McQueen - The Big Three

By Reece Beckett

“I was a painter before, and it was always about the frame, of course. But within this frame, somehow, because of movement, because of things passing through the frame, it seemed to have a life bigger than the actual frame itself. That’s the thing that gave me passion to sort of want to make films.” - Steve McQueen

Steve McQueen is a British filmmaker, a man who is at this point three films into his career, with a fourth coming this year. It isn’t often that you come across what seems to be a perfect filmography, films that are consistently impossible to find flaws in, however I believe that McQueen has accomplished this. He made his first feature length film in 2008, after spending 15 years (at least) making his own short films. He has continued to make features for the last decade, even winning Academy Awards for his latest film, 12 Years A Slave.

His first film, Hunger, faced much critical acclaimed upon its release, even winning The Carl Foreman Award at the Bafta’s, The award for a British director in their debut film. The film was even given a release on The Criterion Collection, a company “dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world.”

There are many parts of his three films that seem to cross over. For example, all films centre around one male character: Bobby Sands in his first film, Hunger, released in 2008, Brandon in Shame, released in 2011 and Solomon Northup in his most well known film, 12 Years A Slave. This may seem like something you could attach to many different filmographies, however something that I noticed was the fact that in all three of these films, this one man is used as a symbol for a much bigger conflict. In Hunger, Bobby Sands is representative of the IRA hunger strike of 1981, in Shame, Brandon represents sexual addiction in general, and of course in 12 Years A Slave, Northup represents the overall conflict of slavery. 

This shows McQueen’s clear understanding of what makes cinema really tick. There isn’t any need for large scale action, and the closest he ever comes to this is in Hunger, in which a brutal scene plays out in just one take, following the prisoners as they are harshly beaten and searched. This scene isn’t only horrific to view, and extremely uneasy, but McQueen even justified both sides of the fight. It would’ve been almost too easy to victimise Sands and the other prisoners, however during this fight, and throughout the film for that matter, we are shown that life isn’t too much better for the officers. In the beating scene, we see one officer traumatised by what he is seeing, and his own actions, hiding behind a wall as the violence continues on the other side of it.

This idea of ignorance is another recurring theme in McQueen’s filmography so far. In Shame, Brandon ignores his sisters frequent cries for help, he ignores her calls and he ignores his own addiction. He seems to not pay attention to anything other than his sexual satisfaction, consumed by his addiction to a point that he no longer views what he is doing as wrong. His addiction has engulfed him in a bubble, one that he cannot break out of.

Ignorance is also seen in 12 Years A Slave, not only from the general public towards the slavery, but also towards the emotions of these characters. For example, there is a scene wherein Northup is left to hang, and the shot lingers on his hanging body as we see life simply continue in the background. A harsh and disgusting moment, difficult for anyone to see.

McQueen’s earlier work, strangely, doesn’t seem to show any ignorance or the representation of a conflict through a single person, instead McQueen’s 1993 short film, titled “Bear”, shows two men, totally naked, fighting and embracing each other. This film communicates strange connotations of homoeroticism, violence and race rather than being more character based. Though “Bear” may differ from his other work, I find it interesting that the men fight whilst naked, which once again is in all of McQueen’s films. In Hunger and 12 Years A Slave, nudity is included to show vulnerability and helplessness, whilst in Shame, it is used as a horrific reminder that whilst Brandon is so addicted to his sexual fantasies, he is also incredibly vulnerable to his addiction, overpowered by it... whenever Brandon is naked, he seems to feel free, something rather tribal which is a similar ideology to what we see in “Bear”.

Strangely, McQueen also made a short film heavily inspired by Buster Keaton. The film, titled “Deadpan” is a recreation of the iconic Buster Keaton stunt wherein a house falls onto Keaton, however he narrowly survives as a hole lands over him. This one stands out compared to McQueen’s other films, basing itself off of a comedic genius rather than the rough conflicts that he usually focuses on, however, it still makes sense considering that McQueen could have learnt his excellent visual style from Keaton.

I find it incredible how McQueen isn’t afraid to let the camera linger. The most obvious example of this is in Hunger, a film with many excellent long takes, however the one that comes to mind first to me is a scene when we see a prison cleaner, mopping up urine. The shot lasts over a minute, uncomfortably dragging out this simple job and reminding the viewer that the prisoners aren’t the only ones suffering through their actions and protests, it’s a harsh reminder that with the way things are in the story, there is no winner, there is no clear-cut protagonist.

McQueen uses long takes in all of his films, whether it be the 20 minute conversation scene between Bobby Sands and a priest in Hunger, a phenomenal tracking shot that follows Brandon through the streets of New York as he jogs, trying to clear his head, in Shame, or some brutal takes in 12 Years A Slave, including one wherein Solomon Northup is forced to whip one of his friends to death.

