504 Hunger

[Matt]

Hunger

[img]http://criterion_production.s3.amazonaws.com/release_images/2563/504_box_348x490_w128.jpg[/img]

With Hunger, British filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has turned one of history’s most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience. In Northern Ireland’s Maze prison in 1981, twenty-seven-year-old Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands went on a hunger strike to protest the British government’s refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners, rather than as ordinary criminals. McQueen dramatizes prison existence and Sands’s final days in a way that is purely experiential, even abstract, a succession of images full of both beauty and horror. Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

- New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Steve McQueen (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
- Video interviews with McQueen and actor Michael Fassbender
- A short documentary on the making of Hunger, including interviews with McQueen, Fassbender, actors Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, and Brian Milligan, writer Enda Walsh, and producer Robin Gutch
- “The Provo’s Last Card?” a 1981 episode of the BBC program Panorama, about the causes and effects of the IRA hunger strikes at the Maze prison and the political and civilian reactions across Northern Ireland
- Theatrical trailer
- PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Chris Darke

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[Grand Illusion]

I had the privilege of seeing Hunger last night with a friend of mine. The entire film was so visually arresting that it was hard to take your eyes off of any sequence, especially the 20 minute fixed dialogue at a table. It was mezmerizing in its simplicity. The direction didn't beg for attention, it let the subject matter speak.

I was reading some insight about the film from the awards consideration threads. I know many people either liked the film or resented it for "terrorist sympathy" etc.

My rejection of this film has nothing to do with its supposed sympathies for the IRA. In fact, it's that I don't know enough about the IRA or The Troubles after the film. I feel no wiser nor do I have any lingering questions after the film.

The dichotomies the film presents all feel just too easy. For example, the riot police beat the shit out of naked prisoners, but then there's the lone policeman who feels guilt. In one shot, technically well-composed but with the subtlety of getting hit by a garbage truck, the beating takes place on the left side of the screen while another cop cries on the right side of the screen.

Why is he crying in the middle of this huge scene? Is the guilt that overbearing? Doesn't he realize that if he got caught, he'd probably be ridiculed, kicked off the force, or worse? McQueen constantly ignores character motivation to create heavy-handed images. Another heavy-handed image is a cop being done execution style in front of his mother. Why assassinate a cop in the middle of a crowded building, much less a retirement home? At the very least, the residents would be slow to get out of your way as you made your escape.

The film is unconventional enough that it leaves us something to talk about, but the way it presents itself is not the way the promise is fulfilled by the end of the film. At the beginning, it plays out more as a "this happened" then "that happened." More a procedural or docudrama (without the shaky cam). Conceptually like a United 93 on the IRA hunger strike. But as the film plays out and focuses in on Bobby Sands, Hunger becomes much more conventional, but it hasn't earned any of the emotions it's trying to cull from the audience. Instead, McQueen saddles us with the character's weeping parents and faux-revealing flashbacks.

In addition, as Sands starves to death, a wiser (or more experienced?) director knows the drama is what you don't show. Once again, however, McQueen goes for the mallet on the head approach by showing detailed close-ups of Sands's sores caused by starvation. Really, once is enough. By the time the doctor is applying cream by shoving his fingers in the wound, McQueen's images have ceased to be powerful and are just gross.

I'm as sick of shaky-cam, quick-cut bullshit as anyone else, but I'm afraid that we've reached a point where the long shot has become a de facto signifier of the "art film." The dialogue scene is virtuoso and a truly magnificent moment. High drama, ideas and humans facing off. The cleaning-up shot afterwards is a much-earned respite as well. But the other long shots feel too much like the film is going through the motions as an "art film." There's not much else to say, except that the film, to me, does not feel organic, and I don't feel there are truly any worthwhile ideas presented.

[tavernier]

McQueen constantly ignores character motivation to create heavy-handed images.

Well put.

[Nothing]

I didn't resent the film for "terrorist sympathy" - there are plenty of so-called "terrorists" with whom one can feel sympathy, even some historical elements of the IRA.

I was, however, unimpressed by the film's failure to capture the true character of the IRA in the 70s, depicting them only in dishonest, over-intellectualised, haigiographic terms (of which the dull, overexplanatory, stage-like 'dialogue scene' is the pinnacle). Worse, despite the fervent, simplistic politics of the screenplay, I didn't feel any real personal conviction from McQueen, no clear reason for making the film other than to pose as the 'great artist', to paint pretty pictures in shit, etc. Subsequent reading has bourne this out - McQueen was indeed commissioned to direct the film, after many years of persuasion, having initially turned it down.

The film has certainly taken off over the past few months, due in no small part to the money and influence that Film Four and Icon have been willing to put behind it, as well as the simple-minded nature of most mainstream film critics, who like to have a handle on what a film is 'saying' and 'doing' within twenty minutes of an initial viewing.

For me, this is not what genuine auteur filmmaking is about.

[FerdinandGriffon]

I agree with most of the sentiments expressed above. The film failed for me on nearly every level except that of creating a visceral, gut reaction. Certain scenes are truly unpleasant to watch. Your stomach rumbles and your skin crawls. Which makes this artsy pseudo-political torture porn, but not political and not art.

