116. I Can't Get No Satisfaction

Lyrics

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm drivin' in my car
And that man comes on the radio
He's tellin' me more and more
About some useless information
Supposed to fire my imagination
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no satisfaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm watchin' my tv
And that man comes on to tell me
How white my shirts can be
But he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
The same cigarrettes as me
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no satisfaction
I can't get no girl reaction
'cause i try and i try and i try and i try
I can't get no, i can't get no

When i'm ridin' round the world
And i'm doin' this and i'm signing that
And i'm tryin' to make some girl
Who tells me baby better come back later next week
'cause you see i'm on losing streak
I can't get no, oh no no no
Hey hey hey, that's what i say

I can't get no, i can't get no
I can't get no satisfaction
No satisfaction, no satisfaction, no satisfaction

I have been listening a bit more to The Rolling Stones recently, and while they may have never reached the heights of some other great groups, I am now convinced that they have basically never made a bad song. Satisfaction is, I think, not one of their greatest. It did allow me to discuss a film I never expected to like so much. 

The Movie: Shame (Steve McQueen, 2011)

Near the end of this film, Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is riding the subway, when his train suddenly stops. Someone has committed suicide by jumping in front of it. Leaving the underground, Brandon hurriedly, anxiously goes home, where he finds his sister (Carey Mulligan) covered in blood. She has tried to commit suicide by slitting her wrists. It is an incredibly tacky sequence, and its tackiness only stands out more because the rest of this film is so ridiculously good. In fact, if it wasn't for the aforementioned sequence I might have claimed that this is the best film of the decade. This is challenging, radical, and extremely confident film making that does not provide easy answers.

I was hooked from the opening sequence. McQueen presents a period, I'd say about a week, but it doesn't really matter, in the life of Brandon by crosscutting between scenes at his home, and his commute on the metro. We see that his morning routine consists of waking up miserable, after a night of sex with some prostitute or a random woman. He ignores her, as well as his sisters' messages on his answering machine. On the metro he sits silently, while he is cautiously flirting with a girl who sits across him every day. Every day, the flirting seems to become more serious, but it's not certain whether this is what's really happening, or whether McQueen is showing us Brandon's distorted point of view. All of this happens without any dialogue. For the most part, all we hear on the soundtrack is a constantly, relentlessly ticking clock. The sequence eventually ends when the girl on the metro gets off without seeming to pay much attention to Brandon, leaving him confused and kinda desperate.

The key sequence of the film though comes, when Brandon goes on a date with his colleague Marianne (Nicole Beharie). McQueen shoots their dinner date at a high class restaurant in an exceptional long take. In much of the scene we see Brandon and Marianne in a wide shot, together with the other restaurant guests. We hear their conversation, but are constantly aware of the other conversations around them. McQueen lets us hear snippets of them, or people coughing, while at the the same time we see their animated/amused hand gestures and faces. These are real people having real conversations about all kinds of different things. That is obviously what happens in a restaurant, but I have rarely seen a film so aware of it as Shame. While this is happening, Brandon and Marianne are constantly disturbed in their conversation, by the waiter, who seems to be relatively inexperienced, and constantly makes sure that his guests have the best possible experience at the restaurant.

Fassbender and Beharie act wonderfully throughout the film, but they are never better than in this scene. They are perfect in showcasing their amused irritation with the waiter's intrusions. They are annoyed by him, but understand that it's his job. They have to control their behavior in such a way to brush off the waiter as soon as possible, while at the same time not making their annoyance visible to him, to not offend him. The scene has a very weird effect because of this. It plays at moments like the slowed down version of a slapstick scene, and this seems like a very conscious decision of McQueen. Despite Shame's dark subject matter, McQueen finds certain moments like this in which he can showcase a sly, dry sense of humor.

This scene serves two other functions as well. It shows that Brandon and Marianne have a click. They both react with amusement to the waiter, and to each other's behavior in response to him. Furthermore it shows that Brendan is perfectly capable of controlling his emotions and his behavior. He is in all respects a completely normally functioning member of society, except in matters of love and sex. Brandon is an intelligent man who is perfectly aware of this. For him the tragedy is not so much that his sexual behavior is (self-)destructive, but that he fails to understand why this is the case. He sees himself, as a non-mentally ill person, who in certain situations acts like a person he'd consider ill.

In any case, Marianne and Brandon have a pleasant, fun conversation in the restaurant, which they continue on their way to the metro station. While Marianne finds it strange Brandon has never had a serious relationship (and tells him so), she still likes him a lot and is attracted to him. The next day she happily joins him to a luxurious hotel in order to have some romantic adventures. Unfortunately at the moment suprême Brandon cannot get it up. When Marianne leaves, he calls a prostitute and fucks her.

I do not know much about (sex) addiction, but to me one of the great aspects of the film is that McQueen does not present Brandon as man with a particular diagnosable problem that he can solve if he does certain things. It seems to simple to call him a sex addict. McQueen hints that Brandon that it may actually be power that Brandon is addicted to, and sex is merely a vessel to exhibit that power. That scene with Marianne may exemplify that. Perhaps he does not perform with her, because he genuinely likes her. He does not want, or need, to exert his power over her. This reading seems to be supported by the ensuing scene with the prostitute. He takes her from behind right in front of the large luxurious window of his room. He does not mind being seen, and knows he will be. A couple of scenes before, we saw him watch such a spectacle happening at that place.

I did not expect to like Shame this much. I am not much of a fan of miserable addiction narratives. Besides, I was a bit disappointed by 12 Years A Slave, a film that actually does deal with a subject I am interested in. After the first 30 minutes, it becomes a very conventional, Hollywoodized film. It sometimes feels like a film made 20 years before Django Unchained, not one year after it. Especially the Brad Pitt as a white savior plot device is awful, also because of the terrible dialogue Pitt is given. In any case, thanks to Shame I will very much look forward to the next McQueen film. This is a film that seems to be combine the style/sensibility of the great European art films of the 1960's like Repulsion and L'Avventura, with that of Kubrick, while never copying either.