The Cinema of Michael Haneke: Europe Utopia (Directors' Cuts)

Michael Haneke is one of the most important directors working in Europe today, with films such as Funny Games (1997), Code Unknown (2000), and Hidden (2005) interrogating modern ethical dilemmas with forensic clarity and merciless insight. Haneke's films frequently implicate both the protagonists and the audience in the making of their misfortunes, yet even in the barren nihilism of The Seventh Continent (1989) and Time of the Wolf (2003) a dark strain of optimism emerges, releasing each from its terrible and inescapable guilt. It is this contingent and unlikely possibility that we find in Haneke's cinema: a utopian Europe. This collection celebrates, explicates, and sometimes challenges the worldview of Haneke's films. It examines the director's central themes and preoccupations--bourgeois alienation, modes and critiques of spectatorship, the role of the media--and analyzes otherwise marginalized aspects of his work, such as the function of performance and stardom, early Austrian television productions, the romanticism of The Piano Teacher (2001), and the 2007 shot-for-shot remake of Funny Games . Wallflower Press Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Contributors......Page 9 Introduction by Ben McCann and David Sorfa......Page 12 1. Domestic Invasion: Michael Haneke and Home Audiences......Page 21 2. Acting, Performance and the Bressonian Impulse in Haneke's Films......Page 35 3. Ethical Violence: Suicide as Authentic Act in the Films of Michael Haneke......Page 49 4. Thinking the Event: The Virtual in Michael Haneke's Films......Page 60 5. Michael Haneke and the Politics of Film Form......Page 76 SPACE......Page 94 6. Glocal Gloom: Existential Space in Haneke's French-Language Films......Page 96 7. The Vacant Vacationer: Travel as Symptom and Antidote in Michael Haneke......Page 105 8. Cosmopolitan Exteriors and Cosmopolitan Interiors: The City and Hospitality in Haneke's Code Unknown......Page 116 UNSEEN HANEKE......Page 126 9. The Early Haneke: Austrian Literature on Austrian Television......Page 128 10. Tracing K: Michael Haneke's Film Adaptation of Kafka's Das Schloff......Page 140 GLACIATION......Page 150 11. Attentuating Austria: The Construction of Bourgeois Space in The Seventh Continent......Page 152 12. Supermodernity, Sick Eros and the Video Narcissus: Benny's Video in the Course of Theory and Time......Page 162 FUNNY GAMES......Page 173 13. The Ethical Screen: Funny Games and the Spectacle of Pain......Page 174 14. Superegos and Eggs: Repetition in Funny Games (1997, 2007)......Page 183 15. From Culture to Torture, Music and Violence in Funny Games and The Piano Teacher......Page 190 THE PIANO TEACHER......Page 204 16. Images of Confinement and Transcendence: Michael Heneke's Reception of Romanticism in The Piano Teacher......Page 206 17. Two Meanings of Masochism in the Language of the Art Critic......Page 217 HIDDEN......Page 234 18. Subject to Memory? Thinking after Hidden......Page 236 19. Digital Cinema and teh "Schizophrenic" Image: The Case of Michael Haneke's Hidden......Page 248 20. Hidden Shame Exposed: Hidden and the Spectator......Page 258 THE WHITE RIBBON......Page 268 21. The White Ribbon in Michael Haneke's Cinema......Page 270 Filmography......Page 276 Bibliography......Page 284 Index......Page 296 "Michael Haneke is one of the most important directors working in Europe today, with films such as Funny Games (1997), Code Unknown (2000), and Hidden (2005) interrogating modern ethical dilemmas with forensic clarity and merciless insight. Haneke's films frequently implicate both the protagonists and the audience in the making of their misfortunes, yet even in the barren nihilism of The Seventh Continent (1989) and Time of the Wolf (2003) a dark strain of optimism emerges, releasing each from its terrible and inescapable guilt. It is this contingent and unlikely possibility that we find in Haneke's cinema: a utopian Europe. This collection celebrates, explicates, and sometimes challenges the worldview of Haneke's films. It examines the director's central themes and preoccupations--bourgeois alienation, modes and critiques of spectatorship, the role of the media--and analyzes otherwise marginalized aspects of his work, such as the function of performance and stardom, early Austrian television productions, the romanticism of The Piano Teacher (2001), and the 2007 shot-for-shot remake of Funny Games."--Publisher Michael Haneke is one of the most important directors working in Europe today. The Cinema of Michael Haneke offers a comprehensive examination of the director's central themes and preoccupations - bourgeois alienation, modes and critiques of spectatorship, the role of the media -and analyses hitherto marginalized aspects of Haneke's work This book deals with practical ways to reach a more sustainable state in urban areas through such tools as strategic environmental assessment, sustainability assessment, direction analysis, baseline setting and progress measurement, sustainability targets, and ecological footprint analysis.