Review: Michael Fassbender Takes Over Toronto With A Dangerous Method And Shame

http://www.cinemablend.com/new/Review-Michael-Fassbender-Takes-Over-Toronto-With-A-Dangerous-Method-And-Shame-26740.html

Review: Michael Fassbender Takes Over Toronto With A Dangerous Method And Shame
discussion0 Comments published: 2011-09-13 10:26:44 Author: Katey Rich

Let's talk about Michael Fassbender. Nobody in Toronto right now, myself included, seems unable to stop marveling at the actor, and once the general public has gotten a look at the two films he brought to this festival, A Dangerous Method and Shame, I imagine the general public will get on board as well. Of course, you might think you're already fascinated by Fassbender, thanks to performances in Inglourious Basterds and Hunger and Jane Eyre and Fish Tank and even X-Men: First Class. But you really haven't pondered the Fassbender appeal until, within two days of each other, you've watched him spank Keira Knightley and go full-frontal naked in two separate films.

His first movie to premiere here was A Dangerous Method, by far the least interesting of the two, despite the fact that it's directed by Canadian auteur David Cronenberg and co-stars both Knightley and Viggo Mortensen. On paper it all seems perfect-- the story of the friendship and eventual rift between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, set off by one of Jung's patients, a hysterical Russian woman (Knightley) with serious sexual issues. In his previous films Cronenberg has carefully, sometimes creepily examined issues of the mind and the body, and you couldn't ask for bigger talent to bring it all to the screen. But somehow the intellectual conversations between Mortensen's Freud and Fassbender's Jung have less crackle than Magneto and Professor X chatting it up in X-Men: First Class, and all that spanking-- which is wryly funny in its own way-- somehow feels tangential to the groundbreaking psychological theories these two are developing together.

You can lay some of the blame on Christopher Hampton, who adapted A Dangerous Method from his own stage play and relies far too much on telling us about these characters-- especially Jung's spirituality, which distanced him from Freud but is never really demonstrated onscreen-- than digging into their psyches the way any good psychoanalyst would. But Cronenberg is no help in removing the film from its stagebound roots either, bouncing from one conversation in a room between two characters for another, rarely opening up the camera to the early 20th century Vienna setting or allowing us inside these characters at all. The actors get some of the work done for him-- Fassbender plays Jung as a placid exterior masking a lot of coiled frustration, with Mortensen's Freud a kind of twinkly, fatherly side presence. Knightley is another issue entirely, kicking off the movie as a howling, toothy madwoman and gradually developing into a doctor who will become a significant force in psychology in her own right. Her performance is bold and big, and gets downright good once her character is allowed to calm down; in those opening moments of madness, though, Knightley has to ask the audience to engage with a character who's almost impossible to believe in.

For all the ways A Dangerous Method feels drained of meaning and artistic intent, though, Shame is brimming with it. The second feature film from British artist Steve McQueen, who gave Fassbender his breakout role in Hunger, is a simple and somewhat familiar story of addiction, told with visual style and powerhouse acting that renders it something entirely new. McQueen brings his story to New York, but a version barely familiar from other movies, shot entirely in brand-new apartment buildings and offices and high-end hotels, places where glass walls and sleek appliances convey not glamour and wealth, but a terrifying emptiness. Even the crowded subway feels cold and isolating, even when our terribly conflicted hero Brandon (Fassbender) makes eyes at a pretty young thing on the subway and loses her in the crowd. It's not just that he's alone in a city of millions, but as McQueen makes inexorably clear throughout the film, everyone else is alone there too.

Brandon is a sex addict, essentially scheduling his life around masturbation, random hookups, sex with prostitutes-- anything but lasting, meaningful relationships. The one exception is his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan), who comes to stay against Brandon's wishes and tries and repeatedly fails, in her own harsh way, to establish any real connection with him. They share a troubling history that is almost never spoken but hinted by McQueen's camera, long takes emphasizing tense space between them or casual nudity that's both familiar and unnerving for them both. McQueen became famous partly for the massive long take conversation in Hunger, and there are no showstoppers like that one in Shame his camera definitely lingers-- the scene in which Carey Mulligan sings history's slowest rendition of "New York, New York" in tight close-up feels like a slight indulgence. But the combination of the cool, clinical settings and McQueen's rigorous camera compositions puts the audience firmly inside Brandon's isolating, passionless but destructive world.

I haven't entirely worked out my thoughts and final feelings about Shame-- it's that constant film festival problem of too many movies, too little time. But the fearless performances from Fassbender and Mulligan, the uncompromisingly explicit sex and McQueen's vigilant, confident camera make Shame very much a movie to reckon with. Both McQueen and Fassbender have arrived together as formidable talents, and this second collaboration between them makes you feverishly anticipate the provocative, perhaps brutal work that's to come.