For all of its carefully composed long takes and leaden pace, the film is blunt and clumsy. I knew I was going to have trouble with it as soon as the close up on the cop's lap scattered with crumbs appeared, a few shots after the film's title. I hate to take pot-shots at long takes and slow pacing, as I feel a lot of truly great films are dismissed as pretentious by the philistines for this very reason, but here they felt artificial, false, and attention seeking. Dramatic lighting set-ups did little to hide the fact that the compositions were lazy and clichéd. The long dialogue sequence was a huge blunder in my eyes. Precisely because it was so static, because it was such a shift in tone from the scenes preceding it, I was soon acutely aware of it's length, of it's technical difficulty for the actors performing in it, of it's ludicrous didactism, of it's arrogance. It was McQueen showing off, playing the peacock, that's all. The police station scene in Melville's Le Doulos is a masterpiece because of it's subtlety, because of the way it flawlessly integrates with and pulls together the rest of the film. Melville moves his camera so skillfully, captivates us so utterly with the brilliant dialogue between Silien and the investigator, that we don't even notice the tour-de-force long take he's just pulled off.

The film is also, for all of it's brutality and violence, pathetically sentimental. The fallback on the traumatic childhood event was insulting to the subject matter and the viewer, and the bedside visits of the boy Sands were at first confusing and later just funny.

Was anyone else amused and a little puzzled by the film's similarities to The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner? I've only read the novella, haven't seen the movie, but I assume they're pretty close. In any case, both Hunger and Loneliness, share the imprisoned, long distance-running protagonist, with flashbacks to training and the woods, and a final victory that is achieved, not by reaching the finishing line, but through inaction, non-action. It seeems like an innapropriate reference to make in such a sombre, ostensibly non-fiction film, but I couldn't help but notice these similarities.

I won't comment much on the politics of the film, as I don't know enough about the actual events and would hate to work purely off the few facts gleaned from a film I did not admire, but i will say that this is not a political film. There is no real conversation, dialogue, interplay of ideas. I don't mean this literally, I mean this cinematically. To paraphrase a certain French director I'm very fond of, there is a difference between a political film and a film about politics. Hunger is most definitely the latter, in other words, propoganda. Even if I'm sympathetic to it's subjects, I have no interest in being manipulated or condescended to. So, Hunger is not acceptable in my eyes. Sands and his fellow prisoners deserve better treatment.

[Lemmy Caution]

Grand Illusion's post above is a very good evaluation of Hunger. I'm also in agreement with FerdinandG. Funny how I also reacted similarly to the napkin crumb shot. After a bit, I glanced down and noted that I didn't like anything about the first 12 minutes of the film.

One of the more insidious aspects of the film was how some of the truly heavy-handed scenes that Grand-I calls out were actually layered upon what I already considered ham-handed moments. For example, the gauntlet of vicious riot police that naked prisoners had to pass through already seemed cliche and like overkill. Then to add one riot policeman, just behind a wall crying, was akin to bludgeoning the viewer. I ignored it, mentally tagging it as a poor idea that should have been edited out.
Similarly, I was already groaning a bit at the prison guard being humanized by bringing flowers to his poor vegetative old Mum. And then that ham-handed cliche gets blasted away by his blunt execution.

There is no subtlety, no character development, and no historical information about the political situation. What we are left with is the almost exclusively physical struggles of living in prison, defiantly not cooperating with prison officials, and being horribly mistreated in prison. An ugly prison drama, interrupted by a long deliberative conversation with a priest.

The only aspect I liked was the use of a few brief clips of speeches by Margaret Thatcher. That effectively and economically called forth the era and gave some indication of the position of the British authorities. It was especially helpful since we learn nothing next to nothing otherwise about the political landscape or the guards who wield the power of gov't. Strangely, the IRA inmates are almost equally anonymous.
Maybe it's called Hunger because the viewer is poorly fed.

[tavernier]

Maybe it's called Hunger because the viewer is poorly fed.

=D>

However, the Evening Standard Awards don't agree.

[Grand Illusion]

There is no subtlety, no character development, and no historical information about the political situation.

Pretty much. I can't understand how people could be mad at the politics of this film. The whole film is about getting special prisoner classification for a subset of prisoners, but never once is that defined, neither the law nor the subset of prisoners.

Does this mean the IRA would get special treatment? If so, why do they deserve it over other prisoners? Or did they, as of the era in the film, have worse rights than regular prisoners? Is this based on their crimes or based on their affiliation or religion or nationality?

It's also possible that their abuse and humiliation is illegal anyway, so their entire quest for special treatment is just another law for the police to ignore. Is it illegal treatment, such as what goes on quietly in prisons all around the world? Or is it legal, like Gitmo? Or is it "legal," such as rendition sites?

I have roughly a thousand more questions. The whole thing seems to be a complicated issue, so McQueen just skirts it entirely.

[Lemmy Caution]

The whole film is about getting special prisoner classification for a subset of prisoners, but never once is that defined, neither the law nor the subset of prisoners.

Does this mean the IRA would get special treatment? If so, why do they deserve it over other prisoners? Or did they, as of the era in the film, have worse rights than regular prisoners? Is this based on their crimes or based on their affiliation or religion or nationality?

It is odd that this is the central issue around which the prisoners are organizing, and yet it's not explained clearly. There are a few brief moments which deal with this though. Most directly, there is a Maggie sound quote* in which she says that there is "no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence, only criminal murder, criminal bombing, criminal violence." And at one point (talking with the priest, I believe), Sands says that there is a war on ... implying that they do not view themselves as ordinary prisoners.

The issue is that the IRA prisoners want to have political prisoner status and thus have different rights than ordinary criminals. This is also alluded to in the opening when the one prisoner at first refuses prison clothing. And towards the end, they get moved into better cells, which they reject. But the whole issue is not clearly defined or explained in the film.

It's disheartening to realize what minimal changes would be needed to transform this into a film about the way any unwelcome minority was treated in prison during less enlightened times (say, hippie drug users in the 60's, or blacks during segregation, or gay neo-nazi Asian biker gangs, or whatever).

