Shame (The Movie)

[mallorys_camera]

I saw Shame last night, which was brilliant, mesmerizing, thought provoking and utterly pornographic, a movie I wouldn’t recommend to anyone and I wouldn’t see again in a thousand years.

Before the Industrial Revolution, there was no such thing as privacy. People lived, ate, defecated and copulated in concert. When they were done, depending on their social class, they either lurched out into the fields to harvest hops for the liege or set forth to redeem Jerusalem from the Infidel.

The Industrial Revolution compartmentalized labor and in doing so, gave rise to the notion of privacy. Americans seem to believe that “privacy” is such a basic concept, so analogous to “life” and “liberty,” that it’s actually entombed somewhere in the Constitution. That’s simply not true. The Founding Fathers had a notion of modesty, but not of privacy, and the idea that the Constitution defends the modern notion of privacy is simply laughable.

Pornography is privacy’s fetish.

On the surface, Shame is about sex addiction. The film is so amazingly well done that we follow Brandon, its sexually addicted protagonist, without so much as a snicker through the sordid sortées that comprise his life – masturbating 10 times a day, hooker visits, online playmates, encounters with random strangers in bars. Michael Fassbender not only goes full frontal, he actually urinates on screen! I call that brave acting. Nonetheless, my boyfriend George Clooney is a lock on this year’s Oscar, Mick.

In the middle of all this, Brandon’s sister appears out of nowhere. One senses she’s as damaged as Brandon – very wisely, writer/director Steve McQueen chooses not to tell us why or how the siblings became so damaged; in that sense Shame is more of a cinematic short story than a novel. Sissy uncovers Brandon’s sex addiction. (My avoidance of the verb “discover” here is deliberate: One senses that she knows everything there is to know going in.) The cars pile up on the highway.

The film has two incredibly great moments.

The first is Sissy singing New York, New York in a nightclub. She is a horrible singer, but at the same time a brilliant singer, managing to turn the upbeat promotional jingle into a dirge of such profound pathos and pain that the hairs on my neck literally stood up.

The second scene is a moment when Brandon hits bottom. This is not a bottom in the Friends of Bill sense of the word: The audience senses that Brandon hits “bottom” many, many times over the course of, say, a week and like a little red rubber ball whose core has been gnawed by rats keeps right on bouncing back up.

He’s spent the first part of the evening fingering a Staten Island girl in a low-rent bar. Does he go down on you? I love eating pussy. I want to taste you. I want to taste inside of you. The interesting thing about Brandon here is that he’s a complete nonentity most of the time, projecting absolutely nothing, but in the grips of his sexual addiction he sprouts this Mephistophelean appeal that is riveting. (Note to Academy: Sirs, maybe you really should reconsider that Clooney lock!) Staten Island girl’s boyfriend beats the shit out of Brandon and he ends standing in line up in front of a club. Across the street, a muscular black guy leans against the empty window of an abandoned department store. Drug dealer? Male hooker? We just don’t know. “Not tonight,” the bouncer tells Brandon, and as those words are uttered, the mysterious black guy opens the door to the empty building and vanishes. Brandon follows him inside to what is surely one of the circles of hell. Every kind of male-on-male sexual activity you could possibly imagine taking place in this awful, awful place filled with commercial refuse, capitalism’s graveyard. As the black guy sinks in front of Brandon, we see Brandon snarling. Orgasm is no release, just another form of self-abuse – for which read self destruction…

As I say, brilliant but the very opposite of a – heh-heh – feel good movie. Not for the faint of heart!

In other exciting news, my pipes unfroze. I can do my dishes again in the kitchen sink.

Comments

[katestine.livejournal.com]

That sounds fascinating. Believe it or not, I think I might suggest it for date night, as I think the discussion would be quite something.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Ick.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I think actually you are one of the few people I might recommend this film to!

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

You would so-o-o-o hate this movie!!!! :-)

[anais-pf.livejournal.com]

Sounds absolutely depressing and absolutely fascinating.

[(Anonymous)]

Huh. The "feel good" movie of the year.

Ick is right.

[nodressrehersal.livejournal.com]

I fear I might actually be Victorian in my comfort level with public sex stuff; the older I get, the less I want to see graphically in movies or read in books. I felt like I'd been punched in the gut when I walked out of the theaters after "Leaving Las Vegas."

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Actually, the "feel bad" movie of the year. Figuatively and literally.

Re: Ick is right.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Well, like I said, this is not a movie I would recommend. I ended up seeing it because the Marilyn Monroe movie I wanted to see had left the theater. The public sex stuff is not at all erotic, but oddly it's not disgusting either -- it's just part of a very complex character portrayal and the art of the film was in making the audience understand the character so thoroughly that you could not judge him.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

It's not depressing, oddly enough. It's such a totally engrossing character study that you end up understanding the character without judgment.

