"Shame" Trailer, Quad, Reviews

We aren't doing a Yes, No, Maybe So on Steve McQueen's Shame since it seems we're constantly talking about it. It's like Shame Central up in here lately what with the partygoing, the quick words, Michael's NYFF review and David's LFF review (later tonight). Maybe I should try and get one of these awesomely funny mirror quads (found on Ultra Culture) to display in my apartment?

image via ultra culture

A movie poster that makes you feel all dirty inside when you look at it? Brilliant!

I am either doing accidental free PR work for Fox Searchlight or my Fassy addiction has really gotten the best of me. Between Fassy and Gosling this year, yeeeeesh. (You'd think they were both actresses or something the way I've been carrying on!)

Oh yes. Here is the trailer. It's a beauty. But the marketing department had a lot to work with given McQueen's and cinematographer Sean Bobbit's gifts with moving (and still) pictures. 

On a scale of 1 to 10", how excited are you to see this?

Scenes: I Stood Where Carey Mulligan Sang

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a private party for Fox Searchlight's Shame after its New York Film Festival premiere held at the Top of the Standard. That's the bar atop the glassy luxury hotel that hovers in the sky over the immensely popular High Line (an elevated walkway over the meatpacking district). You read that the Top of the Standard (also known as the Boom Boom Room) is impossible to get into if you're not among the über famous or wealthy. I just walked up and said "Michael Fassbender's Party" and the doors parted. Amazing what a name can do.

Not mine, his! Don't misunderstand. I always feel as if there's been some mistake when I enter these moneyed settings as I'm just a poor boy from Detroit who loves the movies too much. Not that I don't welcome such beautiful mistakes. I know virtually no one so am happy to run into a friend from Movie|Line while I'm there and we catch up a bit.

Mostly I'm there to soak up the buzzy atmosphere since the film, despite the very typical backlash which followed the early Venice "Masterpiece!" shouting, has been well received. That's particularly true of Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan's performances, which snap electrically back and forth between frighteningly numb fleshiness and raw exposed nerves. I spot Fassy almost immediately several people away talking to executive types. He's all slim and handsome in a gray (?) suit but he looks substantially more human in person, almost civilian like, were it not for that sleek beanpole refinement. Another partygoer echoes my thoughts "Before you got here he was just standing outside smoking... like he was anybody else!"  

At one point John Cameron Mitchell is standing right behind me and though he's surrounded by friends and I have no idea what they're talking about I immediately presume (by which I mean pretend) that they're all discussing Shortbus (2006) since it's the last sexually explicit serious-minded English language movie I can think of before Shame. Elsewhere I see faces I can't quite place though I recognize them (character actors? industry players?) and one that I do, Brady Corbet. He's had such a steady career playing suspicious, damaged or dangerous types for everyone from von Trier to Araki through Michael Haneke and now Sean Durkin (Martha Marcy May Marlene -reviewed) that at first I am wary of his total friendliness. Nevertheless I have to take advantage and we chat for awhile. How soon did he know Martha would be special? He indicates immediately but when pressed for something more definitive about life on a film set -- how soon do you get a sense for what the finished film will be? -- he hesitates before settling on "two weeks." 

Nicole Beharie, on the other hand, who plays Fassy's would be girlfriend (and co-worker) in Shame didn't know what to expect at all. She had just seen her film for the first time that night. Turns out that she and Fassbender improvised a lot and since all three of her major scenes are actually single continuous shots (yay!), she had no idea which takes were chosen. I make a mental note to thank Steve McQueen for this as it is such an strangely rare treat to be able to watch two fine actors acting together rather than in their own disjointed closeups.

Carey Mulligan is absent.  "She's in Australia filming Gatsby" I'm told by the vivacious publicist who makes my night when she points out that we are mere feet away from the spot where Carey Mulligan sang in the movie. 

If u can make it there, u'll make it anywhere. come on come thru New York, New York ♫ 

If you haven't been following reviews, there's a key scene early in the movie where the Oscar-buzzing actress, playing Sissy the cabaret singer, does a rendition of "New York New York" that is both hauntingly real (her voice isn't perfect but emotive) and vaguely unreal (it's in the molasses phrasing and intense close-ups that aren't preferenced elsewhere in the film). The whole sequence might justifiably be read as a dream sequence, a psychic conversation, between sister Sissy and brother Brandon. The sequence has only two edits and thus three acts if you will, as it stares at Sissy then Brandon then Sissy again for wrap up.