It's also possible that their abuse and humiliation is illegal anyway, so their entire quest for special treatment is just another law for the police to ignore. Is it illegal treatment, such as what goes on quietly in prisons all around the world? Or is it legal, like Gitmo? Or is it "legal," such as rendition sites?

Good point. It might do better for the prisoners to organize against illegal beatings and violent mistreatment rather than protesting for special designation. But I assume that they care more about the symbolic/political victory of being recognized as "political prisoners" fighting a war against colonial injustice, and being able to maintain their organizational discipline, rather than merely getting tea and scones in prison.

I have roughly a thousand more questions. The whole thing seems to be a complicated issue, so McQueen just skirts it entirely.

I was left wondering if the normal prison population was subjected to such abuse. And there is also the question of whether their militant defiance of the rules led to such harsh treatment in prison, or whether violent abuse of the political prisoners led to their militant disobedience.

And just this one sentence from Wikipedia bears out what you are saying about the situation being much more complicated than the prison torture porn we get:

In 1981, a number of Provisional IRA and Irish National Liberation Army prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison went on hunger strike to regain the status of political prisoners, which had been revoked five years earlier under the preceding Labour government.

So there were two separate groups of Irish fighters (not just the IRA), and previously they had "enjoyed" some form of political prisoner status under the previous administration.
That is, they were trying to regain rights and a status which had been removed due to political calculation, and not trying to assert new or novel rights. Facts which would certainly strengthen Sands' position.
And the previous special designation had only come in 1972 after hunger strikes.
===================================================
One significant clue that interesting things were happening outside of the film's rigid focus on the physical horrors of prison comes at the very end, when a screen caption tells us that Bobby Sands was elected a Member of Parliament during his hunger strike.
From Wiki I learned that "Special Category Status to all prisoners convicted of terrorist crimes ... had been one of the conditions set by the Provisional IRA when they negotiated a meeting with the British Government to discuss a truce, another being the release of Gerry Adams from internment."
So prisoner status was bound up in the larger questions of truce negotiations between the two sides.

I'd rec that anyone who plans on watching Hunger first at least skim through the Wiki article on the 1981 Irish Hunger Strikes. I think things will make more sense and you'll get more out of the film.

For instance, I thought that during parts of the film the prisoners were naked or covered only in towels as a form of prison abuse and in order to make them more vulnerable. But it seems that it was a deliberate choice by the prisoners to reject prison clothing.
The reasons for the "dirty protest" were also opaque.
======================================================
* Maggie's other famous oversimplification, not used in the film, was "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political."

[Ruby]

I agree some images are forced (the breadcrumbs and the fly) and the jogging story with flashback is trite (the playwright’s touch). However, I’d dispute objections to McQueen’s lack of character development and contextual explanations. I think these lacks are huge benefits.

Films about Ireland are rarely for an Irish audience. They abound in cringe worthy explanations of common knowledge and reduce cultural complexities to universalised structures. It’s a matter of film and audience (and market): should we not concede that filmmakers can, and sometimes should, make films for local audiences eventhough non-locals will have difficulty understanding them?

A film like The Last King of Scotland wasn’t made for Ugandans; it was made for people like me who know nothing of the country or its socio-political history. Why else was a fictional white westerner so central to the film? Hunger, by contrast, was made in Northern Ireland for the very people who grew up with the ‘troubles’. It’s made to make sense to these people especially but people across the British Isles also.

“In addition, as Sands starves to death, a wiser (or more experienced?) director knows the drama is what you don't know.”

Everybody here knows he died - followed by others soon after- and everyone knows that prisoners were beaten and that many guards were murdered. We also know what happened before and after this period. In that sense there is no drama to this film full-stop.

“there is also the question of whether their militant defiance of the rules led to such harsh treatment in prison, or whether violent abuse of the political prisoners led to their militant disobedience.”

I would say the point of the film is to deny this very question - to deny all political questions. Asking who did what first has been a feature of Anglo-Irish relations for centuries and in Northern Ireland it’s a time-bomb question that no film could ever address adequately. Such questions might be resolved in a generalised film narrative but the target audience here would find the outcome fairly dubious if not inflammatory.

Instead of narrative drama or argumentation: McQueen presents the cyclical nature of conflict: how violence begets violence, and hate begets more hate. This isn’t presented to the viewer as a didactic argument but as a visceral deduction. I appreciate that might sound facile but that simple point is usually subsumed by political interests.

This is why I think the dichotomies are so effective: the guilt ridden guard lives in fear of his life and unleashes his frustration on the prisoners. He is murdered by the IRA, which authenticates his fear and violence and that of his colleagues.

Similarly, Sands resents his non-political status within the prison. The beatings he endures increases this resentment and authenticates, for the IRA, the shooting of guards. The film also postulates the inevitable trajectory between naive youths (the new inmate & young guard) and the hardened violent mind-sets of their elder colleagues. There is no character development becuase all the men are cogs in the tit-for-tat rationalisation of the wider conflict.

Also, while the structure is very basic, I think it allowed Walsh and McQueen to subtly introduce very complex matters like the relations between an urban and rural northerner, between the politics in London and the circumstances in Northern Ireland, and between loyalist paramilitaries and the prison system (The sight of the UDA nurse was frightening.)

Most of the other objections display a pretty locked conception of what filmmaking is: I’d love to know what “genuine auteur filmmaking is about”. Also, there’s a difference between narrative cliches and depicting past events - should filmmakers really distort known events to avoid narrative cliches? But this point comes back again to the question of constructing a film for a knowing local audience or a wider film base.

I don’t want to imply that films should be made as social documentaries but Hunger clearly isn’t a narrative drama and shouldn’t be judged as such. For me, it impressively threads the finely drawn lines of a contested history without diminishing the reality for either ‘side.

