MovieChat Forums > Hunger (2008) Discussion > What was the very first shot of the film...

What was the very first shot of the film about?


After the first few title cards there's a shot of a woman using some machinery. I have no idea who she is, what she's doing or why McQueen chose to open the film this way. Can anyone tell me what that was about?


No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for money. It's a job. That didn't come out right.

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[deleted]

They're protesting, banging bin lids or something on the ground.

Major Crimes? Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeiiiiiiiiiiit.

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[deleted]

[deleted]

Ah, ok, thanks.
Y'know, I think this shot is representative of the what I found most frustrating about this great film. It seems like McQueen is being deliberately opaque. I watched this film with only a limited knwledge about the Irish troubles, Bobby Sands, the hunger strikes and protests etc. I think it was McQueens job to educate people like me what the whole thing was about, and he does that no favours by using such deliberately confusing techniques. So that woman was just supposed to illustrate the discontent of the Irish or something, despite us having no idea who she is or anything.


No, no. Psychopaths kill for no reason. I kill for money. It's a job. That didn't come out right.

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[deleted]

I don't think it is McQueen's job, or any other film director's, to educate anyone about any event in history. Primarily an artist, McQueen sought to portray a relatively brief cross section of Northern Irish politics and history in a way that was befitting to the often confusing and conflicting circumstances surrounding the subject matter. If his film was opaque, it was testimony to the fact that the political situation of the time was frustratingly and brutally difficult. We're supposed to struggle with the often abstract imagery in this film.

In any case, a director's version of events will almost always be biased or subjective in some way; look at Schindler's List. We cannot rely on their films for historical fact (if, indeed, that really exists).

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thespread; it is not Steve McQueen's job to educate you - it's your job to educate yourself.

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Thanks for the condescending reply to a comment I made over three years ago.

I have to get more pudding for this trip to Hawaii.

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just in case you check back in on this:

whoever commented that the women used the bin lids to advise security forces were around is correct. but it also became one of the symbols of their struggle.

the text before that shot says it is 1981 - i think it is the women announcing to the community that bobby sands has died.

if you go forward a few minutes in the film it shoes gillan being processed into the prison, and the date he is signed in on is the 1st of december 1980.

so that first scene is actually chronologically the last thing in the story. from the next scene onwards goes back to 1980 and moves on from there.

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Thanks, I just watched the film and came here to ask about that first shot. Glad to have found this thread. The end credits list the cast/characters in order of appearance but that woman the film opens with, is not listed. I was also wondering, while watching the film, whether some parts of the chronology were deliberately out of order, but I didn't specifically notice that we start in 1981 and a bit later are in 1980.

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I think this was actually the first phase of the hunger strike wasn't it? (The one that Bobby refers to in the scene with the priest)
And the woman in the shot is banging her metal plate on the table as a sign of protest against eating?

All These Moments Will Be Lost In Time Like Tears In Rain...

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'And the woman in the shot is banging her metal plate on the table as a sign of protest against eating?'

No, completely wrong I'm afraid.

In Belfast in the 70's women used to bang dustbin lids on the ground as an alarm that security forces were in the area, just ask anyone who was there at the time.
To this day there are murals there depicting this activity.

"Everybody in the WORLD, is bent"

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Ok so that was probably right before they caught Gillen.

I like that it was opaque like that and learning what it meant now makes me reflect on it even more than if it had been spelled out in the movie.

Would you happen to have any... flan?
http://www.imdb.com/mymovies/list?l=194240

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