Looking around I realize that The Standard is practically Shame Central... (though it'd surely be odd to advertise as such!) Two of its sex scenes were also quite obviously filmed there. It's the glass windows and the wrap around view that are dead giveaways.

Before leaving I chat briefly with Steve McQueen and narrowly resist the urge to bow down after years of worshipping his debut film Hunger though I can't help but praise him for his resistance to the boring unimaginative camera work that plagues even "master" directors when two characters converse. Rather than gushing any further, I thank him for not taking a million years off between film #1 and film #2 (a typically unfortunate habit of newbie directors). He's already working on film #3 he tells me called Twelve Years a Slave starring Chiwetel Ejiofor -- though what little he says about it he asks me not to print. Shame (no pun intended). His current pace is troubling him, he adds, because he also has his art career and his wife and kids who need more of his time.

I suppose we can allow him a break after film number three. As long as he keeps working...

NYFF: "Shame"

Michael C. from Serious Film here with fresh dispatches from the New York Film Festival.

For all there is to chew over in director Steve McQueen's Shame, follow up to Hunger his stunning feature debut, my thoughts keep returning to Carey Mulligan's potent supporting work as Fassbender's irresponsible sister. She plays a drifter/lounge singer who disrupts his physically and emotionally empty life when she shows up to crash on his couch for an open-ended visit. For a film about walling yourself off from life until you're numb, Mulligan is at the opposite pole, a person so open to everything that she can't help leaving an emotional mess in her wake. It's a performance that is so unlike anything we've seen from her before it is hard not to get excited anticipating the long career of performances she has yet to give.

As for the film itself, even if I can't join in the chorus shouting "Masterpiece!", there is still much to recommend here. Mulligan plays Sissy, sibling to Michael Fassbender's Brandon, a slick New York City lady killer to the world and a joyless, self-abusing sex addict in private. We follow Brandon as his life begins to slip from its holding pattern and begin a rapid descent towards rock bottom. His work computer is hauled away teeming with viruses. He almost sabotages his chances at a healthy relationship with a beautiful coworker before it begins, and his sister's presence is a constant reminder of things he'd rather not think about. 

After giving a similarly glacial performance in A Dangerous Method Fassbender is much more effective this time out, successfully suggesting the vast oceans of conflict churning beneath the placid surface. The performers are so electric, in fact, you could be forgiven for not noticing they are never much developed beyond being players in the familiar tale of addiction's downward spiral. 

Yet even if Shame isn't saying much about addiction that Billy Wilder didn't say sixty-five years ago in The Lost Weekend, it is worth riding that night train to Hell again just to experience it through McQueen's lens. The director once again shows a rare skill for pacing and composition. The film lingers over moments with far more patience and attention than most filmmakers are capable of. As a result, McQueen and company transform what could have been an attempt to liven up tired subject matter with lurid material into something vital and alive.

NYFF: 'A Dangerous Method' with Keira Unleashed

Kurt here. I'll admit I'm not as well-versed in the work of David Cronenberg as a 27-year-old cinephile should be, but I know enough to confidently conclude that A Dangerous Method, while every bit worth seeing, won't go down as a definitive entry in the Canadian maestro's oeuvre. A bubbling marriage of the sexual and the cerebral, the material surely speaks to Cronenberg's penchant for exploring the curious links between mind and body, but the resulting film doesn't haunt, nor does it even consistently provoke, short of whatever reactions are elicited from the recurring spanking of Keira Knightley's bum. A prestige piece through and through, A Dangerous Method is the intersection of a handful of prior collaborators, teaming Cronenberg with muse Viggo Mortensen, Dangerous Liaisons and Atonement screenwriter Christopher Hampton (who here adapts his own 2002 play, The Talking Cure), and Atonement leading lady Keira Knightley. It seems an almost experimental assemblage of talent, with Cronenberg's newfound Oscar-friendliness put into the mix with some very Oscary playmates. It could be grander, it could be harder, it could be better.