[Grand Illusion]

“In addition, as Sands starves to death, a wiser (or more experienced?) director knows the drama is what you don't know.”

Everybody here knows he died - followed by others soon after- and everyone knows that prisoners were beaten and that many guards were murdered. We also know what happened before and after this period. In that sense there is no drama to this film full-stop.

If you're going to quote me, please use the quote tag correctly. I said, a wise director "knows the drama is what you don't show." Show. Not "know." Big difference. I'm talking about visual storytelling, and the overuse of extreme imagery, such as the bleeding sores on Sands's back.

There is no character development becuase all the men are cogs in the tit-for-tat rationalisation of the wider conflict.

But halfway through the film, McQueen makes a jarring turn in trying to develop Bobby Sands as a character. We get a huge speech from him, visits from his parents, and flashbacks to his childhood. I reject the assertion that we are given no character development. Instead, the development is cheap, rushed, and rather cliche.

Perhaps if McQueen maintained what you are saying, the film would've worked for me. But, personally, my original post said this film felt inorganic, which is exactly what tacking on a disparate element will feel like.

Most of the other objections display a pretty locked conception of what filmmaking is: I’d love to know what “genuine auteur filmmaking is about”.

Far be it from me to speak for another poster, but I assume he meant filmmaking with a point of view. Political filmmaking, rather than a film that happens to depict an historical political event. I'd at least like something that is stylistically unique, rather than some bastard amalgamation of art film signifiers.

Also, there’s a difference between narrative cliches and depicting past events - should filmmakers really distort known events to avoid narrative cliches?

I would argue exactly the opposite--that McQueen distorts reality to fit into narrative cliche. There are a thousand stories that come from The Troubles and the hunger strike. The one young naive guard (i.e. Rookie Cop, cliche #583) crying off to the side during a beating is but one that McQueen chose to focus on. And if McQueen was avoiding characterization, why then offer a flashback to childhood trauma (cliche #395 1/4) for Sands?

I don’t want to imply that films should be made as social documentaries but Hunger clearly isn’t a narrative drama and shouldn’t be judged as such.

The film is absolutely a narrative drama. It has a beginning, a middle, an end. The unconventional part is that it starts like a docudrama and ends like a biopic.

[Nothing]

Hunger, by contrast, was made in Northern Ireland for the very people who grew up with the ‘troubles’. It’s made to make sense to these people especially but people across the British Isles also.

It was made by Film Four with the intention of making money. Film Four have their offices in central London, near Victoria. Mel Gibson's production company also contributed. Last time I checked, Steve McQueen isn't from Northern Ireland, either.

should we not concede that filmmakers can, and sometimes should, make films for local audiences eventhough non-locals will have difficulty understanding them?

This is deeply patronising. Firstly, I don't think there's any intimation that either myself or most others in this thread failed to understand the film. Secondly, as I just mentioned, the film was intended to make money and, as such, is directly targeting a US audience, who tend to be inherently Irish Republican-leaning in their sympathies - precisely because they are so distanced from the actuality of events! Seeing how most Americans respond to Islamic or Marxist 'terrorism', this is quite an amusing contradiction. Honestly, Hunger fits right in there with Gibson's The Patriot...

Slumdog Millionaire is another example of Film Four (your employers?) targeting the US.

Or, in other words, what you actually mean is that the film appeals to a certain contingent in Northern Ireland who hold strong Irish Republican views. So what?

I would say the point of the film is to deny this very question - to deny all political questions. Asking who did what first has been a feature of Anglo-Irish relations for centuries and in Northern Ireland it’s a time-bomb question that no film could ever address adequately. Such questions might be resolved in a generalised film narrative but the target audience here would find the outcome fairly dubious if not inflammatory.

The film presents Anglo-Unionist atrocity in great detail and at great length and, yet, presents very little IRA violence: only the killing of the 'evil' guard - in reciprocation for his actions in the prison, no less. Therefore, without any greater contextualisation, within the world that Hunger creates, this question has indeed been answered (and in a simplistic / disingenuous manner).

McQueen presents the cyclical nature of conflict: how violence begets violence, and hate begets more hate. This isn’t presented to the viewer as a didactic argument but as a visceral deduction. I appreciate that might sound facile but that simple point is usually subsumed by political interests. This is why I think the dichotomies are so effective: the guilt ridden guard lives in fear of his life and unleashes his frustration on the prisoners. He is murdered by the IRA, which authenticates his fear and violence and that of his colleagues. Similarly, Sands resents his non-political status within the prison. The beatings he endures increases this resentment and authenticates, for the IRA, the shooting of guards. The film also postulates the inevitable trajectory between naive youths (the new inmate & young guard) and the hardened violent mind-sets of their elder colleagues.

But this simply isn't interesting. Further, the way in which McQueen attempts to make this point is crass and unconvincing (eg. the diopter shot of the beating / crying guard).

There is no character development becuase all the men are cogs in the tit-for-tat rationalisation of the wider conflict.

I'm not necessarily looking for the characters to develop, however, given McQueen's intimate approach, I would still like them to be realised with some degree of complexity and rationality (instead of the ridiculous, over-intellectual haigography and sentimentality that he in fact indulges in).

To see the idea you are suggesting above realised with genuine success and artistry, I would suggest you watch Jancso's The Round Up.

Also, while the structure is very basic, I think it allowed Walsh and McQueen to subtly introduce very complex matters like the relations between an urban and rural northerner, between the politics in London and the circumstances in Northern Ireland, and between loyalist paramilitaries and the prison system (The sight of the UDA nurse was frightening.)

