{"id":2142,"date":"2012-01-10T13:01:05","date_gmt":"2012-01-10T12:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=2142"},"modified":"2014-04-11T08:16:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-11T07:16:02","slug":"shame","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2012\/01\/10\/shame\/","title":{"rendered":"Double Take: Shame"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Shame<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

\nFormat:<\/B> Cinema

\nDates:<\/B> 13 January 2012

\nVenues:<\/B> UK wide

\nDistributor:<\/B> Momentum Pictures

\nDirector:<\/B> Steve McQueen

\nWriters:<\/B> Abi Morgan, Steve McQueen

\nCast:<\/B> Michael Fassbender, Carey Mulligan, James Badge Dale

\nUK 2011

\n101 mins
\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Two of our writers share their views on Shame<\/I> in a double take review of one of the most anticipated films of the year.<\/p>\n

TAKE 1<\/B><\/p>\n

Steve McQueen’s second film, after his astonishing debut Hunger<\/I>, surely places him at the forefront of British cinema. Despite McQueen’s day job as a renowned video artist, there is no tricksy-ness to his film, no radical inventiveness. Rather, his images reveal his artistic validity by dint of patience. Shots are held. We don’t watch this film, we stare at it. The tale itself could easily be a soap opera melodrama: Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a successful urbanite living an almost antiseptically perfect life in Manhattan, which is put at risk by his compulsive sex addiction and by a visit from his messy (but altogether more conventionally promiscuous) sister, Sissy, played with thrift store charm by the ubiquitous Carey Mulligan. So far, so sensationalist, as we see the would-be Michael Douglas being serviced by high-end prostitutes, prowling the streets and bars, and masturbating with painful frequency. His inability to look at a woman without immediate sexual desire makes his sister’s visit uncomfortable, if not dangerously complicated. This is not only sex without love, it is sex that is mutually exclusive to love, the opposite of intimacy. And yet, at the same time, as Hunger<\/I> eschewed straightforward political argument, so Shame<\/I>, despite its title, avoids a merrily reductive morality. Fassbender’s performance is at once comic and tragic, ferocious and sensitive, strange but remarkably common, the brutal buffoonery of the male face in orgasm. John Bleasdale<\/B><\/p>\n

TAKE 2<\/B><\/p>\n

One of the most talked about films on last year’s festival circuit, Steve McQueen’s Shame<\/I> could have been a great movie. While Fassbender puts in a terrifically compelling performance, Mulligan is given much less to work with - her character is the ditsy, manic-depressive blonde, needy and demanding, desperate for attention, leaving endless messages for men that she’s slept with, not understanding that all they wanted from her was sex. While she has a few great scenes - and one in particular, already notorious - her character is a cliché that’s been seen and done before. Predictability is the problem with the film as a whole. The nearly wordless opening and closing scenes that bookend the film are incredibly powerful, but there are times when the dialogue is frustratingly flat, and the depiction of corporate New York and its club scene are too reminiscent of the early 90s and American Psycho<\/I>. There is real tension in the tormented relationship between Brandon and Sissy, while his uncontrollable, violent outbursts are a shock, but the screenplay just isn’t quite strong enough to make the whole a truly remarkable film - what’s frustrating is that it comes so close. Sarah Cronin<\/B><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Steve McQueen’s much anticipated second film a truly great film or does it fall short?
\nDouble take review by John Bleasdale and Sarah Cronin<\/I><\/B><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11,1,49],"tags":[121,275,274],"class_list":["post-2142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-check-it-out","category-cinema-releases","category-double-take-reviews","tag-british-cinema","tag-michael-fassbender","tag-steve-mcqueen"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/surUP-shame","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1173,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2010\/06\/01\/the-getaway\/","url_meta":{"origin":2142,"position":0},"title":"The Getaway","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"June 1, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Sam Peckinpah might well have featured in the top 10 list of directors most likely to successfully bring Jim Thompson's dark misanthropic world view to celluloid - if he hadn't made The Getaway. 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