Another thing that I noticed about Steve McQueen is that he never takes specific sides. Even in his short film, “Bear”, he never focuses specifically on one man more than the other, and this is something that continued throughout his filmography. In Hunger, the prison officers aren’t made out to be antagonists, in fact the first 10 minutes of the film focus on one prison officer, we see his bruised and cut hands, his difficult family life strained further by his job and the paranoia that the current politics caused for people. In Shame, Brandon is never looked down upon by the film, McQueen leaves everything to the audience, they need to decide. Even in 12 Years A Slave, McQueen doesn’t push either way. The film shows that not everyone was involved, only making the awful men villainous, whilst the majority of the characters sympathise with Northup and the other slaves. As McQueen himself said about 12 Years A Slave, “Everyone deserves not just to survive, but to live. This is the important legacy of Solomon Northup.”

One other thing that I noticed was the way that Hunger and Shame seem to connect. Whilst they focus on entirely different things, I notice a strange connection between Sands’ hunger strike to going ‘cold turkey’ from a drug, just as Brandon would have to in Shame. I may be reaching, however it seems strange that the two connect in such a way.

I also noticed an odd connection between McQueen’s Shame and Martin Scorsese’s New York, New York, made in 1977.
Though there are so many connections between Steve McQueen’s films, from the way that he chooses to portray his subject and the way that his films feel incredibly observant, their great variation in topics is what I find very interesting.
Though they are all upsetting topics, fuelled by conflict, there’s also a great range in the topics of choice, as I stated before with the great contrast between Hunger, and its protagonists choice to abandon a necessity of life, compared to Shame, in which the protagonist seems to have created an entirely new necessity in his own life. 

Though McQueen’s cinematic career may be a mere three features long, I believe that he is one of the greatest contemporary directors, creating some of the greatest current films consistently, presenting beautiful and harsh films about real issues that people face, whether it be fictional or non-fictional. I believe that in McQueen, cinema has acquired yet another anthropologist, a man who cares endlessly for his peers, and wants desperately to acknowledge the pain that some go through.

The narrative style of 'Dunkirk'

By Anand Nair

In 2017, writer-director Christopher Nolan released his much anticipated war outing ‘Dunkirk’ which polarized audiences worldwide right from the moment ‘go’. One group, to which I belonged, hailed it as a work of imaginative triumph and as an instant classic, while the other group criticized it for the lack of a human core and labelled it a bland and pretentious by nature.

Much hate in particular was vented towards the non-linear narrative, which the naysayers of the film rendered needless and out-of-the-place within the subject matter of the film. This brief write-up of mine hopes to prove the contrary.

1. Conflict

Although I am aware of the exceptions to this rule (Walden, Man With A Movie Camera, Chelsea Girls to name a few), it goes without saying that almost of all the movies we see thrive on the progression from the establishment of a conflict to its resolution/non-resolution. They make the work engrossing and act as an invisible adhesive that joins scenes together by giving them a route of focused and logical progression. The fracturing of time ‘is’ the conflict of Dunkirk with its incoherence prodigiously utilizing our inherent need to juxtapose the events in linearity so as to draw us into the work. Many have argued that Nolan should have rather opted for a straightforward, linear narrative, but they do so in complete ignorance of what the film hopes to accomplish in the first place – portraying war through a collective consciousness rather than an individual one. A conflict situation in the context of Dunkirk would have only emanated in a linear narrative had it been approached from an individual perspective (say The Pianist) or a battalion perspective (like Saving Private Ryan), but doing so would be completely at odds with the crux of the movie. The nature of the narrative acts a syntax here doing what Rosebud does in Citizen Kane, molding into a cohesive whole what would otherwise have been hanging threads, full of potential but no viable means of exploring it with.

2. Nature

Dunkirk is a work epic in its scope and fittingly, so are the antagonists at play in it – land, water, air. Less is inflicted on the Allied forces by the ‘enemy’ compared to the hindrances the elements of nature bring to the fore. The non-linear narrative enhances the feeling of entrapment omnipresent in the film by creating the sense that all events are materializing at the same time, which contributes to the development of an aura that all the elements of nature have risen up together at the same time, up in arms to prevent the escape of the soldiers stranded at Dunkirk. It levels the stakes to an unparalleled high which otherwise wouldn’t have been possible.