But damn, is it watchable, especially in regard to Knightley's performance as Sabina Spielrein, the unhinged, yet shrewd, Russian fetishist who ultimately comes between psych titans Sigmund Freud (Mortensen) and Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender). A violently screaming Sabina is the first thing you see after some ink-on-paper credits, and it's immediately arresting, if only because you've never seen Knightley so...loud. This is easily Knightley's most impassioned and most transformative performance, one that's sure to have Oscar calling in whatever category she lands in (note to voters: it's a leading role). For a long while, I was having a hard time deciding if her turn was too shrill or dead-on, but I'm leaning toward the latter, despite the lingering sense that she's operating on a wild plane independent of the film. Ably tackling a convincing accent, and looking even more gorgeously gaunt than usual, Knightley plays the sexually-scarred Sabina like a slinky Linda Blair, her deep, dark and gyrating confessions to Jung trickling out as if part of a deep-seated, slow-motion seizure that's long been brewing in her groin. It's uncomfortably compelling, and it gains interest as the film proceeds, as Sabina proves to be much more than her demons.

Mortensen also slips deep into his character, in a performance that's also likely to have at least some amount of gold thrown at it. Behind dark contacts and a good bit of facial hair, he steps into uncommon character-actor territory, to which his handsomely-aging face lends itself well (he's also best with the movie's easy, unassuming humor, which finds a mature, yet playful, way to fool with so much clinical sex talk). Faces, I'd say, are Cronenberg's greatest collective asset here, and one he exploits like a pro. I'm avoiding a great deal of plot, because I don't feel that gripping storytelling is the movie's strong suit. But the not-quite-million-dollar mugs of Knightley, Mortensen and Fassbender, all of whom have enough uncannily symmetrical beauty to ensnare you, but enough slightly-offbeat features to keep things interesting, are what hold you from moment-to-moment and stick with you when you leave. Fassbender, bless him, is clean-cut and awkwardly dashing, yet he shares Knightley's cadaverous look, his well-formed bones exceptionally pronounced. And Mortensen gets a lot of mileage out of those wrinkles, swapping out smolder for aloof wisdom.

Of the milieu on display, I found it most interesting to consider a group of characters evaluating their behaviors while Freudian explanations were still being established. Can we imagine a world without them now? Where motivations and actions aren't looked upon with some degree of id assessment? Such thoughts make A Dangerous Method feel important, at the very least in relation to the whole of 2011's output. What burrowed into my head, though, were those faces and that feral performance from Knightley. Getting in the spirit, I kept wondering what she drew from to get into character, what conscious and unconscious Knightley demons brought Sabina to life. Whatever the answer, it worked, as Knightley's method, pardon the pun, is a dangerous one indeed.

Previously on NYFF
The Loneliest Planet brushes against Nathaniel's skin.
Melancholia shows Michael the end of von Trier's world. 

Dangerous Expectations

For what it's worth...

I saw A Dangerous Method last night and enjoyed it. With the New York Film Festival press events in swing (the festival proper starts on the 30th) and other screenings happening to the side we've arrived at our favorite time of year... Prestige Picture let out of the gate! As we speak, Michael and Kurt are watching Lars von Trier's Melancholia (which I've already seen and found fascinating and difficult to let settle) so you'll be hearing about these two movies shortly and later on when they open, too. Fall season is best because even when the movies aren't perfect they offer plenty to talk (and argue) about.

This adaptation of The Talking Cure (a phrase used in the movie unlike its new title) won't hit until November so my proper review will wait but I wanted to note straightaway that it wasn't quite what I was expecting -- almost stately, subtle and one might even say uptight to the point of refusing catharsis. Keira Knightley handles her difficult role well and without vanity, jutting her jaw out grotesquely and contorting her body to the point that it's even more alien and angular than one might have ever found it before. It's as if she's never read any of the critiques of her beauty. (I would like to note that I don't take kindly to the common hateful screeds about the actual looks of actors that are so popular on the web but this is rather like Sarah Jessica Parker -- who I personally love to look at -- agreeing to co-star in a picture entirely about horses.)

Freud (Viggo) and Jung (Fassy)Loved Viggo as Freud but was quite surprised to have difficulty with Michael Fassbender for the first time. I'm guessing that repression is, like depression, difficult to act in a mesmerizing way. For what it's worth my favorite male portrait of stifling repression is probably Anthony Hopkins in Remains of the Day who I would have handed the Oscar to in 1993. I am not overly fond of Hopkins so maybe I just have issues with male repression onscreen? A point of comparison: I was similarly unwowed by Daniel Day-Lewis when he made The Age of Innocence which is the picture my mind kept drifting towards.

As to Oscar speculation: I suspect that if there is Oscar play then The Age of Innocence is a far better comparison than Remains of the Day. But I suppose it all depends on whether AMPAS is in a repressed well appointed 90s period piece mood (they've kind of moved away from that lately, right?) and how the competition holds up when all the game pieces are on the board.