A Single Man: Shame Review

This is the review I wrote for Shame, British director Steve McQueen's second Michael Fassbender film, earlier this year. The two also collaborated on Hunger in 2008, an equally brutal, if slightly better movie. Leave comments!

Rating: Four Stars (Out of Five)

            Steve McQueen’s Shame is rated NC-17. No, that does not mean it is pornography. What it means is that children will simply not be able to handle the material, and in this case, the rating is fitting. I don’t think anybody, young or old, would be able to sit and watch Shame without feeling discomfort. It paints a portrait of a man whose life is completely centered around sex, but it is anything but erotic. Shame is led by two achingly honest performances by Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan, who make it rightfully painful to watch. Fassbender’s character gets no real pleasure in life, and neither should we.

            Brandon Sullivan (Fassbender) puts up an excellent façade. He is nonchalant and relaxed in social atmospheres; he does not need to try hard to pick up women, like his colleague David (James Badge Dale). This confident carelessness attracts many women to him, all of whom seem ignorant of his condition. You see Brandon is a sex addict, and a very private one at that. The only time he really loses it is when someone intrudes on his world of sexual dysfunction; that someone ends up being his sister Sissy (Mulligan), who decides to move in with her brother, thus breaking into his private realm and shattering his routines. Shame follows Brandon as he struggles to care about someone as a person rather than an object, whether it be his sister or his cute co-worker Marianne (Nicole Beharie), who both actually care very much for him.

            Steve McQueen seems to have known from the start that this would be an NC-17 movie, and so could have made it as dirty as he saw fit. Yet when Brandon has sex, the focus is not on his or anyone else’s actions; the camera always seems to tell us only how Brandon is feeling, whether it be through his face or body language, or just the setting. We do not enjoy these scenes, and it is not because sex makes us squeamish; it’s because we can tell that Brandon himself is not enjoying it. He seems to take pleasure in getting women, but once he has them the process of sex is actually very painful for him. In one pivotal scene, we can see his face screw up in anguish when he is having a three-way instead of going to see his sister, whose phone messages are getting increasingly worrying. For Brandon, sex serves as an escape from reality, but not from himself, and that makes him a decidedly tragic character. It won’t sit well with a lot of audiences, but the character’s painful journey affected me as a viewer. I actually cared about Brandon and what he was going through.

            The performances are undoubtedly some of the best of the year; Fassbender is torturously effective in his role, but Carey Mulligan contributes great depth. It is Sissy’s presence that brings out Brandon’s real self because she reminds him of whatever terrible, unmentioned experiences they had together growing up. His emotional insecurity would not show without her there, and as such, an actress playing that role has to struggle to make her character more than a cardboard cutout. Mulligan succeeds admirably, blending Sissy’s own troubled emotional state with the love she doesn’t know how to express for her brother.

            Shame is undeniably a rough movie-going experience. I would definitely not recommend it for date night. In fact, there are a lot of people I wouldn’t recommend it to at all. Here is a film that leaves you in deep thought but empty and heartbroken. Is that a bad thing? Personally, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Note: I also commend Steve McQueen and Fox Searchlight for not giving in to pressure to edit Shame down to an R rating; as a director, your vision should never suffer for the sake of a wider audience.

Silence is Golden: The Artist Review

The first review I'm going to post is of this past year's Best Picture winner, The Artist. I wrote this review immediately following my first viewing of the film in December. Notice that three months in advance I said it would win Best Picture... well I was right, wasn't I? Enjoy it, leave comments :)

Rating: Five Stars (Out of Five)

            There are very few people still alive today who remember those times when the people up on the big screen spoke only through fancy white lettering, mouthed words, and usually overdramatic body language. All of film was silent until 1927, when The Jazz Singer surprised audiences around the world and became wildly popular. Many of the talented stars of the silent era were left in the dust. Michel Haznavicius’ The Artist is a wonderfully entertaining (I can’t believe I get to finally write this) new black and white silent film that deals with the rise of new talent and the fall of the old following the demise of the silent era.

If you are a fan of silent films then you know that they can be simply dull without a solid leading man. Jean Dujardin thankfully has a background in slapstick humor and his timing is impeccable, his facial expressions endearing and laugh-inducing. We are taken by his boyish charm from the very first scene, in which Dujardin’s silent film superstar George Valentin attends one of his film’s premieres. When the movie is over he slides around the stage bowing and performing tricks with his pet dog Uggie, who almost never leaves his presence in the film.  

Afterwards, when posing for reporters, he bumps into Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) and starts posing with her. Peppy makes her way into the business as sound film comes to be dominant and becomes a superstar as Valentin is left behind. He can’t ignore his pride and refuses to do sound pictures and so, in the humorously melodramatic scenes unique to silent film, quickly loses everything he has. Miller, however, still has feelings for him and persuades the studio head (John Goodman) to give him another chance.

Some have called The Artist a gimmick because it references the fact that it is silent throughout; for instance, behind the screen at the movie premiere in the first scene, there’s a sign that reads something like “Silence backstage while the film is running.” But don’t dismiss the entire film because of these humorous references; it also uses its silence as an analogy for its protagonist’s predicament. For example, Valentin’s wife asks him why he won’t talk, in reference to both his silence towards her and his refusal to speak in films. The silence forwards the action and thus shapes the film.

Despite this being a French-produced film with quite a few American actors, it is neither French nor American. In fact, it really has no nationality at all. Because there is no dialogue, the cast is entirely reliant on universal body language. Despite Dujardin’s stellar lead performance (which is reminiscent of Douglas Fairbanks but may actually exceed him in charm and timing), this is an ensemble film that is fittingly led by an efficient and cohesive cast. John Goodman is wonderfully flustered and proud as the man behind the desk and James Cromwell is well-cast as Valentin’s loyal servant Clifton. Even those who have small parts or cameos (Ken Davitian, Missi Pyle, Malcolm McDowell) work well with Dujardin and Bejo’s charisma and chemistry.

Some will look at my review, or at the poster for the movie, or at interviews, or at anything to do with it and will see the words “black and white” and “silent” and will run like hell to their beds and hide under the covers at the thought of such boredom. To those people (you know who you are), here is my message: Fine. Don’t see it. Stay in your close-minded little world. But don’t go around complaining that you didn’t get to watch it in the movies when it wins Best Picture.

Welcome

Hi everybody, my name is Ronald Gerber. I'm 17 years old, I go to Bard College at Simon's Rock, and I'm an aspiring film critic. On this blog I'll be posting self-edited reviews, both of new and classic films. Hope you enjoy!