3. Time

As a medium, cinema lets us fracture time, elongate it and more importantly in this case, compress it. The evacuation of Dunkirk is so massive in its scope and so distant in its varying geographical settings that to have to make this film with a linear narrative would have meant risking a runtime mirroring a Tarr or Diaz film, a risk Nolan couldn’t afford to take considering the production values riding on the film. More importantly, the non-linear narrative helps put a clock on the events, menacingly ticking louder and clearer with every passing scene. Nameless these soldiers remain, but the clocks act as a connective tissue making them human and knowable to us, causing us to care almost beyond bearing about their fates and in process, transfixing us to the screen, watching in fear of what might happen to them. And us.

Similarities between Hitchcock’s PSYCHO an Eminem’s STAN music video

By George Hobson

“Stan” by Eminem is no doubt on of the famous music videos of the 21st century. The song and video are told from the point of view of obsessed Eminem fan “Stan”. In the video we are introduced to Stan who has a pregnant girlfriend (played by singer Dodo who makes an appearance in the song). The story details how Eminem-obsessed Stan writes letters to his idol - but due to Eminem repeatedly not replying to the letters, Stan sends more angry letters - the story comes to close when Stan drives his car with his pregnant girlfriend in the boot into the lake, whilst sending an angry voice recording to Eminem due to not responding to his mail - Eminem doesn’t get this angry voice recording though as before driving the car into the lake, Stan humorously realises - “Well, gotta go, I'm almost at the bridge now. Oh shit, I forgot, how am I supposed to send this shit out?”

 Obsessed fan Stan writing to his idol

We then cut to the real life Eminem, who upon reading one of Stan’s angry letters, Eminem respectfully explains how  “I meant to write you sooner but I just been busy”. During this scene, it cuts to a shot of the post office in which one of Stan’s letters falls out of the post - referencing Stans early line “there must have been a mix up at the post office or somethin’”. Whilst Eminem is respectful to Stan in this letter, he also expresses concern about his mental health - “You got some issues Stan, I think you need some counseling to help your ass from bouncing off the walls when you get down some.”  In further expressing his concern he recalls “this one shit on the news a couple weeks ago that made me sick. Some dude was drunk and drove his car over a bridge and had his girlfriend in the trunk, and she was pregnant with his kid. And in the car they found a tape, but they didn't say who it was to. Come to think about, his name was, it was you” Upon realising that the perpetrator was Stan, Eminem lets out a “Damn!”, and the songs ends, with and sudden burst of lightning near Eminem's rainy window, in which the face of Stan appears in the window for no more than a second.

(Stan briefly appearing in Eminem’s window)

The story for “Stan” sure is entertaining with interesting characters and unique premise - by following the letters Stan sends, we are intrigued throughout and want to know how the story ends. By making Stan a “family man” with a pregnant girlfriend, it makes him relatable to the average viewer, and thus his downfall is all the more tragic. The duality of Stan’s life is communicated visually with Stan's girlfriend (his “normal” life) placed at the top of the house.  A shot pans down to the layers of the house and reveals Stan’s basement which is a dark and gloomy shrine dedicated to Eminem, with poster’s everywhere, and where he writes his disturbed fan mail. This is reminiscent to the house in Alfred Hitchcock’s film PSYCHO, in which deranged character Norman Bate’s house has three layers (basement, middle and top). This is reference to influential psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his idea that there are three stages of human consciousness “Id, ego and Super ego”. The “Super ego” is what one would call one’s “good self”, the self one presents to the world to appear morally pure and agreeable with society.

“The iceberg model often used to describe Freud’s theory of consciousness”

Freud associates the “Super ego”, with parental figures and the responsibility they take on to raise their children on ethical morals and thus they they alter themselves to appear to be the “Super ego” role model in hopes to better influence their children, saying - “the super-ego also takes on the influence of those who have stepped into the place of parents — educators, teachers, people chosen as ideal models”. We see this in “Stan”, in which the symbol of parental maturity is present in the form of Stan’s concerned pregnant girlfriend at the top of the house. We also see this in PSYCHO, as in the top of the house, we see Norman’s “mother’s” bedroom as well as Norman’s childhood bedroom, complete with teddy bears and a child-sized bed. These are all featured at the top of the house and represent the “Super ego”.

Norman and “mothers” room – symbol of parental authority at the top of the house (super ego)

Stan’s pregnant girlfriend at the top of the house (super ego) another symbol of parental authority

Also, when describing the motives of the super ego, Freud mentions “the task of seeing that narcissistic satisfaction from the ego ideal is ensured”. The character of Stan indulges in “narcissistic satisfaction” during the beginning scene, in which in the upstairs bathroom (super ego) he is seen bleaching his hair blonde to look like his hero Eminem - he is altering himself to fulfill his super ego. As I mentioned how the super-ego is often associated with going along with the ebb and flow of society, could the reason why Stan is altering himself is due to the fact that Eminem is a pop culture idol? Does he think be altering himself, he will gain more approval from society, thus satisfying his super-ego?