So the UDA nurse is frightening and Sands is a martyr - hardly 'complex'... At least you are acknowledging Walsh's ideological input to the proceedings (the writer of the, er, 'wonderful' Disco Pigs...)

I’d love to know what “genuine auteur filmmaking is about”.

I've answered this already. A filmmaker who is willing to invest his (or her) self fully in the material, to bare his feelings and his soul, to convey a convincing and holistic philosphy and outlook (regardless of what that outlook may be). This is what one gets from Bresson, Dreyer, Godard, Antonioni, Greenaway, etc. In a word: CONVICTION.

Not, as is the case here, taking someone else's soapbox, someone else's politics (Walshes) and then sitting outside the entire affair with 'cool detachment'*, painting pretty pictures, literally, in shit. Of course, this attitude stems in general from the UK modern art scene - yet another reason not to support the cinematic annointing of yet another Turner bore.**

* 'cool detachment' has come to be taken as a positive term, ever since it was applied to Kubrick. However, Kubrick's work is driven by a very sharp and finely delineated personal philosophy, of which this presumed detachment is part and parcel (in simplistic terms, he seeks to highlight the 'smallness' of human affairs in the cosmic scheme). I would add that, of Kubrick's later work, A Clockwork Orange is by far the least successful, precisely because there is a conflict between Kubrick's position and the Catholicism of Anthony Burgess that proves impossible to reconcile.

** I must admit, I found Douglas Gordon's Zidane to be incredibly striking and worthwhile, on completely different terms from the ones I am describing above - but then that film functions, to a degree, on the level of artistic documentary, not so far away from Herzog's ecstatic truth. It is crucial that Zidane himself is a complex and inherently engaging individual (imagine the same film starring David Beckham...) - unlike the cartoon martyr-ideologue that Fassbender portrays in Hunger.

[JonathanM]

I've answered this already. A filmmaker who is willing to invest his (or her) self fully in the material, to bare his feelings and his soul, to convey a convincing and holistic philosphy and outlook (regardless of what that outlook may be). This is what one gets from Bresson, Dreyer, Godard, Antonioni, Greenaway, etc. In a word: CONVICTION.

To be fair, I think that one can engage with different topics with conviction but in different ways.

If Hunger was about the troubles as a political problem then I think you'd be quite correct. He tries to sit on the fence by showing the horrors of the dirty protest and the thankless lives of the guards (who are equally victims of the same political system) but because he refuses to really engage with the material, he drops into the same kind of sentimentalism that affects seemingly all films about the troubles.

However, it would also be possible to engage with the material at the level of examining the process of self-denial and self-destruction for a political cause. Not in a partisan or sectarian way but with the troubles purely as a backdrop. I think that the film (particularly the last third dealing with the hunger strikes) edges towards this more focuses area of engagement but never quite makes it.

I don't think the problem is that he lacks conviction in what he believes in, that's a moral failing, what the film displays is a lack of focus, which is an intellectual failing as an auteur.

I would have been much happier with the film if he'd EITHER waded into the troubles and tried to say something substantial about them OR he'd limited himself to the question of self-sacrifice. But by trying to do both I think he reveals his lack of intellectual focus. Either way, I think he'd make a much better DP than a director.


PS : Hello all, first time poster

[Ruby]

I certainly didn’t intend to patronise anyone but I think my point regarding film and audience is valid-or at least merits further investigation. Perhaps it came across as patronising because I illustrated it in terms of a subject I know about. Consider films on the Bosnian conflict: I have seen Bosnian conflict films that rely on but don’t explain local references so I couldn’t make sense of them (their structure and style) in the same way that I could a more generalised -western aimed - film on the same subject. The former category assumed a level of contextual knowledge and so, I assume, the style and structure of the films generate meanings I can’t glean. I would be slow to overly critics these films for this reason.

I’m not saying only people with local knowledge can criticise a film, only that some contextual-audience leeway should be acknowledged.

the film was intended to make money and, as such, is directly targeting a US audience, who tend to be inherently Irish Republican-leaning in their sympathies

This is patronising. Also, the conversation scene takes many digs at the nationalism myth that is foundational to Irish independence - the very Republicanism the US is apparently so sympathetic to. (I could go into this further if you wish).

Last time I checked, Steve McQueen isn't from Northern Ireland, either

Eh, no he is from England and the writer is from the Republic but how does that stop them from making a film directed at/meaningful for the people of Northern Ireland? Also, I said the film was made in Northern Ireland not directed and written by Northern Irish men. The production crew and the actors mostly came from the North.

When I said the UDA nurse was frightening I was referring to the fact that simply seeing those tattooed letters led me to anticipate a certain level of violence which in conjunction with the way McQueen preps the viewer to anticipate violence is frightening. It is frightening NOT because I have any particular antipathy towards UDA men or sympathy for IRA men but because the prospect of a very weak man being beaten by a big man is horrible in itself. (Incidentally, the UDA man doesn’t physically harm Sands at all.)

Also, how can anyone say comparatively little IRA violence is shown thereby making the film sympathetic to Republicans? The savage way in which the IRA men debase and ultimately annihilate their own bodies is repulsively violent. Kissing babies earns sympathy, spreading your own faeces on the walls of a room you eat and sleep in doesn’t. The film doesn’t really go into why they are doing this and so consciously doesn’t play upon any pre-ordained sympathy in terms of the ‘cause’ that led the men to act this way. Not explaining, not offering a perspective is the point of Hunger. This is why the ending is a total cop-out as it implicitly asks how an introspective youth became so radicalised. It is the ending that is highly questionable not the rest of the film.

The film is absolutely a narrative drama. It has a beginning, a middle, an end. The unconventional part is that it starts like a docudrama and ends like a biopic

Two hours of watching a static black screen has a beginning, middle and end but isn’t a narrative drama.

