Zack Gill
Arts Editor
There’s a certain stigma around films with the NC-17 rating. Newspapers and television stations won’t even run ads for them. But this is all about to change.
“Shame,” the newest film from “Hunger” director Steve McQueen (the video artist, not the corpse of the actor brought back through necromancy), is the highest profile film in recent memory to receive the much-maligned NC-17 rating. The film features incredible performances, wonderful, hypnotic camerawork, and yes, oodles of sexually frank and explicit material. It’s also among the best films of the year.
Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a man who struggles to cope with his secret shame: his crippling addiction to sex. Throughout the film, Brandon attempts to keep his addiction and bay and repeatedly fails, as he sleeps with prostitutes and makes inappropriate advances to strangers in bars.
Brandon’s addiction has destroyed nearly every relationship in his life, including his relationship with his unstable little sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan). Sissy, a lounge singer, comes to live with Brandon at the height of his struggle. Brandon is forced to deal simultaneously with his sex addiction and his neurotic sister, with whom he may have lots of psychosexual baggage.
Fassbender simply gives the best performance of the year in his portrayal of Brandon. Fassbender gives an emotionally and literally naked performance, performing scenes that require him to be convincingly dragged along by the emotions his addiction brings upon, and performing in scenes that require him to be completely nude. “Shame” reaffirms the notion that Fassbender has become one of the best working actors in film today.
Mulligan also gives an admirable turn with her performance of the character Sissy. Although she doesn’t quite reach up with Fassbender’s convincing primal bits of rage and sorrow, she gives an almost equally emotional, nuanced performance, as well, and all with an entirely convincing American accent.
McQueen shares many stylistic attributes with, oddly enough, Woody Allen. Woody Allen has a penchant for long scenes from a single angle. McQueen also loves long takes and single shots, like the engrossing and downright hilarious scene where Brandon takes a co-worker on a date, during which McQueen does not cut to a close-up. McQueen stays on the wide shot for minutes during the scene, and to great effect. McQueen also loves tracking shots, like the hypnotic sequence where the camera follows Brandon as he jogs for many city blocks.
“Shame” is incredibly sexually explicit. It deserves its NC-17 rating. Sometimes the film goes a little too far past the spectrum of believability, like during a scene in which Brandon essentially assaults his sister while wearing only a bathroom towel around his waist that falls off during the struggle (audiences really will see every part of Fassbender during the film). But because of all this, “Shame” has this high-tension, dangerous aura, where the audience is unsure of what will happen next because anything could happen next.
“Shame” is a tour de force of style and raw emotion, an incredibly brave and artistic film that somehow also manages to be entertaining, as well. The Los Angeles Times is running ads for “Shame,” despite a long-standing policy held by the Tribune Corporation against running ads for films rated NC-17. Hopefully, “Shame” will pave the way for the end of the stigma around the NC-17 rating, and censorship will stop withholding art for adults. “Shame” is rated NC-17 and is playing in limited release.
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