However another stage of human conscience - the bottom - is what Freud described as the “Id”. Id represents our natural instincts,that often go against the norms of civilised society (the super ego) and often represent our primal sexual and aggressive traits. The “Id” is present with us straight at birth as a natural setting, whereas the “super-ego” is taught to us by the morals set by parental figures and society. In the basement of Stan’s house lies his “Id” - his aggressive and primal nature that he hides from the world, and similarly in PSYCHO, the fruit cellar shows Normans perverse and sexually suggestive nature, in that we see the corpse of his murdered mother, that he hides from the world.

The bottom of the house, in the fruit cellar (Id) where Norman hides his darker side of himself – his mother’s murdered corpse

Stan’s basement (Id) in which his unhealthy obsession for Eminem is present

The association of the “Id” being associated with children/babies (“present at birth” as Freud would say), is communicated visually. In Psycho, as I mentioned before, there is emphasis on Norman’s bedroom, in which the bed appears to be recently slept in, and in another scene, Norman is scene eating “candy” - food often associated with babies and children. In Stan, we see our main character whine to both his girlfriend and Eminem, the way we would expect a spoiled child to do. In the beginning scene, before the music starts, Stan locks himself in the bathroom, with his girlfriend pleading him to come out - the way we would expect a mother to reason with a grumpy child from locking themselves in a bathroom as part of a temper-tantrum. The idea of Stan being a symbolic child/baby is also communicated in the shot where his pregnant girlfriend sits on the toilet. The shot pans downs from her sitting on the toilet to Stan at the bottom in his basement. Now this may be crude, but the downward shot from the woman on the toilet to Stan at the bottom, could be interpreted as a birth metaphor - as if Stan has dropped out from his girlfriend’s vagina from the top of the house to the basement at the bottom - the newborn child in which the “Id” is present.

The pan shot in which it shows the layers of the house (human consciousness) and possible birth metaphor

Freudian ideas aren’t the only psychoanalytical themes present in “Stan”. The ideas of Carl Jung and his idea of “the shadow” are present in “Stan” as well as Hitchcock’s PSYCHO. Jung was influenced by Freud, although the two disagreed on many things.

When discussing the shadow, Jung says - “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is. At all counts, it forms an unconscious snag, thwarting our most well-meant intentions.” In black and white terms, the shadow is the dark side of us - the “Id”. He also says - “The ego confuses itself with the façade personality (which is of course in reality only that part of the personality that is tailored to fit the collective), and forgets that it possesses aspects which run counter to the persona his means that the ego has repressed the shadow side and lost touch with the dark contents, which are negative” 

Psychoanalyst Carl Jung pictured

In PSYCHO, themes of the shadow are present and are communicated visually - the scene where Norman makes Marion “sandwiches and milk”, Norman on the surface appears to be a beta-male “nice guy”, in his interest to help Marion, but behind this polite facade, lies his primal sexual interest in Marion. For example the room is adorned with Norman’s “stuffed birds”  (a harmless yet somewhat creepy ornament), but the shadows of the birds point at Marion imposingly - the beak shadows are quite phallic. In fact the beak shadows are similar to the phallic knife that the shadowy figure of “mother” uses when she (he) stabs Marion. Mother of course being Norman’s repressed shadow.   

Note the similarities between the shadow beak and the shadowy knife held by mother (credit due to Rob Ager for pointing out this similarity - check out his film analysis for pyscho on his website Collative Learning)

Jung also says “Closer examination of the dark characteristics – that is, the inferiorities constituting the shadow – reveals that they have an emotional nature, a kind of autonomy, and accordingly an obsessive or, better, possessive quality.” When talking of the “obsessive” and “possessive” aspects of the shadow, this is relatable to both the characters of Stan and Norman. Stan of coursed being obsessed with Eminem and Norman being obsessed with his mother.

Despite the shadow being associated with negative traits, one can also link Jungian psychology with creativity. For example, underrated philosopher Walter Kaufmann (best known for being the translator of many works by German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche) said - "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity”. This is true of Eminem, as his creativity is often inspired by dark aspects of humanity which are often suppressed by many, with “Stan” being no exception. Interestingly, the brief shot of Stan appearing in Eminem’s window as a reflection of sorts - could be suggestive of Eminem’s shadow.  Like Kaufmann would say, “the shadow is the seat of creativity” with Eminem being inspired by a dark subject matter to write this very song. Also the “shadow” of Stan could be a symbol of Eminem’s repressed guilt for partly being the cause of the murder/suicide of Stan and his pregnant wife.

(Eminem’s shadow)