I think JohathonM is right when he says Hunger is about process and I also wouldn’t make any great claims about McQueen as an ‘auteur’ but he certainly has an eye.

I really liked Hunger but I don’t work for Film4 and I’m not a former terrorist - but I would say that wouldn’t I...

More generally, I don’t agree with either Grand Illusion’s or Nothing’s definition of “genuine auteur film making”: I think my post adequately covered why depicting events was preferable to adopting a political point of view on those events. If you want political conviction attend a Sinn Fein or DUP party conference. If you want a philosophical argument on history and politics read Rosseau or Marx. Filmmakers are not obliged to have political convictions or to make philosophical arguments. I’m not even sure a film could achieve the latter. They can express philosophical world-views but almost everything that involves a human being expressing could be said to do that.

Nothing’s notion that auteurs are only those who pour forth their soul is an archaic Romantic idea. In film studies, the auteur theory was deeply influenced by this Romantic view of the artist but even this theory was skewed by wider arguments about whether film was really art in the same way that a play or a painting is art. The Romantic view of the artist buttressed their arguments about the status of film as art despite the fact that the medium is so collaborative.

Also, some forty years later I think we can all allow there is no one/right way to approach film making-all possible modes open to the artist are valid. Whether the filmmaker’s approach to a specific film has any value is a matter of evaluation. But it is regressive to approach evaluation with a fixed conception of what makes an auteur or what makes his work genuine or how films should be made.

[Grand Illusion]

Also, how can anyone say comparatively little IRA violence is shown thereby making the film sympathetic to Republicans? The savage way in which the IRA men debase and ultimately annihilate their own bodies is repulsively violent.

Most people acknowledge a difference between violence to oneself and violence to others. The British beat the prisoners in severe manner. The IRA members then abuse their own body, precisely in protest to their treatment. Do you honestly not see the difference?

I am not saying the film has to be even-handed, but don't pretend that there is some clinical detachment as to the way these events are portrayed.

The film is absolutely a narrative drama. It has a beginning, a middle, an end. The unconventional part is that it starts like a docudrama and ends like a biopic

Two hours of watching a static black screen has a beginning, middle and end but isn’t a narrative drama.

Are you seriously making this point? If you watch a static black screen for two hours, it does not have a beginning, middle, and an end. An editor can hack up the "footage," rearrange it, and the "film" would make as much sense as it did before. The black at the end could be placed at the beginning.

Hunger, on the other hand, has narrative progression.

Prisoners are beaten -> they protest -> violence escalates -> one martyr emerges with the idea of a more extreme protest -> he overcomes opposition even from his own side (the priest) -> he strikes -> he overcomes the pain and desire to eat -> he dies -> yet his goals are achieved.

Another way to say beginning, middle, and end is to say that the film has progression. That's what makes a narrative. You cannot rearrange those pieces and have a coherent film. Narratively, the only unconventional part of the film is that it doesn't start with a protagonist, yet it ends with one. A narrative doesn't need a singular protagonist though. Basically, Hunger starts with Potemkin, but, by the end, it's as classical as Braveheart dying for his own political freedom from the Brits.

Also, some forty years later I think we can all allow there is no one/right way to approach film making-all possible modes open to the artist are valid. Whether the filmmaker’s approach to a specific film has any value is a matter of evaluation. But it is regressive to approach evaluation with a fixed conception of what makes an auteur or what makes his work genuine or how films should be made.

Agreed. The argument, however, is that the lack of value from this film comes in large part because of the lack of a singular vision. Fitting things into cliche dichotomies and devices, the ineffective lifts from "art films," the lack of a statement, etc. All of these contribute to what could, shorthand, be described as the lack of authorship of the material.

[JonathanM]

One thing that I haven't seen commented on that much is the weird theatricality of the central scene between Sands and the priest.

Shot in one take (bravo) and evidently rehearsed to buggery and back, the scene strikes me as weirdly theatrical, giving it an ontological flavour that was weirdly at odds with the rest of the film. I think if you wanted to argue that the film lacked a cohesive vision then I think it's at the level of 'realism' that you need to attack it. The move from gritty social realism to theatricality to heightened impressionism is odd. In fact, in my review I suggest that it makes the film feel as though Sands is being cannonised. All that light at the end. Take me lord! I am yours!

Ruthless Culture

[Nothing]

This is patronising.

1/ The bulk of the IRA's funding, up to and including the Real IRA and Omagh, came from the US.

2/ Film Four and Icon are commercial organisations and Icon has it's head office in Los Angeles - of course they had the US market in mind, this being the largest and most valuable territory in the world. They didn't misjudge things either, going by the mainstream reaction over there, and I'm sure they were both well aware of point 1 above.

Not explaining, not offering a perspective is the point of Hunger... Filmmakers are not obliged to have political convictions or to make philosophical arguments.

Firstly, it is quite impossible for a filmmaker not to offer a perspective or a position. The question is whether this perspective/position is interesting/informed/insightful (convincing).

Secondly, it is quite obvious that Hunger is sympathetic towards Sands and the IRA prisoners in the Maze whilst being unsympathetic towards the Thatcher government. Witness the prisoners suffering Passion of the Christ-esque levels of cinematic brutality whilst Thatcher's omnipotent, disembodied voice attempts to justify this with inanities. Indeed, McQueen himself has said that he was ultimately persuaded to take on the script due to the parallels with Abu Gharib (yawn)... Not that I'm arguing for the brutalisation of either Irish or Iraqi prisoners - rather, this is such an easy position to take that the film is surely guilty of pandering. True to form, Film Four aim to win column inches with a supposedly 'edgy' political stance, without doing anything to genuinely provoke the establishment (hell, they are the establishment).

