"I didn't do this to be provocative," he said in a Toronto hotel room Tuesday. "They say Michael is naked. Half the people in the audience have what he has, and 99% percent of the audience has seen what he has. It's the most un-shocking thing you can think of. And yet someone picks up a gun and blows someone's head off and that's normal."

He added, "What I want to do in cinema is hold up a mirror to how people are."

With what he calls the "prevalence" of sex in both the film and in the culture at large, McQueen said he believed "Shame" had a certain timeliness. "The movie is so now. But it still could have been anything -- it could have been gambling and it could have been an alcohol addiction."

For all its explicit content, “Shame” is far from an exploitation piece. The BAFTA-winning McQueen is prone to long takes and longer silences, and puts meticulous effort into composing each shot, which is no doubt part of the reason audiences are discussing it as intensely as they are.

Of the many bold flourishes in his film, McQueen said the silences were of particular importance to him. "It tells so much more than some ridiculous conversation," he said. "People talk all the time and nobody says anything. You can say a lot more with silence."