# Steven McQueen's 'Shame'



## mrs quoad (Jan 16, 2012)

Anyone else seen this?

Saw it last night, and thought it was thoroughly 

Lots of unresolved tensions and questions, very few answers (easy or otherwise), and a couple of unclear questions, too.

AND whilst Artichoke thought the Fassbender character was really shallowly portrayed (bc, I think, she wanted to draw a direct with the mum in *spits* We Need To Talk About Kevin), tbh I thought he was really well done. Loads of hints about control, and shame, and deliberate coldness / withdrawal, with a couple of heartfelt attempts to break through to being someone else. And quite a lot of core decency, too.

Properly solid film, IMO. First film I've enjoyed at the cinema for some time.


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## Reno (Jan 16, 2012)

I thought this was garbage. Aestheticised to the hilt, but thoroughly shallow on a psychological level. What worked for Steve McQueen with more compelling subject matter and a lot of control in Hunger, here becomes a mannered directing style, calcified by its own art house preciousness. Just like with We Need to Talk About Kevin this attempts to go for an expressionistic approach, which just doesn't pay off on a character level when you try and explore something that is psychologically complex.

The acting was good, but we never understand what makes these people tick and why I should care about some rich knob working in finance because he can't get "close" to anybody and who indulges in compulsive behaviour (for the record, I don't believe in "sex addiction" as a malady). Pull yourself together, get some therapy (unlike me, you can afford it!) and cheer up FFS, was what I thought. Of course we have the whole cliche where when he is at his lowest ebb he "stoops as low" as to accept a blow job from a man in a gay sex club. An offensive signifier of hetero-masculine degradation since Midnight Cowboy (when you could blame less enlightened times). Oh the shame of it !


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## Lord Camomile (Jan 16, 2012)

Hoping to see this tomorrow, in an unofficial double bill with The Artist. Thought a lot of Hunger, so really interested to see McQueen and Fassbender team up again. Will, however, be avoiding all talk of the film up until I've seen it though


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## mrs quoad (Jan 16, 2012)

Reno said:


> I thought this was garbage. Aestheticised to the hilt, but thoroughly shallow on a psychological level. What worked for Steve McQueen with more compelling subject matter and a lot of control in Hunger, here becomes a mannered directing style, calcified by its own art house preciousness. Just like with We Need to Talk About Kevin this attempts to go for an expressionistic approach, which just doesn't pay off on a character level when you try and explore something that is psychologically complex.
> 
> The acting was good, but we never understand what makes these people tick and why I should care about some rich knob working in finance because he can't get "close" to anybody and who indulges in compulsive behaviour (for the record, I don't believe in "sex addiction" as a malady). Pull yourself together, get some therapy (unlike me, you can afford it!) and cheer up FFS, was what I thought. Of course we have the whole cliche where when he is at his lowest ebb he "stoops as low" as to accept a blow job from a man in a gay sex club. An offensive signifier of hetero-masculine degradation since Midnight Cowboy (when you could blame less enlightened times). Oh the shame of it !


I hadn't thought of the bit in the gay sex club as a low* 

Interested wrt the rest.

*e2a: hadn't he been in a threesome with 2 women a short while before / after, wrt exactly the same night / state?


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## grit (Jan 16, 2012)

We went and saw it last night, I agree with it being shallow I was waiting for something to happen that never did. Ms grit thought it was "creepy".


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## Yelkcub (Jan 16, 2012)

It's shit. Really shit, actually.


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## Reno (Jan 16, 2012)

mrs quoad said:


> I hadn't thought of the bit in the gay sex club as a low*
> 
> Interested wrt the rest.
> 
> *e2a: hadn't he been in a threesome with 2 women a short while before / after, wrt exactly the same night / state?



I couldn't relate to that either as being bad. 

I know he did two girls as well, but the whole gay sex club was shot like a horror film, like some descend into hell.

I also had a problem with the clichés of the "addiction genre". There is something dishonest about only showing the downside of an addiction, because it makes it difficult to relate to how someone got there in the first place if there is absolutely pleasure in your chosen vice. His grim face and tortured expression through every sexual encounter was just stupid. It's like nothing has moved on from The Lost Weekend, which was radical in 1945, but the approach doesn't cut it now. I suppose that's why Trainspotting was considered radical and controversial in its day. At least it acknowledged that at that moment when you get your fix, things are great.


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## mrs quoad (Jan 16, 2012)

Reno said:


> I couldn't relate to that either as being bad.
> 
> I also had a problem with the clichés of the "addiction genre". There is something dishonest about only showing the downside of an addiction, because it makes it difficult to relate to how someone got there in the first place if there is absolutely pleasure in your chosen vice. His grim face and tortured expression through every sexual encounter was just stupid. It's like nothing has moved on from The Lost Weekend, which was radical in 1945, but the approach doesn't cut it now.


