Anwesenheit

“Saint’s ancient heart stolen from Dublin cathedral.”

That’s seriously what the ad says. Makes me wonder if the copywriter hadn’t perhaps seen a certain McFassy interview.

Anyway, if they come up with a set that includes Loki, Professor X, & Magneto, I’m sold.

(Source: williams-sonoma.com)

If I were to interview Michael Fassbender about his role in “Shame,” I wouldn’t ask about the sex scenes or the nudity or how he feels about his manliness - I would ask how he can get to the place where the most terrifying sight in the world is him falling to the ground, in tears, in the rain - a crumpled shell.

In David Edelstein’s blurb on why Shame is one of his bottom movies of the year, he cites Fassbender’s “scream of agony mid-orgy” (I’m paraphrasing) as a moment of hilarity. I completely disagree - to see Fassbender draw this ugliness from such a devastatingly beautiful face was the most astonishing and heartbreaking aspect of the film. Because he is beautiful, stunningly, impossibly beautiful - handsome and charming and hitting every light perfectly, attentive in a nearly predatory way while his fop of a boss makes a fool of himself (I loved the foil of these two men - one so utterly clueless, the other horribly knowing, in so many different ways). But to see that beauty collapse, partly because it makes his corruption so much easier, is breathtaking.

That is what amazed me most about this movie. I knew going into it I would get emotional, and would feel for him. I knew what emotions to look for in his face. But I didn’t expect to see him peel back, piece by piece, everything that identifies him as an actor - his ferocity and poise and utter comfort within his skin. My favorite kind of actor is the one who isn’t afraid to get ugly when the character calls for it, and Fassbender is fearless.

If we’re in the mood to compare, I think “Hunger” is a much better film - McQueen’s obsession with overly-long, lingering takes works better when the subject is just as captive as the audience. His style doesn’t mesh well with the real world, which is why his best scenes are made of the shocking and fantastical - the threesome near the end of the film felt like some kind of glorious, squelching alien visitation, and in this section, as Brandon falls apart in earnest, his skill with disjointed narrative really comes together - or of intense, two person dialogues, as the brilliantly taut conversation between Brandon and Sissy shows.

I feel like I understand better now why “Shame” hasn’t been getting the awards attention it maybe deserves - as an already-devoted fan, I’m sure my mind is compensating for moments of over-acting or deficiencies in direction. Who knows if I responded to Fassbender’s acting because I was truly moved, or because I expected to be. In any case, he delivers a unflinching, skewering beast of a performance, which deserves to be commended no matter what.

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Never had I loved him so well: Shame

There’s nothing wrong with being happy. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying something so much that it strips away all that irony and cynicism. And there’s nothing wrong with loving anything so much that it feels like it could pull your heart out of your chest and toss it on the floor. We build ourselves up to not do that, and then we build up the armor so thickly that we have trouble finding what’s underneath. We use that as an excuse to lash out at people who do feel stuff, who do like things (and I am, of course, mostly saying this about myself). It’s hard sometimes to remember that the world isn’t a place to glide through, so nothing can touch you. It’s a place to be experienced.

—Todd VanDerWerff (via valjeans)

(Source: lucy-vanpelt, via tyrotheterrible)