Hunger Satisfied

I received a modest grade for my final-year video drama and was devastated. My team was set to send it to BAFTA for their consideration but we had fallen at the first hurdle. There were no female characters in our film. We had annoyed the lecturer who taught Gender and Representation at that time, and, as she was one of those doing the grading, I assume she played a role in having us marked down. Despite the grade, such a reaction to our film fascinated me.

My student colleagues and I had mocked the piece of paper on which the rules were set out by the production staff. Without any discussion among ourselves, we purposefully set out to break them, given that, in our opinion, this was a necessary step in pursuit of original film-making. We received our grade, watched in horror the work of our peers who had stuck to the rules and received their First Class grades and immediately challenged the Department on the merits of our own film, and fought and won the recognition that we sought.

Liam as the IRA Hunger Striker Gerry Campbell (Photo

It occurs to me now in 2008 that I am and always have been fascinated by how film, striving to be original, can spark controversy. I reflect upon this as a lead actor playing the role of Gerry Campbell in Steve McQueen’s film Hunger. With it being his first movie – or certainly the first time he has written a narrative script and worked with actors – I can’t help but make comparisons between my involvement in both films.

Before I run with these thoughts, though, the main difference between the two works is that our piece was typical of many student films. For want of a more flowery description, it was rubbish. McQueen’s movie on the other hand is ground-breaking and mesmerizing. It has already picked up awards at numerous film festivals around the world, most notably Cannes, Sydney and Jerusalem, and recently won three British Independent Film Awards and the European Discovery Award.

McQueen breaks the rules. From his editing suite, I imagine his cries of ‘Hold…hold…hold’, with the editor beside him feeling the pressure of an oncoming army of ‘rules’ advancing towards him. From the very beginning of the film he holds certain shots, refusing to cut away, testing the audience, while at the same time teasing out the tiniest subtleties of character, earning him a reputation as one of the bravest of directors ever.

The audience, for example, has to spend several minutes watching a guard sweeping urine down the corridors of a wing of the prison. If you look more closely, he sweeps it back underneath one cell door. If you miss that simple action, you miss some of the complexity of the character. McQueen delivers every little detail up for scrutiny. Why that cell?

Then, the pièce de resistance, an uncut 17-minute scene filmed in one take between Bobby Sands and a priest, Fr. Moran. It was shot with back light to force the audience to listen, not watch. Itwas a scene the filming of which frightened and challenged the actors in it, whose intensity brought the audience to the edge of their seats and whose bravery sent an electric shock through the Cannes Film Festival.

So ten years on I can finally watch my student film and smile, not with embarrassment at my youthful idealism but with the excited knowledge that I have been closely involved once again in a rulebreaking film. This time, however, instead of being condemned for such, I have been carried along on a nouvelle vague of acceptance, appreciation and critical acclaim.

But more surprising to me now, having just experienced the world premiere in Belfast and the London premiere, was that the controversy didn’t buy a ticket. There is a change in attitude among the viewing public of Northern Ireland. Changed times are indeed upon us here, when the film didn’t draw any outward political protest. Perhaps no other director but McQueen could have managed this.

What he has done with his choice of subject is to make us realize the importance of revisiting history through film. Hopefully we may learn from it, educate our youth and never return to such a time as Northern Ireland 1981.

My original brief was to write 800 words on what it was like to walk up the red carpet in Cannes on the opening night of the Un Certain Regard section of the 2008 Film Festival. In truth, I have very few words to capture such a feeling. To take that journey as part of an award-winning film has been beyond the dream I have had since before I chose to study film at Stirling University. To achieve it was nothing short of exhilarating.

Liam McMahon graduated in Film & Media Studies in 1999.