the short film format, having made some 20 short films since he was an art student in the early ’90s, including Bear, Deadpan and Charlotte.
Most recently, in the tradition of other top directors such as Martin Scorsese, David Lynch and Baz Luhrmann, McQueen directed a short in the form of a fragrance commercial. Shot in London and featuring actor and musician Josh Whitehouse and model and actress Amber Anderson, Mr. Burberry (above) marks McQueen’s first commercial.
Though the ad for Burberry’s new fragrance plays it safe with its steamy subject matter, McQueen pushed the creative envelope by opting to shoot the three-minute commercial on 70-millimeter film.
McQueen recently told The Hollywood Reporter that the 70mm medium adds a grandeur to the commercial’s love story. Despite its cinematic influences, however, the ad feels less like Shame and more like Fifty Shades of Grey. Check out the NSFW ad out above and decide for yourself: can you detect McQueen’s directorial vision?
