Funny Games (Michael Haneke, 2008)

[souvenir]

I understand what you're saying, even if I don't agree with it. Regardless, I see murder as a legal term, if used correctly, just as burglary is a legal term that requires entering a building or other place with the intention to commit theft or larceny. I realize that people use the terms "murder" and "burglary" in instances that would not qualify under their legal definitions. However, I think this is incorrect usage of these terms. Popular fallacies are still fallacies.

Initially, though, my bigger (intended) point was that Haneke is being somewhat cruel in smugly manipulating the audience with his rewinding of the shooting. It seemed like he was laughing at the audience for taking pleasure in Anna's actions, which I felt was inappropriate since what she did was more than justified.

[Andre Jurieu]

Initially, though, my bigger (intended) point was that Haneke is being somewhat cruel in smugly manipulating the audience with his rewinding of the shooting. It seemed like he was laughing at the audience for taking pleasure in Anna's actions, which I felt was inappropriate since what she did was more than justified.

Maybe it's a little different because I knew what to expect when watching Funny Games and Benny's Video, but I never get the feeling that Haneke is being smug or laughing at his audience while he manipulates them. I think he is genuinely concerned about how we watch film. I think he wants to cause some degree of discomfort with the methods of filmmaking he uses in order for his audience to not take any basic assumption they have made regarding film language for granted.

In many ways it's the same thing that Cronenberg does in A History of Violence when the Jack beats up the bullies at his school after they taunt him, which usually draws cheers from the audience, and minutes later they gasp when Tom slaps his own son for disrespecting him. Just in Cronenberg's case he isn't playing with form as overtly as Haneke.

[souvenir]

In many ways it's the same thing that Cronenberg does in A History of Violence when the Jack beats up the bullies at his school after they taunt him, which usually draws cheers from the audience, and minutes later they gasp when Tom slaps his own son for disrespecting him. Just in Cronenberg's case he isn't playing with form as overtly as Haneke.

Maybe that speaks to the justification of violence. To me, in A History of Violence, neither Tom nor his son is truly justified in using violence. However, in Funny Games, I fail to see how Anna is not absolutely justified in her shooting. I think that Cronenberg succeeds more than Haneke in his satire/denunciation of screen violence because he respects his audience more and his message is not lost amid mean-spirited scolding for being a supposed accomplice by watching the film.

[Andre Jurieu]

Maybe that speaks to the justification of violence. To me, in A History of Violence, neither Tom nor his son is truly justified in using violence.

True, though I believe others would say that they do have a justification for violence at certain points in the film. Anyway, my point was more about the idea that Cronenberg is also blatantly manipulating the audience for his own purposes. Yet, I've heard very few people assume that he is laughing at his audience. I also think a case could be made that he is being smug by using this technique. Even if either of these were the case, I don't really have a problem with his techniques.

However, in Funny Games, I fail to see how Anna is not absolutely justified in her shooting.

But is Haneke saying that her actions are not justified? He really isn't making value judgements on Anna, he's just repeating his scene again in order for his audience to re-examine their perceptions and reactions. Just because Haneke may consider Anna to be a murderer doesn't mean that he doesn't sympathize with her circumstances. He could be entirely sympathetic towards Anna, but he kind of ignores his character and focuses on his film and its effects upon the audience. I always get the feeling that Haneke actually sympathizes a great deal with his characters, because he allows them a strong voice, but also he understands the camera's effect on presenting images in order to draw out sympathy. I also believe Haneke wants us to question, not only our morality as a viewer, but his morality as a filmmaker. I think we are perfectly justified in asking whether he is excessive, but I also believe he wants us to scrutinize his decisions thoroughly. I never get the sense that he just saying his own perspective of things is absolutely correct. He's much more interactive. If we do decide that we were not right to applaud Anna's actions no matter how much we sympathize with, we can then ask ourselves if our reaction is not Haneke's fault. Is Haneke manipulative or is film in general manipulative? Is film always manipulative? I think Haneke wants us to constantly ask these questions while watching his films.

However, knowing someone is justified in their actions and celebrating their actions is something different in my mind. Haneke isn't exactly forcing anyone to applaud. They could just as well cry, or laugh, or cringe, or cover their eyes, or distance themselves, or simply be unresponsive to Anna's actions. By rewinding the tape he simply asks if the reaction is the same again, or have circumstances for the viewer changed. He simply wants to his viewers to realize their reactions and question whether they were justified in their reaction while witnessing these events.

I think that Cronenberg succeeds more than Haneke in his satire/denunciation of screen violence because he respects his audience more and his message is not lost amid mean-spirited scolding for being a supposed accomplice by watching the film.