I also didn't see it as addiction, or wrt anything to do with an 'addiction genre'.

tbh, I thought the title had more to do with the film than anything I'd (previously) heard about 'sex addiction.' Which really didn't seem to fit the film. And felt a bit banjaxed on, as a slightly weird description, which I'd presumed (probably mistakenly) had come from critics rather than anyone who made it.

e2a: did he have a grim / tortured face during all the sex scenes? I thought he looked like he was quite enjoying a couple of bits. Particularly in the hotel room, after the bit that didn't go quite so well.


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## mrs quoad (Jan 16, 2012)

grit said:


> We went and saw it last night, I agree with it being shallow I was waiting for something to happen that never did.


Didn't it?



Spoiler: spoiler



I thought the whole dynamic with his sister was quite interesting. Like, at first there were pretty strong hints that something might've been going on (and the first phone calls - if those were her - sounded like a dumped gf rather than a sister), but when she pulled his boss, I thought his reaction / pain / confusion - and the initial reaction, which tbh looked like he was going to go and join in a threesome - was played / delivered really well. Like, most 'normal' people probably wouldn't've gone up to the flat at all. Or, like, their sister wouldn't. But his push-pull / agonising, I found quite interesting.

AND the... quiet... and difficult... playing out of him and his relationship with control. I think the bit with his sister was the first time he hadn't come across as 'decent' (being nice to people / opening doors / blah) subdued, withdrawn, completely polite, and completely in control.

IDK. I liked the fact that he was portrayed as alright, actually, in terms of how he was with MANY other people. And that he kinda wanted to be alright. And that he - mostly - tried to be alright with most people most of the time, but didn't always do at all well at it.

Sex workers were invisible, but his sister was - I thought - quite well filled out. Which seemed kinda appropriate, if kinda sideways, given what he was looking for / not looking for / comfortable with. And where any form of emotional engagement or interest - for Fassbender - actually lay.

Like, there were hints of American Psycho - wrt the whole finance / detachment thing - but I thought he came across as far more difficult / complex, messy, and effortful than that.

And... tbh, I thought the efforts in the restaurant, and development of a failed relationship, and the catastrophe(s) with his sister were all 'somethings happening'; but wrt character development more than plot. Which worked for me.

The cat's walked over my mouse, my touchpad and my keyboard whilst writing this, so if any sentences look a bit dog-eared or excised, that'll be why.





> Ms grit thought it was "creepy".



Yeah 

There would've been something wrong with it if it wasn't, wouldn't there?


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## Reno (Jan 16, 2012)

I have a DVD screener of Shame and over Christmas put it on without sound when a friend was round, just have Michael Fassbender's not inconsiderable cock as festive eye-candy in the background (now there is an aspect of the films which I did enjoy!). There may have been a brief moment of happy, but my friend also noticed how almost comically tortured he looks through most of the films sex scenes. Then again, maybe that's just his "sex face"


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## mrs quoad (Jan 16, 2012)

Reno said:


> There may have been a brief moment of happy, but my friend also noticed how almost comically tortured he looks through most of the films sex scenes. Then again, maybe that's just his "sex face"


tbf, Artichoke also commented on that.

I quite appreciated the desexualisation of the sex scenes, IYKWIM. Like, Artichoke'd said beforehand that she'd heard that there was loads of sex, but that it wasn't at all sexy. And considering the amount of nipple-licking, etc, I thought that was quite an unusual achievement.

He would also be a not-unwelcome addition to the naked forum, ay.


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## Reno (Jan 16, 2012)

The sex scenes may not have been sexy but to me that struck me as the obvious thing to do. Still, the gorgeous Michael Fassbender can't help it. I still fancied him during the shit protest and death bed scenes in Hunger, which I know is a bit wrong.


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## Nanker Phelge (Jan 16, 2012)

Is as good as Bullitt?


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## Reno (Jan 16, 2012)

..and talking of cock.


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## Orang Utan (Feb 2, 2012)

I was unimpressed.
It was a massive disappointment compared to Hunger. I just wasn't interested in the two main characters. The most interesting character was Fassbender's boss who had some hilarious scenes. I felt sorry for him, rather than Fassbender (though I'm not sure I was supposed to).
Fassbender's grimaces well doing his sex face, but I just didn't care about him - McQueen does not seem interested in showing us why Fassbender and Mulligan are so fucked up.
It was also very hard to empathise with a wealthy man having too much sex. I just don't buy into that whole sex 'addiction' nonsense either, though I don't think the gay scene was meant to be a low point, it was just to show how horny he was. I didn't really think that it was shot like a horror film as Reno mentions.
This is probably a strange complaint to make, but it just wasn't 'arty' enough - I liked watching the corridor being cleaned and the pretty pooswirls on the cell wall in Hunger and there was only really one scene that engaged me in that way - the shot of Fassbender running through New York.


