The big question is why is Brandon the way he is. I imagine he may have been overshadowed by his sister's domineering personity. Perhaps he is ashamed of himself for lacking that same charm, but at the same time is ashamed of her for being so over the top. Obviously there is some kind of abuse in their past as well, "we just come from a bad place". Anyone else want to share their thoughts?
shareI wrote the following in another thread, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1723811/board/thread/224684401?d=252990340#252990340:
[...] I don't think this movie is about incest, sexual abuse, or even about a womanizer. I think what really happened during Brandon's childhood past in Ireland is that his mother had an extra-marital affair (or possibly multiple extra-marital affairs), as a result his parents eventually split up, and Brandon's mom was branded by the town as a slut/whore. And that was the shame that they were running away from when they moved from their little close-knitted town in Ireland to the anonymity and individuality of the biggest of big cities: New York City.
Because of his mother's "betrayal", which ruined their once perfect family life, Brandon developed intimacy and trust issues, which he tries to escape from by numbing himself with an addiction. It could have been drugs, alcohol or gambling, but his addiction happened to be sex: casual, non-emotional sex with strangers. The intimacy and trust issues also stunted his growth as the perfect son and brother that he once was. And that's another cause for shame: not being the perfect son and brother anymore (even though he tries).
[...]
nah, lil homie banged his sister doe
shareIn the script, there's one single line that alludes to them both being abused by their father.
shareThere is. In the first draft of the script, they took it out for the final film. I think it works better this way with the ambiguity though. Very sad film.
shareMaybe they took out that line because they didn't want to put a mistaken/unintentional allusion (or maybe even an intentionally false allusion, a red herring) into the movie.
______
Keiko Matsui & Carl Anderson - "A Drop of Water"
http://youtu.be/kPUENUUuqSk
I agree with you, it does work better, cutting out that line. It's McQueen :)
But I would really like to read the first draft, and I've spent an hour googling. There's a note at scriptshadow.net of a draft, which is suppose to be 119 pages, dated June 28th in 2010, but no link. So what I found is this, and neither of them contains any date, nor 119 pages;
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Shame.html
https://cbsla.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/shame_script.pdf
Will you please have a look, if any of these links is the one you mentioned? And if neither of them is, you don't happen to have the link? Thanks in advance! :)
Brandon's not ashamed of anything. I didnt see anything for him to be ashamed of. He was doing great until his sister turned up and started getting in his way.
The film is about the shame that other people feel because they arent as confident or decisive as Brandon is in life. E.g. His boss, sissy, his dorkey collaegues, the insecure out of his depth thug at the bar..
Thats my interpretation
Lol no
shareHe was ashamed of pretty much everything except sex.
He's ashamed at the idea of being emotional with his sister, and he's ashamed to the point of complete despondence when he isn't able to have sex with his co-worker. Yet he's not really ashamed when his boss or his sister uncover his porn habits, or when he wanders into the seedy gay club.
His addiction is so severe that he's not only unable to resist sex, but he isn't even aware of when he should. This need for gratification has an effect on the way he treats everyone, most notably his sister. There are a few scenes that suggest that he has a sexual attraction to her, but it's not so clear-cut. I think that he is normalized to constant, unusual sexual behavior, so much so that he doesn't know when he's crossing a line with her. (She may not know, either.) The OCD also comes into play here - a lot of people with OCD suffer from intrusive sexual thoughts of people they're not normally attracted to. He wants to love her like a brother, but he can't because of shame over these thoughts.
I think the reason it shows the woman's ring at the end is that he's finally fighting the compulsive behavior of his sex addiction. There's an earlier scene that I think is key to understanding this ending. He scolds his sister for sleeping with his boss, we see the type of mindset he has about the "need to act" instead of taking time to think:
"You know he's got a family? You didn't see the wedding ring on his finger?"
"No."
"You're a liar."
"I'm sorry."
"You're always sorry. That's all you ever f--king say."
"Well at least I say I'm sorry."
"Try doing something. Actions count, not words."
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I f--ked up. I'm not perfect, I make mistakes, but I'm trying."
"Some people f--k up all the time."
(The last line is an attempt to admit that he's a f--k up too, but it comes out emotionless so it's hard to catch)
By the way, the scene where he follows the woman on the subway is my favorite. He really does have delusions that he's a heartthrob that literally no girl can resist. (Rather than the creepy guy on the subway who stares at girls and then follows them.)
Sorry these thoughts are so disorganized, I've just finished watching it!
He was ashamed, that he could have wild sex with complete strangers but not with a familiar coworker.
Remember the scene, where he took her to a hotel room but couldn't even get a hard on?
He couldn't get turned on by sex based on real realtionships.
It had to be rough and dirty.
That's why he was ashamed of.
Just finished watching, and my first thought was they were both sexually abused when they were younger, and thus that's why Sissy cut and was probably relatively promiscuous (although it doesn't really highlight it so much in the film), and Brandon drowned his sorrows with sex.
share