Introduction
Looking back, 2011 was one of the best for film. I don’t know of any other year in the 21st century that saw as many as three capital “M” Masterpieces appear on the big screen, via festivals or otherwise: Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Once Upon a Time in Anatolia; Béla Tarr’s (or “Tarr Béla’s,” if you’re from his native Hungary) The Turin Horse; and the subject of this piece, Shame, by the British filmmaker Steve McQueen (not to be confused with the Hollywood actor of the same name). Even besides these, you had other excellent, albeit flawed works, such as American director Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life.
If you’ve seen all of these films, you may have noticed that, despite their directors all being from such different backgrounds and cultures, they have all inherited some qualities of Andrei Tarkovsky—the visionary Russian filmmaker prominent a few decades prior. What connects them all is their attitude toward presenting the textures of life in a very raw manner, retaining its nuances, and not being afraid to slow down and brood on them with their characters in order to make the viewer both think and feel deeply.
Most importantly, though, what connects these filmmakers is that their work is made for “grown-ups,” by which I mean people who are emotionally mature, who do not need to be spoon-fed, and who are moved by substance rather than the cheap manipulation that is the standard way of getting audiences to tear up. Alas, such an approach has never been fashionable. Even the likes of Martin Scorsese, who has made kino like Taxi Driver (1976), which, in its content, caters to this kind of viewer, would still adopt a more fashionable style. That is, Scorsese films are “cool.” In contrast, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976, 1978)1—the magnum opus of Scorsese’s mentor John Cassavetes, based on a story the pair developed years before Cassavetes wrote the final script—is not cool nor anywhere near as popular. It is, however, the equal or (I would argue) superior to Taxi Driver. It goes for realism in the most authentic sense possible, and, as amazing a performance as Robert De Niro brought to the character of Travis Bickle, Ben Gazzara’s Cosmo in Bookie managed to transcend even the concept of “performance”—it reminds me of Jeff Buckley’s covers of Lilac Wine and Hallelujah, in that they come through with total authenticity as though Buckley himself had not only written the lyrics but lived them. Anyway, nonetheless, some dislike Bookie for all of the reasons that, to me, make it great art; it is shunned because it does not consider its audience immature or impatient, and it is a distinctly gritty and unglamorous film. We seem to have fetishized grittiness on so-called “prestige TV,” but this aesthetic grittiness is actually just another form of glamor. No, Bookie depicts sleaze, ugliness, shallowness, violence, perversion, addiction, etc., as they are. That is, it does not merely show them onscreen to be reacted against but gives them texture and subtext that allows an intelligent viewer to reflect.
It is a film that shares much in common with Shame, in attitude as well as what is depicted, and Michael Fassbender’s Brandon is perhaps among the handful of rivals to Ben Gazzara’s Cosmo in terms of casting. But, the subject matters of Shame—the struggle with loneliness, lack of meaning, and the unhealthy ways damaged people self-medicate—are actually closer to Taxi Driver, just expressed through a different avenue.2 The difference is simply that, again, much like Bookie, as well as McQueen’s other two Masterpieces, Hunger (2008) and 12 Years a Slave (2013), it has no escapist qualities. Every film mentioned in this paragraph, though, does have a common X factor, and that is that they follow a single character in an unwavering, claustrophobia-inducing closeness. In short, despite the isolation and loneliness of thee characters, there is a form of one-way intimacy that we as viewers are able to share with them. We’ve seen into the depths of their beings and understood them in a way only art can help us to. Sadly, it is not a kind of art that gets made very often, and when it is, it is rarely shown to (or sought out by) the masses. McQueen summed up the typical attitude in an interview with Vanity Fair in 2011:
Steve McQueen: “You know, I’m very disappointed with how people make movies these days. And I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be saying this, but I’ll be honest—I think they’re rubbish. It’s almost like they’re treating audiences like idiots. Every movie is a cliché. . . . And nothing this year, ever, has surprised me.”
I’m going to assume he didn’t see the other two Masterpieces I listed above for that year, of course, but that is a powerful statement nonetheless. 2011 was a fairly solid year in film, even sans its top triumphs. But… he’s right, most of what came out then did treat audiences like idiots—and this applies to “art” films as well. That tendency has remained consistent, as we can see by the 2023 Yorgos Lanthimos “experiment” Poor Things—a take on Frankenstein of sorts in which the mad scientist’s creation is a woman whose brain was replaced with that of her unborn child upon jumping off a bridge out of disgust for it. It is an artsy film with the pretense of a concept that is ripe for something surprising to be done. However, in execution it turned out to be a collection of predictable tropes and gimmick characters that made it seem as though Lanthimos was trying to mash up the themes like baby food for those incapable of chewing upon them.
