Shame: Man Seeks Woman, and a Whole Lot More

Shame

Directed By: Steve McQueen

Written By: Abi Morgan and Steve McQueen

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Carey Muligan, James Badge Dale, Nicole Beharie, and Lucy Walters.

Director of Photography: Sean Bobbitt, Editor: Joe Walker, Production Designer: Judy Becker, Original Music: Harry Escott

Rated: NC-17 for graphic sexual content and Michael Fassbender’s Fass-member.

            Shame, the second feature from British artist Steve McQueen, opens on a shot from top down on its main character, Brandon, sprawled naked across his bed. But he only takes up half the frame, the other half highlighting his empty grayish blue sheets. The painterly quality of this image is of course no surprise to those who know Mr. McQueen, a conceptual artist that has only recently moved into filmmaking. But it also highlights the emptiness that surrounds Brandon; in a world where he can have anything, still finds himself longing for something, anything, to fill the void of his life.

            Mr. McQueen’s first film, Hunger, was an audaciously bold and formalistically polarizing debut that followed the British IRA hunger strikes in the late 1970s. Mr. McQueen, uninterested in politics, focused on the control and degradation of the body, and the mental power to command such an organism. It was also the first film to introduce us to Michael Fassbender, who went on to starring roles in Fish Tank, Jane Eyre, A Dangerous Method, and now plays Brandon in Shame. And if Hunger was about the complete control of the body, Shame is about a body that constantly feeds in order to keep the mental state from absolute disaster.

New York Film Festival: Steve McQueen's Shame

Shame

A Film By Steve McQueen

United Kingdom/United States

            Shame, the second feature from British artist Steve McQueen, opens on a shot from top down on its main character, Brandon, sprawled along his bed. But he only takes up half the frame, the other half highlighting his empty grayish blue sheets. The painterly quality of this image is of course no surprise to those who know Mr. McQueen, a conceptual artists that has only recently moved into filmmaking. But it also highlights the emptiness that surrounds Brandon, who, in a world where he can have anything, still finds himself longing for something, anything, to fill the void of his life.

            Mr. McQueen’s first film, Hunger, was an audaciously bold and formalistically polarizing debut that followed the British IRA hunger strikes in the late 1970s. Mr. McQueen, uninterested in politics, focused on the control and degradation of the body, and the mental power to command such an organism. It was also the first film to introduce us to Michael Fassbender, who went on to starring roles in Fish Tank, Jane Eyre, and A Dangerous Method, who plays Brandon in Shame. And if Hunger was about the complete control of the body, Shame is about a body that constantly feeds in order to keep the mental state from absolute disaster.

Drive: Le Getaway

Drive

Directed By: Nicolas Winding Refn

Written By: Hossein Amini, based on the novel by James Sallis

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, Albert Brooks, Oscar Issacs, Christina Hendricks, and Ron Perlman.

Director of Photography: Newton Thomas Sigel, Editor: Matthew Newman, Production Designer: Beth Mickle, Original Music: Cliff Martinez

Rated: R for the type of violence you only see in the movies.

Read an interview with director Nicolas Winding Refn

            In what is probably the most self-conscious moment in Drive, Albert Brooks, playing a Jewish gangster, tells Ryan Gosling, “I was a movie producer in the 80s. Action films, sexy stuff—one critic called them European.” And while Drive is soaked in the visual style of American neo-noir, the world of Miami Vice and To Live and Die in L.A., its sensibilities and emotions feel ripped out of a 1960s Antonioni picture. Here’s a film about a man who must do what he does because it is all that he knows. It’s the type of self-conscious minimalist work that has lofty ambitions on recreating our knowledge of what it means to be an “action film.” But in reaching those lofty goals, Drive has the look of a sleek muscle car that is a beauty to look at, but hollow inside.

            The film is the first American film from director Nicolas Winding Refn, a Danish “auteur” with a knack for making self-conscious deconstructions. Best known for a Kubrikian exploration of violence called Bronson (which launched the career of Tom Hardy), a better vantage point for Drive would be his previous film Valhalla Rising, an ode to Tarkovsky that was a dumb-as-a-doorknob allegory that visually dazzled but offered little insight to its story of a one-eyed Viking. Mr. Winding Refn is a pure genre expert—he understands the little details that make us giggle with delight, like hearing the sounds of the leather gloves gripping the steering wheels. But he’s also too obsessed with his own allegories that Drive seems to offer little but a simple reconstruction. It’s the best action movie you’ll see this year, but it’s ultimate meaning is inauthentic.

'Never Let Me Go' Trailer Proves Adaptation Business Might Not Be Morally Bankrupt

This week, Focus Features posted the trailer for Mark Romanek’s adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro, and they seem to have done a pretty good job. The trailer could come close to giving everything away, but it may have been my strong impressions from reading the novel and seeing all of the crucial scenes, even out of context. For those who know the book, the real question will be if the film follows the tradition of the novel of never truly revealing the truth of the world, but slowly revealing it through accidental bits of dialogue and narration (the wrist-buttons shown in the trailer I think might be too much, and discredit one of my interpretations of the novel). 

Too many trailers these days give away everything (except Chris Nolan’s wondrous looking Inception), so its nice to see something like this trailer, which highlights the strange visual world that Romanek (best known for One Hour Photo, which is good in parts) has created. Also, excellent cast—Carey Mulligan, Kiera Knightly, Sally Hawkins, and my actor to watch, Andrew Garfield, who dazzled me in Red Riding: 1974.

Anyways, the trailer is embedded below. Enjoy!