Steve McQueen on ‘Hunger’
Why did you want to tell the story of Bobby Sands and the republican hunger strike?
It happened in 1981 when I was 11 years old, and it had a big effect on me. It was a turning point in my life. From then on, when I looked out of the window, things were not as they seemed. I started to see the cracks. The hunger strike was about ideas and ideals, what one will live and die for. I was interested in that level of passion and commitment.
What did your research involve?
It started five years ago. The first thing was reading. I had this idea in my head, a memory, and the more I researched it the more fascinating it got. Going to Belfast for the first time we met lots of people and also Sands’ relatives. Both loyalists and republicans were extraordinarily generous, but at the same time there was this undercurrent of idealism. Ultimately that’s what stuck with me – the people. They could have been my mum, my dad, my sister – they weren’t aliens, they weren’t exotic.
How did your co-screenwriter, the playwright Enda Walsh, get involved?
Sometimes it’s good to vibe with someone else, to hit the ball against the wall. I knew I wanted to work with an Irish writer so we interviewed quite a few. A lot of them were afraid of the subject matter. Enda was much more out there, a bit odd. Prior to making this film I’d never even read a screenplay. Before Enda came on board I wanted it to be totally silent, no words at all.
What kind of brief did you give him?
All I said to Enda was, I want the beginning of the film to be like a stream. So you’re floating along the stream, very much aware of your environment. And all of a sudden there’s a rapid, your reality is being disturbed, disrupted. Then in the third part there’s a waterfall, a loss of gravity, a fall. That’s how I saw the film.
How did it develop from there?
Enda wrote the first draft after we’d spent an intense and heavy week in Ireland talking to prison officers. Then it became like hacking through marble: you know what you don’t want, but you need something, even if it’s a piece of crap on the table, something to drill through. Then I thought of the funny walk in Monty Python, which in turn made me think of the idea of ritual – I realised this whole thing is about ritual. When the prison officer leaves his house at the beginning, it’s so normal. The ritual in Hunger is more severe, absurd than those in, say, Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s films because it’s tailored around violence, which itself is ritualistic.
How did visiting H-Block in the Maze prison where the hunger strike took place affect your thinking?
It was brilliant – even though they wouldn’t allow us to film there – because the form of the prison formalises your camera; the form gives you the form. In fact narrative filmmaking sometimes felt easy because you’ve got a template. The form is already there, it’s already set and it’s how you change and subvert it, disrupt it that makes it interesting. What I’m trying to do in the art context is different, it’s to make new language, new form.
And you hadn’t ever worked with actors before?
I did one class working with actors at the film school in Amsterdam, and that was helpful – I discovered I love actors. What you’ve got to do is risk as much as they’re risking. In my naivety I said, ‘Look, I’m risking everything here.’ Once they know that, they’ll match you, they’ll even try to go beyond you. I just tried to get them lost, like whirling dervishes – in order to get closer to God, sometimes you’ve got to get out of control, and that’s what I wanted them to do, to get closer to a reality.
There is a nearly 20-minute scene between Sands and a priest, most of which is shot side-on with a static camera – was that risky?
I don’t go along with that. All these people around me were scared, the producer was scared. You know what, that’s why they make so many crap films here, when they should just go away and do it. Once we’d got it in the can, they said we need some reverse shots. In the middle of shooting one I said, ‘You know what, I’m bored. We’ve got it, let’s go.’ Big row, big confrontation with Channel 4, all that business. We broke up at 4.30 that day and went home. Fucking brilliant. We had it, I knew we had it.
That was one take?
In total we did four takes using doubled-up 20-minute rolls. For me this scene is better than Steiger and Brando, because it’s life and death at stake – reason to live, reason to die. It wasn’t improvised, it was all scripted, but they just spat it out and it felt like jazz, inspired. The atmosphere was tense but as an actor when are you ever going to get a situation like that, to talk about the ultimate?
Why did you want to shoot the film in Belfast?
What is happening behind the camera is just as important as what’s going in front of it, because all of those people behind it were involved somehow in those events. There’s a force of memory, a physicality of working on those events, a sense of the past in the present. There was an actress whose mother was taking stuff into the Maze, an actor whose father was in there, an actor whose uncle was a prison officer – everyone had something invested in that story. It was wonderful what was going on on the set.
It’s striking how many different points of view there are in the film.
I see myself as a prison officer, I see myself as a blanket man. When you put yourself into that person’s shoes, it’s obvious that they’re all human beings. It’s the situation that’s fucked up, not the people. You have to do what you have to do. We’re human beings, every day we do shit. We’re not innocent. You totally understand because you do it, you’re part of that game.
You give the viewer plenty of space to enter the film.
The images only go so far, they never go all the way, it’s impossible. What has to happen is you trigger something in people’s imaginations or in their psyche that completes the picture, and I don’t know what that is.
The film’s picked up further political resonances since you first had the idea five years ago.
The weird thing is that this story keeps on happening. It has a life in the present as well as the past. Most people seeing the film will think this sort of thing happens in far-off countries, not realising it happened in their own backyard. It’s a story which has been brushed under the carpet in the last 27 years, and therefore one should take the lid off it: there it is.
Steve McQueen interviewed by Kieron Corless, Sight and Sound, November 2008
HUNGER
Directed by: Steve McQueen
©: Blast! Films, Hunger Ltd.