It reaches further than being “subversive in polite society,” which is one of the factors that only emphasizes how stiff, glossy and commercial it really is. By contrast it gives me more appreciation for the Cassaveteses and McQueens, who, despite taking their time to develope and refine their ideas and scripts, ensured the process of creation happened organically, with actors that were trusted co-creators of the moment, as though, once more, musicians lending their covers to a song that they were allowed to make their own. With this same trust, the viewer is invited to be a co-creator themselves, and it is in this framework of co-creation that meaningful analysis and critique can take place beyond a mere evaluation of the material.
The Shame in Shame
You know, it was actually this film that made me decide it was a good idea to include the year after the title for any work of art I brought up, as it shares its name with a great 1968 film directed by Ingmar Bergman. Both play off of that title in different ways and yet, there is something about the later film that is illuminated by the earlier one. Shame (1968) also primarily focuses on a man and a woman. However, rather than siblings, they are husband and wife—portrayed by Max von Sydow and Liv Ullman—who have to commit horrors to survive during a foreign military occupation (the details of which are never specified). To mirror this, there is a line from Sissy toward the end of Shame (2011): “We’re not bad people. We just come from a bad place.” And, spoilers (if you believe such a film can be diminished by knowing what happens), this is shortly before Brandon finds her with slit wrists from an attempted suicide. It shows that, even without war and in seeming comfort, the true stakes can be immense, and people are not necessarily at peace. In both cases, they do what they can to survive, as much as it hurts others and, in other ways, destroys them as well.
Now, there is an important distinction to be made between the concepts of shame vs. guilt. Guilt separates who we are from what we have done. It is anti-essentialist. Shame, on the other hand, is the idea that certain things make us intrinsically bad or that we do bad things because we are bad. We can never set down the burden. It is no coincidence that Brandon calls Sissy and consistently treats her as a “burden” when she is such a symbol of his past. More than a symbol, Sissy is both a casualty of and an invader from that continent of time that looms beyond the shallows of Brandon’s comfortable life. Like the nature of the war in Shame (1968), we do not get any details of this, no backstory. When Brandon breaks down on the pier and cries out in anguish, I suspect part of that anguish is at the fact that Sissy survived and that he knows he must change even if he does not believe he is capable of such a feat. Of course, this is only one of the many emotions compounding at that moment.
Like great art often does, this film plays with ambiguity. We are given the suggestion that Brandon and Sissy’s relationship may have been incestuous at one point. It is curious how often Sissy seems to provoke Brandon in her own sexuality, from which Brandon recoils. That opens up questions of shame carried over from this opaque part of their lives. Of course, this is not necessarily what happened. Obviously, there was something that caused a degree of trauma for both of them, but its exact nature is not easy to pin down, nor is the nature of the shame. The most common explanation is that the title refers to Brandon’s sex addiction. What the film is more deeply about, however, as we’ve given a lot of ground to thus far, is loneliness. Specifically, the kind of loneliness that comes from two extremes of psychology—what some may refer to as avoidant (in Brandon) and anxious (in Sissy) attachment styles. For the likes of Brandon, being who he is—outwardly very attractive, wealthy, and successful—he likely feels shame over what he sees as his own weaknesses. One must understand that this film does not present merely a series of one-off events but a slice of cyclical life. For instance, we see Brandon being unable to perform with a woman with whom he has a real connection and who has been priming him on the prospect of a committed relationship. We never see her again, but this is clearly not the first time this has happened with someone like her. Brandon fears anything that might lead him to lose his sense of freedom, as it is what he values most in life.
On top of that, people are never good at expressing complex and contradictory emotional states. They tend to double down on whatever comes through the strongest in that moment. Part of Brandon’s brooding nature has to do with his being locked in indecision. He is not able to find balance, and the demands of those around him exacerbate this. To bring is back around, yes, there is a kind of shame in always hiding or suppressing parts of oneself because, paradoxically for Brandon, who cannot let anyone come close enough to trust with the nuances of what he is going through—the context required would be too great, and this is passed on to the viewer via the film’s lacunae, which, like his silences, Brandon leaves for us to fill, as voyeuristically as we watch, or listen to his voicemail.
How McQueen Paints a Scene
Given the damage caused by the recent hurricanes, I was reminded of how of my encounter with the Story Grid YouTube channel. This is not run by the creator of Story Grid, Shawn Coyne, but by someone he has coached. Coyne is, like me, a developmental editor, except that our approaches are very different. While I would concern myself with the artistry of a novel and where I believe its literary merit lies or not, he doesn’t seem to believe such things are practical enough to be of concern, and insofar as it is possible to grasp, it’s something abstract and not for the editor to judge. Instead, Story Grid is all about what makes something commercial, what gives it appeal to an audience you know how to market towards. I have to admit that there was a time, not that long ago, when I partially bought into this approach, in that, since it was possible to make something both commercial and artful, as I mentioned was the case in Taxi Driver, why not opt for a balance? The issue, for me, is that, in principle, it is too limiting, and, in principle, art should not be compromised in this way. Besides, nobody really knows what makes a commercial success. There are certainly some common factors that are found in popular works, and deviating too much will make it harder to gain traction, but it doesn’t go the other way—as in, there are some necessary factors, but they are never sufficient without a lot of funding, distribution, and luck. Most of the time, books or films engineered from the ground up for mass appeal end up flopping regardless. It is much easier to sell something that solves a concrete problem, and that’s where the Story Grid branding is so effective—it denotes a level of certainty and control, and it is targeted toward those who are feeling insecure about their abilities.
