Steve McQueen is sitting on the grounds of Venice's Excelsior Hotel, discussing the death of cinema.
'We're losing audiences,' says the British artist-cum-filmmaker. 'If we want to make films that young people will go and see, if we want cinema to be like rock'n'roll, and we're making costume dramas, then what's the point?'
Growing up as a black kid in West London, Merchant-Ivory films were never high on his list of must-see movies. 'Kids aren't going to watch a period drama, are they?'
True, although it's hard to know exactly how many 'kids' went to see his 2008 debut, Hunger - a highly disturbing look at Bobby Sands, the inmate at the Maze Prison who made the ultimate sacrifice for his cause, the Irish Republican Army. Or how many will catch his new film, Shame, a searing study of a sex addict in New York. Although the namesake of a Hollywood anti-hero, McQueen doesn't make bubblegum cinema for multiplex crowds. His films are adult, not adolescent.
Written by Abi Morgan (who recently penned The Iron Lady about former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher), Shame is driven by the titanic performance of its star, Michael Fassbender, who played Sands in Hunger.
The Irish-German actor has deservedly won a clutch of awards for his soul-baring work as Brandon, a Manhattan high-flier barely able to keep a lid on his libido as he ploughs through internet porn, prostitutes and one-night stands. While Fassbender brilliantly essays his character's meltdown as he staggers from one meaningless sexual encounter to the next, the film, to its credit, never ridicules his affliction.