This is why the ending is a total cop-out as it implicitly asks how an introspective youth became so radicalised. It is the ending that is highly questionable not the rest of the film.

Certainly, I have more time for the first third of the film than the rest. It's not great filmmaking by any means, but there is a certain crass muscularity about it in places.

I was referring to the fact that simply seeing those tattooed letters led me to anticipate a certain level of violence

Of course, this is hardly subtle.

Nothing’s notion that auteurs are only those who pour forth their soul is an archaic Romantic idea... The Romantic view of the artist buttressed their arguments about the status of film as art despite the fact that the medium is so collaborative... It is regressive to approach evaluation with a fixed conception of what makes an auteur

I'm sorry, but your argument here is deeply confused, to the point where it is impossible to answer. Either you subscribe to auteur theory or you don't - and, if you don't, why would you even be interested in whether I think McQueen succeeds or qualifies as such?

One thing that I haven't seen commented on that much is the weird theatricality of the central scene between Sands and the priest.

Certainly, the long take in the middle is highly theatrical, although I don't take issue with it on these grounds (the crude formalism and mixture of different modes is actually one of the more interesting things about the film). I do find, however, find it hilarious that people are praising the length of the take - as if it is difficult for an actor with stage training to keep going for ten minutes, or for a cinematographer/director to put the camera on a tripod and turn in it on... .. Hardly bravura (not that it needs to be).

[JonathanM]

Hmm...

I'm in two minds about the clashing formal styles. On the one hand I think it's definitely an interesting exercise, but on the other I'm not really sure what its purpose is. Is there any reason why that long take should be delivered in a theatrical manner other than it having been heavily rehearsed and written by a play-write?

You're also quite correct about how non-praise-worthy that scene is from a directorial point of view. It's hardly the railroad take from Stalker is it?

[Ruby]

GrandI, I admit I was a little dismissive of your point but I still don't think Hunger is a conventional narrative drama.

Yes, you can discern character goals and their achievement but the film isn't structured to trace the dramatic development of same. If it was, earlier posters would not have found themselves on wikipedia to figure out what was going on and why. Instead, Hunger's tripartite structure presents the circumstance, rationalisation, and process of the hunger striker. I think it is an ‘exercise’ as JonathanM said. From this perspective, the shift in focus to Sands and his priest isn't jarring, from the perspective of narrative drama, it is.

Initially, I liked the sustained conversation shot because filmmakers tend to be afraid not to change the angle every three seconds. But the praise McQueen and the actors have earned for simply pointing a camera and acting in front of it is comical. Also, the lighting is striking –the El Greco like outline which yes has a touch of the halo. This is definitely McQueen’s fault but, to be a little fair, he imbues most of the images with this light.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on the value of the film. However, note that I never made claims about Hunger being a hugely innovative work. I completely agree the film relies on many conventional and simplistic structures but conventionality and simplicity aren't dirty concepts: as I have said, McQueen has made a significant film about Northern Ireland. If, like Nothing, you think that is a worthless achievement, so be it. I doubt any argument here will change your mind.

Either you subscribe to auteur theory or you don't - and, if you don't, why would you even be interested in whether I think McQueen succeeds or qualifies as such?”

Eh, you clearly do and my point was that the filmmaker/no filmmaker is obliged to be an auteur in the mode you describe. If you agree on that why did you raise the point in the first place?

[Nothing]

no filmmaker is obliged to be an auteur in the mode you describe.

What other mode of auteur filmmaking is there? The collaborative mode where the director removes their authorship from the proceedings...?

[JonathanM]

no filmmaker is obliged to be an auteur in the mode you describe.

What other mode of auteur filmmaking is there? The collaborative mode where the director removes their authorship from the proceedings...?

Auteur Theory is just a (philosophically flawed) means of getting a handle on a collaboratively created cultural artifact. I don't think you have to buy into any clear idea of "what auteurs should do" in order to then write about a particular film from the perspective that it was the product of a singular intellectual vision.

The idea that the auteur is someone who presents a genuinely held political opinion is one view of what auteurs should do, but you could also write about McQueen as an auteur from the point of view of him being someone who makes films about process or as cinematographic experiments. You don't need to read a direct commentary on the Troubles into the film.

Different auteurs can engage with different issues on different levels and still have their films written about from an auteurist perspective.

[Nothing]

Do I really need to spell this out? Both of you?

By all means go ahead and view cinema as a "collaboratively created cultural artifact" if you wish - but you can't then acclaim McQueen (or Bresson or McG or anyone else) as an auteur! What you are proposing is in direct opposition to the entire notion.

To relate this back to the subject at hand: the concept for Hunger comes from the 'creative' executives at Film Four; the political conviction comes from Walsh; the 'powerhouse' performance comes from Fassbender and the formal structuring comes from McQueen - ergo. the film lacks a sense of singular authorial intent, ergo. it is incorrect to view it as a successful work of auteur cinema (I believe the work I originally used was "genuine") by the definition that I'm sure you can find in your undergraduate textbook, or on wikipedia. Of course, you can try and justify the film on other terms if you desire, and one way to go about this would be to attack the auteurist basis with which I am making my critique, however: it is as an 'auteur work' that Hunger has been venerated in the press (and you yourselves both seem very reluctant to give up on the notion), therefore I believe that my comments remain pertinent in this context.

[JonathanM]

I'm not disputing your take on the film.

What I'm saying is that auteur theory is not like bushido. It's not a code that people live up to. It's more like psychoanalysis or postmodernism; It's a way of looking at things.