Anyway, I saw this video on SG, and the host was talking about how, for practice, he had tried writing a “lovers meet” scene set in a café. He was attempting something like the painter’s fruit basket—a standard scene into which you can bring your own interpretation, the idea being that if you could make something like this interesting, then it would show real craft. For feedback, he sent it to Mr Coyne, who, credit where due, pointed out much of what didn’t work. The problem was that nothing interesting was brought into the picture. It was just the usual trite stuff that could have been written by an AI pulling together the average of what is expected. Now we get to the point, that being Coyne’s solution to this, which was not to address any of the underlying issues of craft but to—a la the Gulf of Mexico—put a hurricane in it. No, literally, he advised the author to simply have a hurricane blow through the café during this scene, knocking over every fruit basket in its wake.
The common bias, which is becoming more and more prominent, is that stories about ordinary life are inherently uninteresting and that we need the unusual, dangerous, and especially fantastical to make people care. As fantasy author Brandon Sanderson once said in a creative writing lecture: Literary fiction is for people who want to write about boring people with boring problems. Except, of course, it isn’t. It’s just that both the people and their problems are more complex. That, among other reasons, is why it isn’t really boring. So, let’s see how this can translate to film. In Shame, we have such an ordinary scene of two potential lovers in a restaurant on their first date, specifically Brandon and his co-worker, Marianne. There are two avenues for doing something interesting with a scene that don’t involve hurricanes or gimmickry: by using it in an interesting way within the broader context of the work or by bringing distinct texture and detail at the micro level. McQueen does both.
I use a painting of van Gogh’s as an illustration not just because it’s so recognizable but because his approach is actually quite similar to McQueen’s if you were able to transpose their respective mediums in how they capture their subjects. Van Gogh’s forms are simultaneously soft and bold, and there is a distinct separation between elements. The details are not explicit but gestured at with subtle remarks of coloring and different orders of contrast existing within any individual object than exist between objects. McQueen uses these same techniques, although he opts to integrate them within a realistic, rather than an artificial, presentation. In either case, there are so many touches that you won’t notice on initial viewing. The first time around, you are just taking it in as a whole. But each time you revisit it, you may see something new, which was understated not to draw attention to itself but which gives you something new to appreciate when you’ve grown accustomed to the big picture. That’s what I mean by the varying levels of contrast. At first glance, both the painting and the scene appear simple, vibrant, and direct, but this is an illusion.
Then there is the rest of the gallery/film to give you an even higher order of contrast against which all this becomes a moment within a movement. Given Brandon’s reluctance to be in a committed relationship while still very clearly connecting with Marianne (especially if we include them walking down the street together afterward) and given that she obviously wants a long-term relationship—it would be natural to assume in a typical film that this would be the start of a trend towards Marianne saving Brandon from his ways, and the couple would settle down. What we get instead, as I’ve mentioned in passing, is that Brandon can’t perform in bed with her as he becomes too overwhelmed with complicated feelings to enjoy what has until then been the simple and straightforward act of sex. So Marianne leaves, not wanting to upset him with her presence and to give him the space to rescue his dignity, and Brandon immediately hires an escort to help him bang out his frustrations in that same room. This progression, while very organic and realistic, is nonetheless not one that would even be considered by the majority of writers, let alone executed. This is because the Story Grids of the world have conditioned writers to believe that stories have to be written a certain way—never mind that this is precisely why so many stories are so predictable and boring to a sophisticated audience.
Let’s zoom into the details of the scene itself. Brandon is initially hesitant to step inside. He looks up and sees a woman getting pounded against a highrise window, and only then decides to enter. Marianne remarks that he is late and was wondering if he was going to show up. Throughout, Brandon is awkward with both Marianne and the waiters, who buzz around them and act to unsettle the atmosphere. Despite the girl in the window being on full display to the streets, this act is still anonymous, in a way. It is a reflection of the world from which Brandon has descended. He is used to intimacy being purely physical, abstracted away far above the rest of humanity—Harry Lime in the Ferris wheel. Now, he is at ground level, and people are interrupting or looming over him in a moment of not physical but emotional intimacy. You might not consciously notice all of this, but you will likely feel it. Due to how this scene is introduced, as we follow Brandon on the street and then see him sit down, engage in small talk, look at the menu, etc., it creates a very tangible sense of being in that position, entering this environment, and trying to relax, even as the atmosphere is fussy and high strung. It is also clearly not an environment Brandon is accustomed to; the closest thing to a dinner date he would normally engage in would be eating takeaway while watching a live cam model. The conversation leads organically into a deep point of dramatic tension. Marianne is separated but is willing to move forward, but Brandon fears the stagnation that would come with only being with one partner, but couches this in a forward-thinking rationale about the direction of society at large—which is reflective of the only other scene in which he and Marianne are at a table with one another and that is at a meeting, listening to their boss describe their company’s “forward-thinking” approach which, like Brandon’s habits, was once seen as disgusting, though attitudes appear to be changing.
