Hunger (2008) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

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.

Cast

Bobby Sands	Michael Fassbender
Raymond Lohan, guard	Stuart Graham
Raymond’s mother	Helena Bereen
Father Dominic Moran	Liam Cunningham
Lohan’s wife	Laine Megaw
Davey Gillen	Brian Milligan
Gerry Campbell	Liam McMahon
Gerry’s girlfriend	Karen Hassan
The governer	Frank McCusker

Credits

Screenplay	Enda Walsh and Steve McQueen
Producer	Robin Gutch and Laura Hastings-Smith
Director of photography	Sean Bobbitt
Editing	Joe Walker
Production Design	Tom McCullagh
Costume Design	Anushia Nieradzik
Makeup and hair	Jacqueline Fowler
Music	David Holmes and Leo Abrahams
Director	Steve McQueen

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, approved by director Steve McQueen (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Video interviews with McQueen and actor Michael Fassbender
A short documentary on the making of Hunger, including interviews with McQueen, Fassbender, actors Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham, and Brian Milligan, writer Enda Walsh, and producer Robin Gutch
“The Provo’s 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
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Chris Darke

From the Current

Next for McQueen

Dec 10, 2009

British visual artist turned narrative filmmaker Steve McQueen is getting back in the director’s chair following the success of his award-winning Hunger. Variety announced this week that McQueen will be joining forces with Focus Features to make a biopic about Nigerian musician...