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## SpookyFrank (Feb 2, 2012)

Where does this cunt get off calling himself Steve McQueen anyway?

Oh yeah, and the film was catastrophically dull. It looks like we're stuck with Carey Mulligan now but can't say I understand exactly why that is.

e2a: and 'Carey' is not a name. It's another word for tooth decay.


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## Wolveryeti (Feb 2, 2012)

It's neither interesting/insightful as a concept, nor does it have enough depth to be an interesting character study. Give me American Psycho over this kind of wanky drivel any day  - that's a fun film... this was just painful.


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## MrMPlymouth (Feb 4, 2012)

Reno said:


> I thought this was garbage. Aestheticised to the hilt, but thoroughly shallow on a psychological level. What worked for Steve McQueen with more compelling subject matter and a lot of control in Hunger, here becomes a mannered directing style, calcified by its own art house preciousness. Just like with We Need to Talk About Kevin this attempts to go for an expressionistic approach, which just doesn't pay off on a character level when you try and explore something that is psychologically complex.
> 
> The acting was good, but we never understand what makes these people tick and why I should care about some rich knob working in finance because he can't get "close" to anybody and who indulges in compulsive behaviour (for the record, I don't believe in "sex addiction" as a malady). Pull yourself together, get some therapy (unlike me, you can afford it!) and cheer up FFS, was what I thought. Of course we have the whole cliche where when he is at his lowest ebb he "stoops as low" as to accept a blow job from a man in a gay sex club. An offensive signifier of hetero-masculine degradation since Midnight Cowboy (when you could blame less enlightened times). Oh the shame of it !


 
Offensive? If you're gay perhaps. If you are a straight man, which over 90% of men are, it IS degrading to be involved in gay activity, something totally foreign to your nature, out of desperation for sexual release. The 1960s were not less "enlightened", btw.

I found the lesbian sex show in Requiem for a Dream profoundly degrading as well; this was because the woman was coerced into it for a measly bag of white powder, and she was a clearly straight woman with a boyfriend who had also lost his freedom after getting caught up in the War on Drugs. Not because it was lesbianism...


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## Reno (Feb 4, 2012)

Just fuck off, you thick as shit homophobic cunt.


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## Belushi (Feb 4, 2012)

MrMPlymouth said:


> it IS degrading to be involved in gay activity, something totally foreign to your nature, out of desperation for sexual release.


 
Then stop doing it then.


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## Zabo (Feb 4, 2012)

http://www.theshiznit.co.uk/news/mo...gnant-bellies-fire-birds-and-ultimo-elvis.php


And

"If posters told the truth."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/gall...mock-film-posters#/?picture=385346508&index=8


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## Reno (Feb 4, 2012)

All the posters in the first link, including Shame, are for real.


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## MrMPlymouth (Feb 4, 2012)

Reno said:


> Just fuck off, you thick as shit homophobic cunt.


 
I'm not being even slightly homophobic, I didn't say anything about gay/bi men giving each other BJ's. All I said was to for a *straight* person to desire sex so much you went beyond your simplest natural boundaries (i.e. your orientation) it would be degrading.


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## MrMPlymouth (Feb 4, 2012)

Belushi said:


> Then stop doing it then.


 
"Stop" doing it? I'm not doing it. That's like "When did you stop beating your wife?"


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## Belushi (Feb 4, 2012)

You're thinking about it *again!*


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## MrMPlymouth (Feb 4, 2012)

Belushi said:


> You're thinking about it *again!*


 
I'm doing that thing called replying, you know, it's normal on forums... But I don't want to reply to your type of stupidity again. So goodbye


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## Belushi (Feb 4, 2012)

You go off and think about how disgusting cocks are a bit more.


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## Zabo (Feb 4, 2012)

A couple more

http://www.listal.com/list/m-p-t-t-t

http://www.theshiznit.co.uk/feature/if-this-summers-movie-posters-told-the-truth.php

Keep Warm.


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## Johnny Vodka (Jun 8, 2013)

Watched this last night.  Thought it was decent.  Nice to Carey Mulligan in the scud.   Would have traded some of the ambiguity for psychological insight, though.


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## youngian (Jun 8, 2013)

Former artists do not often make good film makers as they tend to indulge themselves with long lingering shots which don't sit well with the grammar of film (edit down a shot and move on after estbalishing your scene). But I found both Hunger and Shame's style rather compelling. Fassbender's drawn out night jogging scene was a bit of pallet painting but very watchable indeed.


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## Johnny Vodka (Jun 8, 2013)

Rather long lingering shots than rapid editing.   Have actually taken to switching films with cut cut cut off.   Must be an age thing.


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