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.

Revisited: Steve McQueen Discusses the Politics of the Body in "Hunger"

A complete unknown in the film a few years ago, Steve McQueen has become an art house and festival favorite with only two films. This week sees the release of his highly anticipated film, Shame, which stars Michael Fassbender as a sex addict in New York. The film (reviewed at the New York Film Festival here) marks the second collaboration between the director and actor. Their first film, Hunger, debuted in 2008 to critical raves and won Mr. McQueen the Camera D’Or at the Cannes Film Festival for best debut feature. Below is a piece on Mr. McQueen written during the film’s US release in March 2009. Hunger is available on DVD from the Criterion Collection, and I highly recommend it to anyone compelled about Shame.

Despite a similar name, director Steve McQueen is not the same one who rode the motorcycle in The Great Escape. The Black British artist has been working in visual arts for many years, but Hunger, a devastating and brutal film about the 1981 Irish Republican Army Hunger strikes led by Bobby Sands, is his first feature film. Lunged over in his chair with an astute pair of glasses, Mr. McQueen spoke sternly at the Meatpacking District Hotel where we met, occasionally sipping on a fresh tea and taking long pauses before every answer. Mr. McQueen explained that this was a story he needed to tell, “Young people talk about Abu Grahib and Guantanamo but don’t even know what happened in their own backyard 27 years ago.”

            Hunger is a mostly silent film that tells the story of the people within a prison known in the United Kingdom as “The Maze,” where a number of IRA prisoners participated in a series of dirty protests (no cleaning or shaving) and eventually turned into a hunger strike. The purpose? To regain their status as political prisoners, instead of simply regular criminals.

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.