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Hunger





Steve McQueen’s first feature film

Premiered at the Cannes Film Festival May 15,2008

Plot (Spoiler Alert)



In 1981, Irish republican Bobby Sands leads the inmates of a Northern Irish prison in a hunger strike.



Blaine: Bobby Sands, played by Michael Fassbender, was the leader of the hunger strike. This film shows what happens to him and the others who were part of the hunger strike in the prison. “Hunger” is disgusting and brutal a lot of the time and looks so real and that’s what makes it so good. What disgusted me was seeing shit on the prison walls and when I say shit I mean brown shit.

Steve McQueen has made a lot of short films and he’s best known for directing three full length features and his first one is based on a true story about the 1981 Irish hunger strike and it’s also the first time he has worked with actors because normally he is in his own kind of performance as they say. Steve said he wanted to make the strongest movie he could possibly do. Steve had known about the story of the hunger strike since he was eleven. He was watching tv with his parents and there was an report on how many days Bobby Sands has been on the hunger strike. Steve was puzzled by that at that age of how someone could get hurt is by stopping eating and it stayed with him growing up. Steve wanted to make a film that was essential and he believed the Irish hunger strike was perfect because it looked like it could be a film to him. Steve was a painter and he said it was always about the frame with him, but he always loved to see movement in that frame and that gave him the passion to want to make films. “Hunger” only took three and a half weeks to shoot. They shot for two weeks, then they took a ten week break (so Fassbender could lose the weight needed to look near death) and then came back and shot for ten days.

Michael Fassbender told Steve that he can’t be Bobby Sands, but what he can do is just bring the spirit of him. Michael felt he had to be himself playing the role. Michael Fassbender's body was so skinny in “Hunger" that my dad thought it was impossible to get your body that skinny. I have a bit of trouble looking at Michael really, really skinny. Michael actually had to loose that weight and he did it through a nutritionist at first and she wrote down what Michael needed to do and then Michael lost the weight by himself after that. He would eat blueberries and nuts during the day and then sardines for dinner. He would do 1000 calories a day for ten weeks and then he would get down to 600 calories. Michael said that the diet gave him a lot of focus and a discipline and that helped for the character. It was hard during that last week of shooting of the skinny and dying bits because he could see the finishing line and felt like he could doubt himself about the performance even though they already filmed some good stuff before, but he didn’t want to let anything down.

When Steve saw how skinny Michael had become after two and a half weeks to continue shooting Steve couldn’t believe it and was worried if Michael was feeling alright. He was happy Michael transformed himself, but he also cared for Michael’s life.

My rating on “Hunger” is five out of five stars.





The Real Bobby Sands