I first came across Michael Fassbender in Hunger, directed like Shame by Steve McQueen. His performance, as hunger-striker Bobby Sands, was extraordinary. His promise has been cemented in numerous films since ranging from X-Men First Class to Fish Tank (UK-Neth, 2009). His performance in Shame is also brilliant; he reminds me of Daniel Day-Lewis in the way he totally immerses himself into the role.
Shame is very much an actors’ film; Carey Mulligan and Nicole Beharie are also standout. This is not simply because they are required to go ‘out on a limb’ in their portrayal, particularly Fassbender and Mulligan, of emotionally raw behaviour but also as McQueen’s shooting style regularly features long takes with an immobile camera. There are no edits where the actors can hide. These long takes don’t come across as virtuoso but appropriate to the scene where the relationship between the characters is absolutely paramount.
Fassbender plays a sex addict who, when not using porn or prostitutes, is trying to pick up women merely to have sex with. He is incapable of relating to a woman in any other way which leaves him a hollow man. McQueen has stated that he wanted to show that sex addiction is a malaise and not something that can be laddishly celebrated. He certainly succeeds, particularly in the climactic montage of sex with two prostitutes. The close ups of the grinding, with the rapidly edited montage, coupled with Fassbender’s agonised performance, show the sex not merely to be loveless but also empty of any significance. For a film that has a lot of sex in it, I can’t think of a less sexy film except maybe Cronenberg’s Crash, Can-UK, 1996; a tribute to the filmmakers’ ability to realise their project.
Well done to Showcase cinemas for programming (in Gildersome – Leeds) the film; though there were only about a dozen watching in an opening night showing. It won’t get a positive ‘word of mouth’ from those desiring smut or those after entertainment on a Friday evening. Prime Minister Cameron was wittering last week about how the British film industry should focus on commercial projects thereby demonstrating both his ignorance of the film industry (where ‘nobody knows anything’) and his philistinism. The Tories have never taken film seriously as an art form, maybe because arthouse cinema, when it gets political, tends to criticise the status quo. This criticism doesn’t matter to them when it occurs in galleries or theatres, with their limited audiences, but film potentially can reach much further. However, I doubt that he need worry because of the conservatism of cinema-going audiences, who see film only as entertainment. The arthouse crowd are a minority and many of them will also frequent galleries and theatres. It is vital that films like Shame continue to be made because they broaden the experience of people who like to be challenged.
itp Global Film 
I seem to remember that we sat in a screen in that same multiplex as the only audience members for Spike Lee’s Bamboozled, so they have been trying, without much success, for some time to present specialised cinema to a multiplex audience.
I know that you don’t like to read about films before you watch them but I hope that you’ll now go back to see what you make of Rona’s report on Shame when it was in the last London Film Festival. And didn’t you get to see Fassbender in Jane Eyre?
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Hi
sorry about the cross-posting; thought I was the first! And, yes, I remembered the Bamboozled screening too. At least more showed up this time.
Fassbender was excellent in ‘Jane Eyre’; I’m tempted to go back and re-watch ‘Eden Lake’ as I didn’t particularly register him in that; would I now?
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I agree with all of the above. I was fascinated by the trajectory of addiction – and I feel the film is much more about that than sex – and in particular the similarities by the forgotten gem from Karel Reisz, The Gambler. Sadly this is little seen these days but it seemed an oversight by the UK’s critics not to have made any comparison, all of which should be positive. I thought Carey Mulligan was also spectacular – although I found it difficult to stay engaged her performance of New York New York and found myself counting the freckles on face and neck that seemed to come to 7 a piece. But that’s just me. As you say Roy, it is important that should films get made in the UK. I suspect it will do better at the more traditional art-house cinemas.
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