Fox Searchlight is doing what it should in releasing SHAME with an NC-17 rating, rather than neutering it. Artistically, and and even commercially, a bowdlerized SHAME would be an impotent and flaccid. This is a film about hardcore sex addiction -- cutting away as our protagonist is mired in the depths of his affliction would ruin the central drama upon which the film is constructed, rendering it dead on arrival. And it makes about as much sense as showing married couples sleeping in separate beds. Such quaint notions of censorship have no place in our wondrous era of carnal delights from the internet pornucopia. In fact, ‘quaint’ isn’t a strong enough word to describe the MPAA’s attitude of casual censorship -- I’m not sure English has a word for hopelessly, ridiculously, destructively out of date. And don’t give me that doublespeak that it is voluntary so it isn’t censorship. It isn’t voluntary for audiences (they don’t release two versions of films in theaters), and the MPAA is effectively a cartel.
But let’s not pretend Fox Searchlight is doing this out of the kindness of their hearts. They can’t release the film unrated, since they are members of the MPAA. They can’t edit it because it would kill the dramatic viability of the film. Furthermore, Steve McQueen is an honest-to-god internationally recognized artist (i.e. he started in another medium and another country), and censoring his work would intellectually carry a much greater stigma, nearly rising to the level of international incident, than, say, asking Len Wiseman to drop a “fuck” or two.
Not that any of the above has stopped studios before. More likely, this is a rare case where a studio realizes that chopping the film would also commercially damage it. Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan show full-frontal nudity for more than just fleeting glimpses. For better or worse, more people will pay to see that than an art-house piece about addiction. And to be fair, Michael Fassbinder *will* be getting an Oscar nomination, deservedly so, not only for his acting, but (forgive me), his balls-out acting. Cut that last part, and the golden goose of the Oscar nomination is jeopardy. But the most telling fact is that, at least according to IMDB, Fox Searchlight paid only $400,000 for the US distribution rights. When you pick up a film for the price of the lunch tab on a tentpole you can trot it out as your shining example of artistic integrity to distract people from remembering that you are a part of a de facto censorship system for art. The MPAA *is* the studios, so beatifying them for being “daring” by releasing an NC-17 picture is like praising your boyfriend for only hitting you some of the time.
Enough about the business. My wrath is aimed at the studios, and some of the media regurgitating their propaganda. The filmmakers, who made SHAME to tell a story without regard to commercial viability, deserve heaping amounts of praise. I saw it at TIFF, and it was one of the most buzzed about movies this year.
In the film, the protagonist, Brandon, is a New Yorker who seems to have everything going his way. He dresses stylishly, is successful in business, he’s got a well furnished place in New York, and he has the looks and charm of Michael Fassbender. Of course, behind the veneer he’s furiously addicted to sex in all its forms: masturbation, internet porn, casual encounters with women, and prostitutes. These things dominate his daily routine, even to the point of putting his well-being into jeopardy -- he watches porn at work, gets off the subway to chase women with whom he shares a glance, and prefers the company of prostitutes to the intimacy of a relationship. But his carefully constructed life starts to unravel when his sister, Sissy (Carey Mulligan), pays an unexpected visit and, from his perspective, invades his life. She’s emotional and needy, where he’s stoic and distant. The two clearly have an unconventional relationship -- something awful, possibly depraved is lurking in their past, although it is never addressed directly. As a result they regularly push each other to the brink of self-destruction, even barging in to have an argument while the other while one is showering, or worse, masturbating.
It is these kinds of scenes that make SHAME so uncomfortable, yet so powerful. The performances are as good as acting gets, sometimes done for minutes at a time completely in the nude. Carey Mulligan does one scene fully-frontally nude for about three minutes. As hard as it seems to believe, because of the context, it isn’t titillating at all. When one of the hottest starlets in Hollywood can do a nude scene and make you just want to put some clothes on her, that’s great acting. These scenes underscore the vulnerability and damaged nature of the characters, and take the film far out of the comfort zone of conventional Hollywood narrative into an unsettling, yet more revealing, voyeuristic territory.
Much of the credit for SHAME is due Steve McQueen, who is an artist who happens to be working in film. Each shot is carefully composed, whether it is the wrinkled bedsheets or the tracking used in a sex scene. Yet, as befitting the subject matter, the film is never beautiful -- like the main character it seems, gloomy, cold, and distant. The uncomfortable situations and uncompromising vision of the film will no doubt turn many viewers off, but I found them interesting, if at times almost stifling in their weight.
Stories about men and women being laid low by sexual misadventure are as old as storytelling itself (see Oedipus Rex), but McQueen gives this one a modern twist, drawing upon ancient themes while taking the narrative it into relatively unmined territory using the novel possibilities offered by the ubiquitousness of the the internet and the anonymity of the modern labyrinth of New York.
What happens when your tools of self destruction are always readily at hand, the bonds of family and friendship that restrain your dark side are removed, and there are plenty of willing participants to speed you along in your downfall? This is a fictional story about sex addiction, but the broader strokes could apply to distinctively modern sorts of catastrophic implosions we’ve watched collectively in cases like Charlie Sheen or Michael Jackson.
Carey Mulligan and Steve McQueen are great, but it is Michael Fassbender’s performance that makes this film something unforgettable. His character’s got charm, but he’s got a deep, dark core that he’s hiding from the world. But beyond that, he’s almost a predator, something like a wild animal stalking prey. Yet at the same time he has a very human vulnerability. And I don’t know how he did it but he somehow manages to convey that he’s sexy and in control, while simultaneously seeming desperate and full of despair.
Now I don’t know if Fassbender was rocking a stunt cock or what, but let’s just say that my reaction to him in his fully uncensored glory was approximately that of Tom Hanks in BACHELOR PARTY upon seeing “Nick The Dick”: reluctant amazement, giving way to awe. As I straight man, I am here to tell you that this thing in its fulsome magnificence is the kind of talisman that can unite a divided nation, and has such power that it will lift us out of our economic malaise. Audiences will be blown right past revulsion or defensiveness into a state of wonder formerly achievable only by meditation or reflecting upon the cosmos. And that’s the real reason SHAME can’t be anything less than NC-17. Its best supporting actor would end up on the cutting room floor.
-Copernicus
