Hunger
I caught a 9 am screening this morning of Steve McQueen's strong and harrowing Hunger, which IFC is releasing sometime next year. McQueen won the Gucci Group Award at the Venice Film Festival a few days ago, and the Camera d'Or at Cannes last May. It was obvious within seconds that he's a first-rate visual artist, and that the film itself is top-notch -- a frank and unsparing chronicle of political torture of IRA combatants by the British, and particularly the plight of Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender), who died from a hunger strike in 1981 at age 27.
At the same time I wasn't entirely taken with the slow pace of it, and I was more than a little unsettled by the disgusting particulars of the cell life of the Irish prisoners that McQueen shows during the first half-hour. The blunt, somewhat embarassing truth is that I have a problem with any movie that deals with prominent displays of fecal matter -- particularly ones in which said matter is smeared upon prison-cell walls.
I had the same reaction when fecal matter was used for artistic expression in Quills. And I feel the same way about the artwork of Andres Serrano (his recent shit sculptures, the infamous "Piss Christ"). If this makes me a timid, shallow- minded sort then fine, okay...but I won't absorb art that uses this particular brush, however honestly and honorably intended.
I realize with great chagrin that saying this makes me sound like the kind of person who prefers to watch something like Beverly Hills Chihuahua rather than a raw, blistering portrait of terrible political repression and the nobility of men with the steel to fight for their beliefs and take whatever punishment is meted out. The truth is that I'm a middle-class guy who lives somewhere in the middle sphere -- no Chihuahua lover, but unable to stomach what I've just described.
May God protect the courageous freedom fighters of the world, and may God make life miserable for the forces of cruelty, torture and repression. And may the talented Steve McQueen move on to greater and hopefully less off-putting subjects in future films.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on September 8, 2008 at 8:10 AM
comment #1
Kristopher Tapley
says ...
Yeah yeah, but how is Fassbender?
Posted by Kristopher Tapley
at September 8, 2008 9:09 AM
comment #2
MickTravis
says ...
I'm looking forward to "Hunger," but I'm even more excited to see the new film by another up-and-coming director, Rock Hudson.
He's a master of narrative and a visual stylist.
Posted by MickTravis
at September 8, 2008 9:12 AM
comment #3
calraigh
says ...
I understand your distaste for the afore-mentioned visuals Jeffrey and I respect your honesty in saying as much. However it has to be said that the '' dirty protests'' of 1978 by IRA and INLA prisoners were what eventually brought media attention to these prisoner's pleas for political status, where previous hunger and blanket protests has failed. Sands started his strike on the back of the controversy and it's what led to him being made into a martyr for nationalist politics.
Horrific yes but seen in context, it says a lot more about how dirty hands had to get before the British government couldn't ignore the outrage any more.
Posted by calraigh
at September 8, 2008 9:38 AM
comment #4
Edward
says ...
No country should allow torture of any kind. Kudos to McQueen and his unflinching look at the horrific actions of the "civilized" British.
Posted by Edward
at September 8, 2008 9:45 AM
comment #5
BurmaShave
says ...
Yeah seriously, sorry, but his name is Steven McQueen, not Steve. I'm not correcting you, I'm correcting him. How clueless/conceited do you have to be.
Posted by BurmaShave
at September 8, 2008 10:03 AM
comment #6
Joshua Mooney
says ...
I agree with you, Jeff. I'm one who prefers his art-shit canned, a la Piero Manzoni, rather than openly displayed. I'm even uncomfortable with film scenes set at urinals, where dialogue competes with the sound of piss-streams-and-gurgles on porcelain. I'm sure Freud had something to say about my kind of ambivalent protestations ("Vat iss it you are truly hearink, eh?"), and my uptight middle-class squeamishness in general. But at the same time I don't believe that's the dividing line between "Chihuahua"-lovers and those who can appreciate "Hunger." So don't be so hard on yourself. Come to think of it, I didn't mind the shit in "Salo" or the authentic dog-turds in"Pink Flamingos," but I did in "Quills," as I felt that film hadn't earned it.
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at September 8, 2008 10:05 AM
comment #7
BurmaShave
says ...
Also, A) related to Rainer? and B) this is the guy Tarantino cast? Haha yeah, too lazy to go to IMDb.
Posted by BurmaShave
at September 8, 2008 10:11 AM
comment #8
T. S. Idiot
says ...
"I have a problem with any movie that deals with prominent displays of fecal matter."
What about the shit from Shinola scene in THE JERK?
Posted by T. S. Idiot
at September 8, 2008 10:33 AM
comment #9
Richardson
says ...
Has anybody else noticed how often Jeff brings up 'Beverly Hills Chihuahua'? Seems like he's trying to convince himself that he doesn't want to see it.