For my continuing converge from the Toronto Film Festival, go here.

http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/shook+night+long/5392055/story.html

He shook me all night long
From left, Michael Fassbender reacts to comments by the press: "You were great in Shame!" "What do think of Anne Thompson saying you have the 'most beautiful penis' since Ewan McGregor?" "Shinan Govani says you've got a great handshake!"

Fred Thornhill, Reuters

From left, Michael Fassbender reacts to comments by the press: "You were great in Shame!" "What do think of Anne Thompson saying you have the 'most beautiful penis' since Ewan McGregor?" "Shinan Govani says you've got a great handshake!"

Hinan Govani, Shinan Govani, National Post · Sept. 13, 2011 | Last Updated: Sept. 13, 2011 6:02 AM ET

If the film is anywhere near as convincing as his handshake, Michael assbender has it covered.

Clammy celeb hands. The limp fish shake. The handgreet that comes sans any eye contact. I've seen and met all these iterations and more during my years on the boldface circuit. So when I come across an award-winning shake, as I did with cinema's latest It Boy, Fassebender, on Monday, it was all I could do to shout it from the rooftops (handy since I was on one, at Queen and Bathurst, in the alfresco top zone of a big agency party held by CAA).

"Congrats," I told the German-Irish Daniel DayLewis-come-lately, breaking up a conversation he'd been having with British dreamboat Matthew Goode (yes, it was that kind of party). What else to say to the thespian who picked up the best actor prize just days ago at the Venice filmfest?

Then, we shook on it. Not too soft, but not too suspiciously bone-crushing, either. No unctuous, extended pumping. Just the requisite two to three seconds. Ballsy smile. Deadly eye-meet. No looking over the shoulder to, say, Clive Owen, who was busy being Clive Owen just yards away, or over, oh, there, where Ralph Fiennes was doing a mean Ralph Fiennes.

"The party goes on?" I asked. "Always," laughed the slowand-steady actor from films Jane Eyre and Inglourious Basterds. "If I can hang on."

By all the prevailing evidence, he managed, making easy rounds with his girlfriend, actress and rockerspawn Zoë Kravitz, here at the fest-tailored Vitamin Water Lounge in the Burroughes Building.

A good party it was, with a full moon overhead, and the swooping arc of an Erasure song heard at one point, and the conversation full of Entourage-y gambits such as, "I heard he got it for $1.2million. But now they're ankling it." Colin Farrell. Glenn Close. Gael García Bernal. Ethan Hawke. Gerard Butler. There was plenty o' swing in the place.

All over TIFF, of course, it's not Fassbender's handshake, but another appendage that has the buzz galore. Star of the award-magnet that is the esoteric sex-drench Shame, he's turned full-frontal into a fameindex-spurt, and even "serious critics" have been noted sotto voce'ing about his instrument.

Talking over a dinner held at Roosevelt Room for the TIFF film The Artist, esteemed opinionista and expert Oscartracker Anne Thompson was heard praising the package in question. As Maclean's Jessica Allen relayed in a column Sunday, Thompson said, "I've been quoted in print as saying Ewan McGregor has the most beautiful penis I've ever seen. Well, the title now goes to Michael Fassbender."

And now you know.

http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/movies/movie-news/Michael+Fassbender-99121.html

Michael Fassbender Credits McQueen For Success

13 September 2011

Michael Fassbender believes that director Steve McQueen changed his life.

The actor and director reunite for their new project Shame. for which Fassbender has just won Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival.

The movie comes three years after Hunger made a huge impact for both as they told the story of Bobby Sands who went on hunger strike in 1981.

And Fassbender credits McQueen and this movie for changing everything.

Speaking to the Press Association the actor said: "Steve changed my life. It's really as simple as that.

"When he gave me the opportunity to work with him in Hunger and show some sort of capability or possibility in terms of playing a leading man, at a time when the recession was just around the corner... I got very lucky."

Shame is not the only movie that Fassbender had at the Venice Film Festival as A Dangerous Method, which is directed by David Cronenberg was also on show.

Shame is released 13th January 2012.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/movies/2011/09/michael-fassbender-shame-mcqueen-venice-toronto-nudity.html

Toronto 2011: Michael Fassbender says 'Shame' is a social critique
September 12, 2011 | 6:48 pm

If you think it's awkward watching a fictional character act out various twisted sexual fantasies for two hours, try spending weeks performing them in front of strangers.

That was the task faced by Michael Fassbender, the actor who plays the sex-addicted Brandon, in shooting "Shame," Steve McQueen's acclaimed and controversial new feature.

"It was pretty uncomfortable and sort of embarrassing to get naked or what-not in front of a crew of people," the Irish actor, who appears in full-frontal nudity, told reporters Monday afternoon at the Toronto Film Festival after the movie premiered for the public Sunday night. "But you have to get over it, really, and get on with it. I knew what I was getting into."