Production Company: Blast! Films
Presented by: Film4, Northern Ireland Screen, Broadcasting Commission of Ireland, Wales Creative IP Fund
Developed with the support of: Film4, Channel Four
Filmed with the assistance of: Northern Ireland Screen
Made with the support of: Sound & Vision Broadcasting Funding Scheme
Produced with the participation of: Wales Creative IP Fund
Worldwide Sales Agent: Icon Entertainment International
Executive Producers: Jan Younghusband, Peter Carlton, Linda James, Edmund Coulthard, Iain Canning
Produced by: Laura Hastings-Smith, Robin Gutch
Line Producer: Andrew Litvin
For Blast! Films (Head of Production): Claire Bosworth
For Blast! Films (Researcher): Faye Hamilton
For Channel 4/Film4 (Production): Rebecca O’Connor, Hilary Stewart, Tracey Josephs
For Channel 4/Film4 (Commercial Devent): Sue Bruce-smith
For NI Screen (Chief Executive): Richard Williams
For NI Screen (Head of Production): Andrew Reid
For NI Screen (Head of Finance): Linda Martin
For NI Screen (Production Co-ordinator): Anne Quinn
Production Supervisor: Cathy Mooney
Production Accountants: Mark Edwards, Nigel Wood
Location Manager: Catherine Geary
Location Scout: Damien Glenholmes
Post-production Supervisor: Alistair Hopkins
1st Assistant Director: Mark Fenn
Script Supervisor: Kirstie Edgar
Casting Director: Gary Davy
Extras Casting: Extras NI
Written by: Enda Walsh, Steve McQueen
Director of Photography: Sean Bobbitt
Steadicam Operator: Stephen Murphy
Focus Puller: Conor Hammond
Camera Loaders: Natasha Back, Louise Ben Nathan
Gaffer: Brian Beaumont
Key Grip: Steve Pugh
Stills Photographers: Steffan Hill, Jill Jennings
Visual Effects: Dragon Digital
Special Effects: Bob Smoke Special Effects
Graphics: Antony Buonomo
Film Editor: Joe Walker
Production Designer: Tom McCullagh
Art Director: Brendan Rankin
Scenic Artist: Neville Gaynor
Props Buyer: Sarah Speers
Props Master: Steve Wheeler
Construction Managers: Jim Reid, Cole Doherty
Costume Designer: Anushia Nieradzik
Chief Make-up/Hair Designer: Jacqueline Fowler
Titles: Antony Buonomo
Digital Intermediate: Dragon Digital Intermediate Ltd
Colourist: Geoffrey Case
Original Music by: David Holmes
With: Leo Abrahams
Sound Design by: Paul Davies Sound Design
Sound Mixer: Ronan Hill, Mervyn Moore
Re-recording Mixer: Richard Davey
Re-recording: Clarity Post Sound
Sound Editing: Paul Davies Sound Design
Additional Sound Effects Editor: Chu-Li Shewring
Foley (Recorded by): Clarity Post Sound
Stunt Co-ordinator: Paul Herbert
Armourer: Robert Gyle
Cast
Michael Fassbender (Bobby Sands)
Liam Cunningham (Father Dominic Moran)
Stuart Graham (Raymond Lohan)
Laine Megaw (Raymond’s wife)
Brian Milligan (Davey Gillen)
Liam McMahon (Gerry Campbell)
Karen Hassan (Gerry’s girlfriend)
Frank McCusker (the governor)
Lalor Roddy (William)
Helen Madden (Mrs Sands)
Des McAleer (Mr Sands)
Geoff Gatt (bearded man)
Rory Mullen (priest)
Ben Peel (riot prison officer, Stephen Graves)
Helena Bereen (Raymond’s mother)
Paddy Jenkins (hitman)
Billy Clarke (chief medical officer)
Ciaran Flynn (twelve year old Bobby)
B.J. Hogg (loyalist orderly)
Ireland-UK 2008
96 mins
Digital
BIG SCREEN CLASSICS
The Draughtsman’s Contract
Sun 1 Sep 18:40; Tue 10 Sep 20:30
The Piano
Mon 2 Sep 18:10; Wed 4 Sep 18:00 + intro by Rosie Taylor, Curator, BFI National Archive; Sat 5 Oct 15:45
Les Demoiselles de Rochefort The Young Ladies of Rochefort
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Rear Window
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Do the Right Thing
Thu 5 Sep 18:00; Fri 20 Sep 20:40
12 Angry Men
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Le Trou The Hole
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Rio Bravo
Sun 8 Sep 17:45; Sat 28 Sep 14:50
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Tue 10 Sep 18:20; Wed 25 Sep 18:10 + intro; Tue 8 Oct 20:50
The Miracle Worker
Wed 11 Sep 18:10 + intro by Clare Baines, BFI Inclusion Partner and Founder, Crip Club; Mon 23 Sep 14:30; Fri 27 Sep 18:15; Tue 1 Oct 20:50
Hunger
Thu 12 Sep 20:30; Thu 26 Sep 20:40
Black Narcissus
Fri 13 Sep 14:30; Sun 22 Sep 11:45
Barton Fink
Sat 14 Sep 20:45; Thu 3 Oct 20:45
King of the Hill
Tue 17 Sep 20:45; Fri 4 Oct 18:10
The Servant
Wed 18 Sep 18:15 + intro by Ruby McGuigan, BFI Programme and Acquisitions; Wed 25 Sep 20:45; Sun 6 Oct 12:30
The Incredible Shrinking Man
Tue 24 Sep 20:40; Mon 7 Oct 18:40
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