Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)

[jbeall]

I wonder if anybody's planning on seeing Steve McQueen's newest (starring Michael Fassbender, of course) film about pornography addiction. Andrew O'Hehir writes about it after seeing it at the Toronto Int'l Film Festival.

[knives]

Well you just killed all interest I had in this. I can't imagine any film centered around 'pornography addiction' can be taken seriously.

[domino harvey]

The character has a sex addiction, not a pornography addiction, no?

[Professor Wagstaff]

Sex addiction from everything I've heard. The O'Hehir article seems to confirm that.

[Matt]

Discussion of whether or not sex addiction is a real addiction has been moved here, where all the licensed psychologists, social workers, and medical experts are giving their highly informed opinions.

[chizbooga]

"Hunger". "Shame". Honestly, what's McQueen's next movie going to be, "Scenes from a Marriage"? "The Emigrants"?

[Brian C]

"Silence"

[What A Disgrace]

I am curious about the next Steve McQueen title.

[tajmahal]

I am curious about the next Steve McQueen title.

It has to be the sequal to Hunger - The Seventh Meal

[hearthesilence]

In all seriousness, his next film is called 12 Years a Slave, about the life of Solomon Northrup.

[knives]

Does that make him the British Edward Zwick? (I really should keep the insults to a minimum until I see at least three of his works)

[Professor Wagstaff]

UK Trailer

[Finch]

working link

[mfunk9786]

I was pretty bowled over by this one - if the Academy Awards had any guts, they'd find a lot of this year's winners right here. When faced with a very different canvas than the grimy and constrictive prison in Hunger, Steve McQueen finds a John Cassavetes-meets-Paul Thomas Anderson groove and runs further with it than anyone could have ever anticipated. He manages extremely impressive long takes here, both moving and static, and draws the viewer in with a clinical presentation that increasingly lets in more room for emotion as the film moves along. Michael Fassbender is as incredible as ever (it's really becoming redundant to point out that his performances in everything leave no room for error) as a man who has found a groove in his solitary life that requires him to be shut off from everyone he knows. As the film progresses and the cracks in his facade begin to show (his disintegration sped along by the arrival of his nomadic sister, played by Carey Mulligan with a whole other side of her typically precious persona), McQueen focuses on internal emotion where other directors might require showy script flourishes. McQueen can tell the story with his camera, and the film never has the feeling of one that's losing confidence, even as time is winding down and a lesser picture would fling twists all over the place. This is an all-grown-up American Psycho that doesn't need high school creative writing class metaphors, weak 'satire,' and shock value. McQueen manages to shock his audience by finding the painful truth that lies within his characters like a Sherlock Holmes of modern urban misery - his camera is his Watson.

And oh, those long takes!

[Matt]

Discussion of the film's NC-17 rating has been moved here.

[rs98762001]

This starts off strongly, with McQueen in complete control of his material, allowing Fassbender's mostly silent face to tell his story. Mulligan is surprisingly adept in a very different sort of role, and her scenes with Fassbender are thrillingly raw and real. Sadly, this runs out of steam around the hour mark, and the last twenty minutes are shockingly banal. The journey is fascinating, the destination obvious, with McQueen reduced to

SpoilerShow

a completely predictable suicide attempt, and, worse, Fassbender falling to his knees and breaking down in tears during a rainstorm, which is the equally insipid male equivalent of woman-collapsing-and-crying-in-the-shower.

Indeed a Shame.

[hearthesilence]

Regarding

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suicide

, I've been bothered by how many films I've seen in the past year that feature it.

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I may be more sensitive to it since an acquaintance of mine died about a year ago from a deliberate overdose of sleeping pills, but lately, it feels like every other film I see has a character who contemplates or tries suicide. It's become too much of a 'serious' film cliché, to the point where it feels rote and empty when in real life, it clearly isn't. I keep seeing the problem from one of two angles, depending on the film. Has it become too common of an assumption that a character dealing with an ongoing struggle will ultimately try to end their own life? Or does the writer/filmmaker really understand how or why some individuals arrive at that decision in real life?

[knives]

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I'm going to agree with you (though I think it was handled perfectly in Melancholia). Suicide has definitely become a cliche in films about suffering and the way it's usually set up gives a rote feeling (I haven't seen Shame yet, so I don't know if I would perceive it as similarly tired). It seems to be now a part of how you write a story of this sort now to the point it really doesn't have the power it should. The worst thing is von Trier aside nobody seems to recognize it as cliche at the point so it's always set up as this big shock that doesn't succeed.

[JeanRZEJ]

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...which is why the first two films of Mia Hansen-Love are so refreshing. Life is all that is important.

[mfunk9786]

To be fair, it's hard to comment on what is or isn't a cliche if you haven't seen the film, knives.

[knives]

I was referring to other films. A cliche has to appear a lot for it to be considered such after all.

[mfunk9786]

Right, but... but! Just see this movie before you pass judgement on it. It's really a well-made piece of work, even though you've taken issue now with both the spoiler you read and the idea that it's about sex/pornography addiction. Yes, I'm gonna be the guy annoyingly flying the Shame flag on this forum, nice to meet everyone. You may remember me from such threads as Black Swan and Melancholia.

[knives]

I've tried to as best as I can not pass judgment on it (that trailer makes it really hard though) and if I can snag a date I'll likely check it out whenever it comes around.

[mfunk9786]

I'll be your date if we can go to the Stone World Bistro & Gardens afterwards

[knives]

I don't even know what that is.