What the audience is getting into is a visceral portrayal of a 30-ish upper-middle-class New York man who has a propensity for hard-core Internet porn, public sexual encounters with strangers and various forms of X-rated kinkiness. Brandon isn't capable in his sex life of an emotional relationship; the idea of human connection, let alone commitment, frightens him (in one scene so much so that he turns away from his partner, sends her home and immediately calls a prostitute).

Adding another layer to Brandon's story is the surprise appearance of his sister (Carey Mulligan, also showing up in one scene in full-frontal), a kind of drifter chanteuse with whom Brendan has a complicated relationship, emotionally and perhaps otherwise. Fassbender, who also stars in this fall's sexually themed psychoanalysis drama "A Dangerous Method" as Carl Jung, won an acting prize at the Venice Film Festival this weekend for "Shame."

Despite the overt sexuality, Fassbender said the movie is in many ways a critique of our hyper-sexed era. "Everywhere you go, sex is being sold to you in one way or another," he said, "whether you're buying a soda or a breakfast cereal."

McQueen, a former visual artist who made a splash at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival when he and Fassbender premiered their the gut-wrenching IRA drama "Hunger," said he too saw his new film in broader social terms. "This is about a person who has an addiction," McQueen said. "[But] the access to sexual content is quite prevalent; that's the starting point. In my day pornography was on the top shelf of a news agent, and now it's prevalent," (More from McQueen shortly.)

There are many questions about the commercial release of the film. Although it's bound to be a conversation piece and even a critical darling, questions over audience and marketing plans abound.

For one thing, will studio Fox Searchlight, the Rupert Murdoch-owned art-house division that bought the movie last week and will likely bring it out in December, release it as an NC-17 film or go unrated? There are advantages and drawbacks to both. (And no, there's no way to recut the movie so that it can earn an "R." The film would become a short.)

Fassbender said he hopes those challenges would turn into a selling point in their own right. "This film is being made contrary to a lot of the films out there," he said, "[It's] for an intelligent, brave audience that can participate instead of just eating popcorn and being entertained."

http://m.ctv.ca/topstories/20110912/fassbender-portrays-sex-addict-in-new-film-Shame-tiff-110912.html

Mon Sep 12, 06:52 PM
Fassbender portrays sex addict in new film 'Shame'
CTVNews.ca Staff
Actor Michael Fassbender stands for a photo during a press conference promoting his new film 'Shame' at the TIFF Lightbox during the Toronto International Film Festival in Toronto, on Monday Sept. 12, 2011. (Aaron Vincent Elkaim / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

Portraying a sex addict in Steve McQueen's controversial new film "Shame" required Michael Fassbender to expose himself like never before.

Literally.

Fassbender had to be completely naked in several scenes as his character Brandon, a New York City professional in constant search of his next sexual release, engaged in everything from graphic sex and threesomes to masturbation.

The German-born Irish actor, who just took home a best actor award for the role at the Venice Film Festival, spoke to journalists during a roundtable interview Monday afternoon at TIFF. He says it's interesting that people are finding the film shocking, considering what else has become commonplace on screen.

"You can take somebody's head off with a cheese cutter, but Heaven forbid you should show a penis. It seems so ludicrous to me and ridiculous," says Fassbender.

"I suppose it's nice as well for women for a change to see guys sort of exposed. It's usually the woman walking around naked and the guy conveniently has his pants on."

He adds that while he was comfortable with the nudity, he admits there were still some scenes where he felt embarrassed.

"You feel silly, you're sort of taking your clothes off in front of strangers… and I suppose the toughest thing is making sure your partner in the scene feels comfortable and they don't feel like they're being taken advantage of so you sort of try and create a relaxed atmosphere and make sure you're not sort of stepping over their boundaries."

Fassbender, who also appeared in McQueen's debut feature film "Hunger" in 2008, says the explicit scenes were necessary to show just how unwell his character really is.

"I felt comfortable doing the scenes with Steve because I knew the sex scenes wouldn't be exploitative and I knew they wouldn't be titillating and all the usual s**t we see when sex scenes are in films," he says. "It's real, it's part of the story, it's part of trying to get inside this guy's head and where he's coming from."

"Shame," which also stars Carey Mulligan as Brandon's estranged sister Sissy, just got picked up for U.S. distribution. It will most likely be slapped with an NC-17 rating for its graphic content. But while the rating may turn some away, Fassbender says it would be a good thing because it would get people talking about the film.

"I don't know how people choose to make these ratings, all I know is that everywhere I look on the street in terms of me buying breakfast cereal or a soda drink, that sex is being sold to me in every single way, (or) I'm at the airport and I see these big billboards of this girl in lingerie," he says.

"It's everywhere and people aren't dealing with it. We're trying to deal with it in a real and honest and intelligent way with this film."

As well as "Shame," Fassbender is also starring in David Cronenberg's "A Dangerous Method" at TIFF. His previous films include "Inglourious Basterds," "Jane Eyre" and "X-Men: First Class."