Charlotte Rampling and Steve McQueen are two important and quite significant figures in art. They are united by a quality that can be called rare in the modern world – the ability to work with silence, body and time in such a way that the viewer feels like a participant, not just an observer. Steve McQueen introduces the public to his unique work, which is considered a short experimental video art piece called Charlotte from 2004. In this review, you can get to know in more detail such significant figures as Charlotte Rampling and Steve McQueen, considering the features of the created work.
British Actress Charlotte Rampling
Charlotte Rampling is called a true icon of European auteur cinema. The British actress was born in 1946. She has worked with such renowned directors as Visconti, Liliana Cavani, François Ozon, and Luca Guadagnino. She was often offered to play the roles of vulnerable, cold, uncomfortable women, as well as women with complex characters.
The actress’s fame is connected with her mastery of immersing herself in the proposed role. Her strength lies in her gaze, sustained pause, silence that speaks volumes.
Rampling is not a “star” in the Hollywood sense. Despite this, she is often called a true symbol of intellectual, adult cinema, where internal tension takes first place, not plot twists. Charlotte is called an actress who allows “the camera to look too long.”
British Artist and Film Director Steve McQueen
Steve McQueen is an Oscar winner. The contemporary filmmaker was born in 1969 and took his first steps in the role of video artist, using all the possibilities of galleries, museums and installations. This is the very director who made such popular films as “Hunger,” “Shame,” and “12 Years a Slave.”
In his works, the main themes are called:
- the human body;
- pain;
- power;
- dependence;
- history;
- violence.
In the process of working, McQueen considers cinema as a full-fledged museum object with long takes, a minimum amount of explanations, with active physical impact on each viewer. For this reason, his films are not intended for entertainment, they are aimed at testing the viewer’s emotions.
Charlotte Rampling and Steve McQueen – What These Figures Have in Common
Charlotte Rampling is an actress of the gaze, whose face is called a “space” where complex and very often painful internal processes unfold. She doesn’t waste time explaining expressed emotions – she only masterfully sustains them. The camera doesn’t intrude into her “field,” it lingers on her face, and therefore the viewer can feel all the awkwardness, tension, even feel fear or a certain desire. This is called unique acting presence, which is built on the following components:
- resistance to cliché;
- resistance to age;
- resistance to expectations.
Steve McQueen works in a similar way – both in cinema and in visual art. He demonstrates genuine interest not in a specific event, but in a certain state – this can be a physical, psychological or even historical state. In his films, the body turns into a carrier of memory and pain, and time becomes the main instrument of pressure. The director does everything possible to make the viewer continue watching his masterpiece much longer than it will be comfortable for them. After all, it is precisely in such prolongation that meaning is born.
Rampling and McQueen are consonant, their worlds are very similar to each other. They reject any decorativeness, they choose pause instead of a thousand dialogues, they use vulnerability as a completely new form of strength. In their unique aesthetics, there are absolutely no attempts to somehow soften reality. They invite the viewer to learn to cope with such reality, enduring it without additional protective filters.
Charlotte (2004) – McQueen’s Art Video
Charlotte (2004) is a 6mm film/video installation that captures Charlotte Rampling’s eye in close-up in intense red lighting. McQueen slowly and smoothly brings his finger closer to her eye, lightly touching it at the end.
The presented work allows one to clearly trace the act of looking, people’s relationship to visual perception. At the same time, the image is maximally tactile, physically palpable.
This is not a portrait, not a painting and not a photograph, but a powerful art object. It can be seen in various galleries, museums, as well as at organized video exhibitions of the famous artist.
It’s important to understand the deep meaning, the main essence of the picture. This work is not about Rampling as an “actress” and not about McQueen as the “author” of the video. It’s about the act of looking and the boundary between the viewer and the body.
Here several key levels are presented at once, which are characteristic of the author’s works:
- Vulnerability, which is presented in the form of an eye – after all, this is the most unprotected human organ.
- Power – who exactly controls the entire situation. This can be the one who looks, or the one who is being looked at.
- Trust – Rampling in the frame doesn’t blink, doesn’t pull away from the finger approaching her.
- Discomfort – it’s very difficult for the viewer to endure this tense moment.
In such work, McQueen seems to strive to test: how long can one look before it becomes unbearable.
Charlotte is called one of the most significant works of the director’s early period. After all, in this picture there is already everything that will later gradually appear in his cinema: extended time, physical impact, the theme of body and boundaries, refusal of usual comfort. McQueen didn’t “depict” Charlotte Rampling – he placed the viewer between her eye and his finger.