SHAME

By McQueen

Actor Michael Fassbender’s expression says so much during the opening shot of Steve McQueen’s 2011 film Shame. Grief, a weight that he cannot shake, anger. His character, Brandon Sullivan’s climaxed; it took me a long time to realize this. Speculation sure but that’s what I take away from it, he’s disappointed in himself, he’s upset about the gratification he feels, his stare is vacant.

Within the first minutes of the film, director Steve McQueen gives us a masterful shot that is not only remarkable on its own but telling of what we can expect. The viewer is challenged further during the film’s most notable shot of actor Fassbender’s genitalia. A full frontal shot that is irksome for many, which is laughed about by others but stands not only as the film’s best talking point but as a remarkable shot. The close up on Sullivan’s member keeps the viewer from seeing his face, from seeing his pain. This anguish is explored to its utmost throughout the film proper.

The shot of his member, it’s hard to watch in many ways. I can see why The Hollywood Reporter would have a field day with it. When McQueen’s vision isn't methodical and tender in execution, it is abrasive. His debut feature Hunger is a fine example of this. McQueen gives the viewer something very difficult to watch to gauge the audience, he wants to bait viewers.

Many went to see Fassbender’s dick, what they got was the finest film of 2011. A film that was so shamefully overlooked by the world of cinema, Fassbender’s performance is so very draining to watch. I liken his work in Shame to De Niro’s in Raging Bull in which the actor becomes transparent, they become the character, they are so very absorbed in the role. While Raging Bull was very much a story of a figure of relative greatness plummeting into the abyss of the body, the mind and the soul, Shame foregoes the greatness. The reason Shame was so grossly overlooked was because it’s too fucking real for most people, hence the dick jokes. People are unnerved by a movie that is so very believable. There’s a Brandon Sullivan in our lives or in someone else’s, hell you may be Brandon Sullivan. It’s not necessarily about watching too much pornography or fucking incessantly. No, it’s that there is a normal upstanding gentleman who is doing these things, who is so very deviant, who cannot stop.

Shame is a painful movie, I knew how painful when I heard the final song of the score for the first time during Brandon’s deterioration. The clapping the composer employs, a sound that couldn't be anything else. The sound of a man masturbating, the sound of flesh rubbing hard on flesh over and over again clapping the inside of one’s thigh.

The only reaction I could muster was to cry, because I know how much it must hurt to be a character like Brandon Sullivan. I know a great deal of people must understand that kind of loneliness at one point or another. To fathom enduring that every day, a sexual hunger that cannot be sated  and a level of frustration that grows and grows with each passing day. When Brandon lectures his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan) about sleeping with his boss, he’s not simply hypocritical, he’s self loathing and furthermore he’s in the same position his boss was in. His boss struck out with a woman that Brandon pursued and picked up, to be on the other side of that position, when you’re a man like Brandon, when sex is you reason to live and to breathe...

That`s conveyed in McQueen`s brilliantly shot scene of Brandon running, one of the finest tracking shots I've had the pleasure to ­­­­witness. Anger, tiredness, and the unresolved hangs heavy on Brandon.