#504: McQUEEN, Steve: Hunger (2008)

McQUEEN, Steve (United Kingdom)

Hunger [2008]

Spine #504
Blu-ray

With Hunger, British filmmaker and artist Steve McQueen has turned one of history's most controversial acts of political defiance into a jarring, unforgettable cinematic experience. In Northern Ireland's Maze prison in 1981, twenty-seven-year-old Irish Republican Army member Bobby Sands went on a hunger strike to protest the British government's refusal to recognize him and his fellow IRA inmates as political prisoners. McQueen dramatizes prison existence and Sands's final days in a way that is purely experiential, even abstract, a succession of images full of both beauty and horror. Featuring an intense performance by Michael Fassbender, Hunger is an unflinching, transcendent depiction of what a human being is willing to endure to be heard.

96 minutes
Color

Surround

2:35:1 aspect ratio

Criterion Release 2009

Director/Writers

Written by Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen.

McQueen was 39 when he directed Hunger.

Other McQueen films in the Collection:

#1177a: Mangrove (2020)
#1177b: Lovers Rock (2020)
#1177c: Red, White and Blue (2020)
#1177d: Alex Wheatle (2020)
#1177e: Education (2020)

The Film

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Eighteen-page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Chris Darke.

Commentary

None.

Video interviews

With McQueen and actor Fassbender.

Documentary

On the making of Hunger, including interviews with McQueen, Fassbender, actors Cunningham, Graham, and Milligan, writer Walsh, and producer Robin Gutch.

The Provos’ Last Card?

A 1981 episode of the BBC program Panorama, about the Maze prison hunger strikes and the political and civilian reactions across Northern Ireland.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

99

By Director
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