But like I said, it's not a movie I would recommend.

[robby.livejournal.com]

Is it just a coincidence that your pipes have thawed? Seriously though, I knew a guy that was a sexual addict, and that level of compulsion is never fun. I'm glad that I'm hetero and moderate, as I went to SF State during the height of the AIDS epidemic, where classmates were dying in droves.

[millysdaughter.livejournal.com]

Yes -- my taste in movies requires a "G" rating.

[platofish.livejournal.com]

Good to hear your pipes are back in action......

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

I'll probably see this film. heard good things about the performances and I like character study films. I've been inoculated against feel bad movies - I've watched Gaspar Noe and Lars Von Trier directed movies for years.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Did you ever see that Japanese flick, In the Realm m of the Senses? Shame is a bit like it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Is it just a coincidence that your pipes have thawed?

Heh.

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

Yup - I'm fond of Japanese cinema. That particular one had its...er...moments. Could have been just as good without the graphic sex and violence; I believe it was a case of the film maker lacking in skill and feeling a need to shock in order to get attention. It also goes to show that actors and actresses will do almost anything to get work, or they can be talked into anything if you appeal to their vanity and need for attention. Saw an interview with the two principles of "Realm of the Senses" and was taken with how dignified and unashamed both of them were about their "work" in the film.

If I can digress further into a small Hollywood anecdote - I just recently watched the Robert Evans bio-pic "The Kid Stays in the Picture" and he tells a great story that illustrates how directors get actors to do stuff in front of the camera they otherwise wouldn't in real life. Evans was trying to convince a then unknown Mia Farrow to join the filming of "Rosemary's Baby" - she wouldn't because of the content, nude scenes and domestic violence. Also, her hubby, Frank Sinatra forbade it. Evans kept after her finally enlisting the aid of several cronies to convince Farrow that the film would be a breakout for her and that it might even mean Oscar nods in the end. This did the trick and Mia Farrow starred in "Rosemary's Baby", her signature film. Her marriage fell apart during production, but she did indeed get an Oscar nomination out of it.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Robert Evans was such an interesting guy! I read the autobiography the bio-pic was based on. Film worth hunting down?

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

yeah - it was pretty interesting. Evans narrates the film himself and basically does everything but hold the camera...classic control freak, but yeah - interesting guy - if you didn't know he was real you'd think he was made up.

[sulphuroxide.livejournal.com]

i'll go see it now.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

I'll be very curious to hear your reaction.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Okay, this has nothing to do with Shame. This week's Top Chef (I know you're a fan): How was Padma keeping her dress up? I hate Padma by the way. I know she's gorgeous and everything. I still hate her.

[chezsci.livejournal.com]

She's not my type - its like she has a sign pasted on her forehead "High Maintenance - you can't afford me - go away". She's like an exotic orchid - nice to look. Gail's more what I like - girl next door. Both of them know their food, though, and I like a girl that likes to eat. However, I DID get momentarily mesmerized by Padma's dress several times. Was it lined with double-sided tape? And did you notice the looks Tom would give her every now and then? Folks at work think they are having a fling, which I suppose isn't unlikely. I thought Charlize Theron was delightful and the food looked perfect - the chefs were firing on all cylinders - I love that feeling when it happens to me. I wish I could have eaten that meal.

[mallorys-camera.livejournal.com]

Double-sided tape was what I was thinking too, but ouch. And Charlize still stood her up!

That food looked amazing. I don't think Padma is schtupping Tom. I don't he has the leisure time, and I don't think she schtups anyone with a net worth of under seven zeroes.

[bel-ebat.livejournal.com]

Funny—I couldn't stop thinking about the movie, so I immediately recommended it to MANY people hoping to talk about it later with them.

I think I might have a thing for character studies in self-abuse anyway, but this movie was so gorgeous and so well-acted.

Sissy/Carey Mulligan was used to make such simple, almost cliche things so heartbreaking—her rendition of "New York, New York" and her endless phone messages played over scenes of Brandon's daily life. The last one in particular where she says "We're not bad people, we just come from a bad place" as Brandon is walking back from his rock-bottom binge could be from an after-school movie, but the way it's done is so deeply, deeply sad and wounded. Not to mention the acting between the married woman on the subway and Brandon—both at the beginning and at the end. The way she is coming to life, brightening right in front of you at his attention, and he's darkening, dying. I agree that not explaining why they were the way they were was truly perfect. It doesn't matter—you just know they're there now, and it's hell.