Posted by Richardson
at September 8, 2008 10:49 AM
comment #10
mizerock
says ...
Wasn't that your problem with "Synecdoche, New York" as well - repeated scatological imagery? Dare I hope that it's actually a great movie that's unable to be appreciated if you have an undue aversion to shit?
Then again, isn't it understood that everyone has "a problem with" fecal matter? You're supposed to be disgusted, that's part of the Horror.
Posted by mizerock
at September 8, 2008 10:53 AM
comment #11
Joshua Mooney
says ...
Yeah, Richardson, yeah! It's like he WANTS it to be a hit!
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at September 8, 2008 10:53 AM
comment #12
Monument
says ...
Burma, I couldn't agree more. There is only one Steve McQueen.
Posted by Monument
at September 8, 2008 11:06 AM
comment #13
buckzollo
says ...
Fassbender is amazing (apparently they had doctors standing by). McQueen did a great job although it would be interesting to see him focus his eye on something, well dare I say, less shit-stained and depressing. The guy did shoot and "keep" a 17 1/2 minute take. It works. There is no mistaking this plump black brit with, well you know who...
Posted by buckzollo
at September 8, 2008 11:41 AM
comment #14
Joshua Mooney
says ...
But mizerock, why would fecal matter be considered an aspect of "horror," when flatulence is the essence of too many movie jokes? Is not the sound a mere prelude to the fury? Hasn't there already been a graphic shit-eating joke in the second "Austin Powers" movie? Shit we see daily, if we're regular. Most of us do so alone, in the smallest room in the house. And that's the end of it. Cinematically, "horror," to me, resides in the severed limb: the swimming instructor's leg floating to the bottom of the bay in "Jaws," or Bishop's bisected, talking torso in "Aliens," or Chef's head---along with Kurtz's description of "a pile of tiny, innoculated arms" ---in "Apocaylpse Now."
Posted by Joshua Mooney
at September 8, 2008 11:45 AM
comment #15
p.Vice
says ...
What's always surprised me is that, as Mooney has already pointed out, everyone is surrounded by shit and piss but some are completely disgusted by it. It's fascinating that we can happily listen to someone else talk about taking a shit or a piss, and we can happily watch ourselves take a shit or a piss, but we hate, hate, hate watching someone else take a shit or a piss. (Actually, I quite like watching ladies urinate but that's another story.)
And how long has indoor plumbing been the norm? People used to piss and shit in buckets and throw that out onto the STREET. I don't know if you would have made it, Jeff.
Posted by p.Vice
at September 8, 2008 1:34 PM
comment #16
Grumpy Old Film Dork
says ...
Saw Hunger today at TIFF and I agree that McQueen has visual panache almost to a fault - tends to overwhelm some of the story elements. Overall, though, a stunning first-time feature.
And shit on screen doesn't disturb me...hey, it's not like it was shot in SMELL-O-VISION.
Posted by Grumpy Old Film Dork
at September 8, 2008 6:53 PM
comment #17
JD
says ...
Incredible movie. Only two other movies at TIFF have rivalled it for me so far: Un Conte de Noel and Waltz with Bashir. Welcome to Cannes-ada.
Posted by JD
at September 8, 2008 10:06 PM
comment #18
lionsfan
says ...
It's something of a reach in polite circles to refer to the IRA and (especially) the INLA members who were imprisoned as "courageous freedom fighters." (If so, then so are the members of Hamas and al-Qaeda.)
A more reasoned assessment of what the hunger strikers accomplished can be found in Padraig O"Malley's "Bitiing At the Grave." As can an assessment of how really harsh British treatment was of such prisoners. As the historian of modern Irish history J. Bowyer Bell once half-dismissed assorted IRA and UDA memoirs as "all obvious cases of special pleading," I'm betting McQueen's movie is more of the same. It'll thus play well in parts of the Bronx and on Long Island and in Birmingham in the UK, but might face a more well-informed and somewhat hostile reception elsewhere.
Posted by lionsfan
at September 10, 2008 10:05 AM
comment #19
tino
says ...
I recently saw the 120 days of sodom from Pasolini and though I thought that I had a pretty high tolerance rate regarding "fecal matter", I was pretty digusted. And the film is of course really well made with the Morricone music and the cinematographer from once upon a time in america and everything but....guys eating shit, guys getting married with each other in gown after eating shit and letting it drip out of their mouths and then rather tenderly kissing their respective foreheads...it was a bit much. And I am german. If the world foremost perverts can't stomach this shit (no pun intended), then who can?
But one could have been warned: the middle section is called something like purgatory of shit. It's an apt title.
Posted by tino
at November 16, 2009 9:19 AM
comment #20
janee
says ...
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Best regards,Jane, CEO of high speed availability
Posted by janee
at May 18, 2011 2:10 AM