Programmer's Note

Winner of the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival and dozens of awards around the world, Hunger immediately established Steve McQueen’s filmmaking as equal to his outstanding prior work as a visual art­ist. With Shame, he continues his pursuit of precision and rigour in examining human behaviour. This time, instead of politics and faith, his arena is sex.

Michael Fassbender plays Brandon, a New Yorker who drapes a shroud of regular-guy normalcy over a seething pit of sexual compulsion. Addicted to pornography and the release it provides, he keeps his distance from real relationships with women. Only one woman can get close to him: his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan). If Brandon can pre­tend to be average in public, Sissy has long stopped trying. Needy and impulsive, she crashes into Brandon’s apartment on the verge of self-destruction. These two siblings bring out the worst in each other.

Shame is a portrait of a man in descent, but it paints that portrait obliquely. Fully in control of every detail of image and sound, McQueen steers away from obvious character motivation and towards sheer emotional impact. Compositions and edit­ing rhythms emphasize Brandon’s isolation. Soundscapes trap him in his own desires. Close-ups hint at the deep wounds provok­ing his obsessions. And when Brandon fully gives in to his craving for sex, Shame erupts into an urgent, carnal aria.

In Hunger, Fassbender proved himself capable of shocking extremes of physical performance. Here, he matches that with a psychological pitch that is as intense as it is affecting. Mulligan, so sweet and wise in An Education, here turns in a ferocious perfor­mance that demands a full reconsideration of how we might have pegged her. Both actors are fearless and commanding in the service of a film that demands nothing less. McQueen sets out on an entirely new path with Shame, repeating nothing from Hunger but a passion for stripping his characters of everything but deep, dark truth.