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Hunger (the film)
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Tonight I watched the film Hunger by Steve McQueen for the first time. For my historical films class I thought it would be really interesting to look at how contemporary English directors like Ken Loach (The Wind that Shakes the Barley), Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday) and Steve McQueen have become important in constructing a history of Irish republicanism that has maybe on purpose, maybe indirectly contributed to the construction of national identity. It's an interesting concept, how the outsider can, without trying to move into 'the inside', can help to construct and define the 'inside'. I chose these three films in particular because of their diversity. While Bloody Sunday and Hunger deal with historical representations of the events of the modern troubles, The Wind that Shakes the Barley looks at the Black and Tan War and Irish Civil War. While Bloody Sunday was originally meant to be broadcast on television (and only later secured cinematic distribution), the other two were festival darlings. While Ken Loach is a veteran director and Greengrass is fairly accomplished, Hunger was McQueen's first feature film. While Loach and Greengrass opt for realism (with Greengrass trying for total immersion) McQueen was exceptionally and unapologetically artistic. Anyways, sorry for the side track. What I am trying to get at is the film Hunger – I'm not sure that it worked for me. Based on the reception that Hunger has received most people have gained some sympathy for the man at a personal level, while I think I lost a lot. The film completely ignored the politics of it all and brought a national memory down to a personal one and in the process left out a lot of the context that I feel gives his story some sympathy. While before watching it, certainly not approving of the methods used by Sands and the like (violence is never the answer and the killing of civilians is unacceptable under all circumstances) I had a certain respect for the strength of his convictions and his political beliefs. Without this political context I found that Sands was reduced to the role of a selfish martyr, someone that was toying with his own mortality in some sick power game. I can see where people who do not have a sense of the history of the troubles, a context, or an understanding of previous prison protests might get lost or fall into a trap of accepting the mysticism around the hunger strikers, the legend that has been passed down without questioning it. Luckily, this is an area of interest for me and I finished reading Denis O'Hearn's biography of Sands, Nothing but an Unfinished Song. Though the film and the book are totally unrelated. I think this is one case where history did not necessarily need to be played out on film. Because art has such a power to change the way people see things I think that historical films really really need to be careful to try to surpass being beyond art, recognizing their place in historical discourse.

March 26, 2009 | 1:27 AM Comments  0 comments

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