You could talk about Wild Strawberries in terms of the details of the production process, the individual performances etc or you can talk about it as a piece of auteur cinema but that's not because Bergman managed to live up to some concept of what an auteur should be, it's just because it's easy to write about films in terms of the director's choices because the buck tends to stop with them.

You might also suggest that McQueen has a more collegiate approach to his works than other directors but I don't think that stops auteur theory applying to him. In fact, it has little to do with auteur theory either way except maybe provide evidence for thinking that it is a philosophically questionable shorthand at the best of times.

[Grand Illusion]

It's worth noting, also, that auteur theory was designed to describe a body of work. The original way of determining the auteur was always to look at the oeuvre to find the commonalities. Of course, McQueen is a first-time director.

I can't believe I'm going to defend this film, but as for the dialogue scene, I will say why I personally found it quite worthy and brave. It's dismissive to describe it as simply setting up sticks and letting the camera roll. While maybe not a technical mastery, there are other factors. Keeping the audience's attention for an entire 10 minutes of nothing but dialogue is difficult, especially without the use of close-ups. Directors often lose faith in the writing or performance and try to keep it active with cuts or flashy camera moves. Just holding the camera still to record the moment is a decision worthy of recognition. It's really no more technically difficult than having seven cameras on them, and cutting back and forth with inserts of the cigarette. And speaking of the cigarette, when having a two shot from profile, every little detail is important, since we don't get the information from the facial expressions. Art direction like the cigarette add visual flair with the smoke rising between them. A small detail becomes excellent business for the actor. It's more important to note the gestural involvement of the actors. I don't know if it driven by just the actors or performance directing from McQueen or both, but the gestures were technically necessary to keep the scene active and accentuate the beats. Everything on film plays larger than theater, though, so it was quite the feat that the scene did not come off as overly fake. And while everyone will inevitably notice the formality of the scene, the performances themselves did not come off as fake. The rhythms of the dialogue were dead on, regardless of if they were a credit to the writer, McQueen, or the performers. The priest in particular reminded me very much of On The Waterfront. The cinematography, too, gave just enough information, not underexposing too much. A simple one-stop difference in the lighting could've radically affected how the scene appears since the shot is held for so long. Keeping that in mind, this isn't as much of an issue were McQueen to have done some virtuoso camera move since the lighting would not be as uniform throughout the shot. So while anyone can put the camera on a tripod and let it go, not anyone will, and if they do, it's quite difficult to keep things interesting. I feel this is the one truly worthy moment in the film.

[Nothing]

Everything on film plays larger than theater, though, so it was quite the feat that the scene did not come off as overly fake. And while everyone will inevitably notice the formality of the scene, the performances themselves did not come off as fake. The rhythms of the dialogue were dead on, regardless of if they were a credit to the writer, McQueen, or the performers....

Now you're over doing it. Of course there's more to it than literally plonking the camera on a tripod and turning it on. The dialogue and the performances need to be of a certain standard and the cinematographer needs to light the scene and set the correct exposure... I'm still far from impressed, although, as I said before, the scene needn't be bravura or impressive to be successful... However - it fails on two critical levels:
1/ Bobby Sands' character is far too eloquent, he is a mouthpiece for the writer's ideas as opposed to a convincing IRA foot soldier. Why? Because:
2/ The purpose of the scene is simply to explain and explicate, to underline through dialogue what should anyway be apparent through the filmmaking. Therefore, whilst the scene serves an interesting formal purpose (in a very broad sense) it demonstrates a (justified?) mistrust of the audience and is patronising, unconvincing and unnecessary.

You might also suggest that McQueen has a more collegiate approach to his works than other directors

I'm not saying that, I'm saying that McQueen is one piece of the equation in an essentially corporate project that has been cynically (and successfully) targeted at a certain audience.

but I don't think that stops auteur theory applying to him.

A journalist, critic or academic can try and apply auteur theory to anything. That's not the point here.

The point, in real world terms, is that a conflict now exists between an audience-led, executive-led cinema on the one hand and, on the other, a director-led cinema, a cinema where the director is in full creative control (ie. working from a first draft screenplay with full editorial approvals) and where the director forms the work without 'test screenings', without regard to what may or may not please an audience full of idiots fed on MTV and HBO, ie. where the notion of profit never enters into the equation. The former type of cinema has it's HQ in Los Angeles (American cultural and corporate imperialism, essentially), whilst the latter, which I was loosely referring to as auteur filmmaking, draws the majority of it's support from Paris.

The problem here, in a micro sense, is that Hunger is an example of the former being touted as the latter by producers with deep pockets and an increasingly cynical and lazy critical community. The problem in a wider sense being that this is just one more attack on a tradition of cinema that is truly on the ropes. Art house distributors are folding (eg. Tartan) or selling out to US corporate interests (eg. Artificial Eye). Art house cinemas are closing and/or programming increasingly corporate fare, to the point where there is little difference between the multiplex and the arthouse (City Screen being the primary villains in the UK). Once-astute critical journals (eg. Sight & Sound ever since Nick James took over, and now even Cahiers) becoming increasingly bland in their taste and outlook, the alternative being to lose their readership and fold. Festivals - even Cannes, that bastion of auteur filmmaking - becoming increasingly marginalised in market terms, places where only the most corporate and questionable of selections (the Hungers, the Babels, the Pan's Labyrinths) can be successfully launched and sold. Production budgets, as a result, shrinking and financiers becoming increasingly conservative in what they will support. The culture of serious cinema therefore dying, or at least in mortal danger... I must add that we haven't seen the full results of this yet - 2008 was really the year that plumbed new depths, there is still 'product' in the pipeline, but this will seriously begin to thin out as we enter the new decade.