After dinner, as they are walking down the street and talking more casually and openly, Brandon expresses that he would rather be someone else, which tells a lot by itself, but there is also a touch of symbolism in his answer. He says he would’ve liked to be a musician in the 1960s. At various points, Brandon is seen listening to music, especially classical and piano, including on vinyl, to quell his restlessness. On the one hand, the ‘60s was a time for forward thinkers and sexual openness. On the other hand, it seems that there is something about “the classics,” whether that be Bach or The Beatles, that brings some stability to his life. Marianne, by the way, responds that she would not wish to be anyone but herself, here and now (and, of course, being a black woman in New York, she has no interest in joining Brandon in the ‘60s). That shows just how different shows just how different their perspectives are. Brandon’s life is fundamentally all about escapism, and this, as I’ve detailed, is expressed throughout the film both explicitly and symbolically. In some ways, Brandon Sullivan is the more realistic and artful way of exploring the kind of person that was loosely the inspiration for Patrick Bateman of American Psycho (2000). Brandon’s strategy of commodifying connection is very much a coping mechanism he has applied to modern life, as he sees it, in which things like relationships, as he told Marianne over dinner, are, to him, the delusional fantasy still being clung to. Marianne, despite her own relationship falling through, remains healthily optimistic about them. She is very different from Sissy in that respect. Sissy craves connection and walks willingly into abusive situations. By contrast, Marianne has what might be considered a “secure” attachment style. It is commonly held that one of the most reliable ways for someone with either an anxious or avoidant attachment style, as Brandon has, to heal and overcome their own toxicity is to build a long-term relationship with someone who has a secure attachment style. Essentially, Marianne was Brandon’s best shot at actually escaping the world in which he is trapped.
It may even be oversimplifying it to call Brandon’s attachment style “avoidant.” It is possible his style is actually what is known as “disorganized,” meaning that he, deep down, does want a relationship, but since he believes that such a thing is not possible, he protects himself with avoidant behavior, not letting anyone in. Keep in mind I merely use these psychological categories as a way to highlight the different ways in which individuals in this film deal with others—the contrasting colors that make each of them so distinctly stand out. So, rather than join Marianne, he tries to bring her into his world, taking her up high to make love, but it is no use, as Brandon is emotionally anchored down. After she leaves, Brandon gets what he wants: to be the man in the window and for the woman to be a stranger. The cycle is complete and bracketed off within his life. At the end of the film, when Brandon once again makes eye contact with the married woman on the train, he may be feeling regret at this moment at not pursuing something with Marianne and, perhaps, if we were to be uncharitable, senses that he has missed out on a kind of thrill the woman is clearly engaging in at cheating. Whether the cycle has broken or is merely entering a new phase, we don’t know. The scars on Sissy’s arm, the latest bandaged up as she recovers in hospital, are like notches counting Circles ever downward.3
1976 wasn’t a bad year for film either it seems. If you’re interested, I indeed recommend the longer 1976 original cut of The Killing of a Chinese Bookie.
It could be said to have as much in common with La Dolce Vita (1960), directed by Federico Fellini and featuring a titanic performance from Marcello Mastroianni, who would be turning 100 as of Sept 2024 and whom I would add to the De Niro, Gazzara, Fassbender club as actors go.
Referencing The Nine Circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno (1321). Eerily enough, I also counted nine major scars running down Sissy’s wrist.
Excellent writing and insights.
I am now picking each one of your 2011 suggested movies and watching them by one by one.
Have started with Shame and it is indeed quite a unique film.
Thanks for sharing Dan.
This was an engrossing read, which is doubly impressive since I've never seen Shame (2011). It's very much on my list now, though! I've also not seen the other two 2011 masterpieces you listed, but there's no better to way to sell a film to me than to compare it to Tarkovsky.
I've been meaning to get to Béla Tarr in particular for a while, and I'm gearing up to watch Sátántangó soon, because I have an intuitive inkling that - similar to how you used Shame in this essay - it's going to be the thing that ties together an essay I'm planning to write.
Anyway, great work! I'm looking forward to seeing what else you write.