That very well may be true, but I really never think that Haneke is scolding his audience. Instead I sort of view him to be questioning us or at least providing a means for us to question our actions as viewers. He might view us as accomplices to these actions, but I don't believe he ever makes a judgement that our reactions are wrong. He just sort of stages his action to draw out strong reactions in his viewers, and then attempts to twist our assumptions around. I just think he wants us to be more active as viewers and less accepting of the medium of film itself. I believe one of the assumptions he constantly questions in his work is that watching a character on screen means we should sympathize with their actions. I really do believe you have to watch his films without sympathy, or at the very least, shifting sympathy.

[dadaistnun]

Tim Roth has joined the cast.

[Rich Malloy]

However, knowing someone is justified in their actions and celebrating their actions is something different in my mind. Haneke isn't exactly forcing anyone to applaud. They could just as well cry, or laugh, or cringe, or cover their eyes, or distance themselves, or simply be unresponsive to Anna's actions. By rewinding the tape he simply asks if the reaction is the same again, or have circumstances for the viewer changed. He simply wants to his viewers to realize their reactions and question whether they were justified in their reaction while witnessing these events.

And without dismissing the significance of that scene, I agree that it's really as simple as that. Haneke isn't calling into question Anna's actions or motives. He's simply underscoring how certain dramatic conventions provoke something akin to a Pavlovian response in the viewer.

Enable the viewer to personally identify with the protagonist; introduce a dark force/person that places that protagonist in great peril; illustrate the inherent evil/moral ambivalence of the perilous element and simultaneously the desparation and hopelessness of the protagonist's situation; finally, allow the protagonist an opportunity to escape the peril and - of crucial importance - create the necessity of her exacting a morally justifiable "vengeance" in order to do so.

It's the "morally justifiable" part that's of greatest signficance. Audiences will accept a pure revenge motive, but not without feeling a bit dirty, not without the conscious awareness that our darker natures are being exploited and manipulated, triggering that rush of bloodlust that's only satisfied by the kill. And "the kill" in this context becomes the money shot, the ultimate climax of the drama of vengeance. It's pornography, and I think most viewers are conscious of a certain degree of prurience in their enjoyment of that sort of fare (think "I spit on your grave" or "The hills have eyes").

I think Haneke would be adamant that he is not directing an exploitation film, and rather is speaking to those viewers who draw that further distinction between "justifiable" and "non justifiable" revenge. Anna's choice is a life-or-death one. She's still in peril. I think Haneke presumes his audience is one that draws a distinction between revenge killing and killing in self-defense. Just read back thru this thread, and you'll find justifications for Anna's actions and distinctions between her motivations and other, presumably less defensible ones.

But that's not the question Haneke poses. He's not asking us to justify or condemn Anna. He's creating a situation whereby we can interrogate our own reflexive passions. When the tables are turned, and the victim is given the opportunity to escape her peril and exact her revenge, is our bloodlust any different than that of the exploitation film's audience? Is our satisfaction upon the kill any less... satisfying?

Out comes the remote, the tape is rewound, and Haneke (again) reveals the artifice. And it's the same rather typical and familiar dramatic convention, that old refrain again, but highlighted, underscored, fixed wriggling to a pin for our consideration. Not of Anna, or her actions, but of our response to a certain set of situational ethics that is so attractive to the human animal as to have become a narrative genre unto itself, a means by which we can antagonize the bloodlust and satisfy it, neatly delivered and commoditized, and without deviating from the precise stimulae that allows for a guilt-free, reflection-free enjoyment.

At the same time, when the "tape" is rewound, the viewer is reminded that the real world does not conform to the narrative conventions we find so satisfying (though there's no better fare for your local news or ripped-from-the-headlines narratives than those rare occasions when it does).

From reading through this thread, however, it's clear that we don't all inhabit the same world. Some perceive themselves as existing in a universe where human morality is ultimately redeemed, where a sky father looks out for us and intervenes when the going gets too tough - a universe that is ultimately just (in terms of human notions of justice). That's not the world I inhabit, and I suspect it's not Haneke's perception either. I understand the negative reactions of those with a different view. Their universe is not a godless one. On the contrary, their universe is not only ultimately a just one, ruled by a benevolent and perfect Being, but one that has an ultimate purpose whereby all of humanity is redeemed or condemned according to the Revealed Law. For them, Haneke's view is misguided, myopic, and perhaps irredeemably mysanthropic.

But even if Haneke's universe is a godless one (so I presume, or perhaps I'm projecting my own views), it's not one without human morality. And certainly many are put-off by this very quality, by Haneke's finger-wagging moralism. And though his indictment of humanity in general may seem mysanthropic, I think he's attempting to speak to the better angels of our nature. And his films are not utterly without hope. Not utterly without faith in humanity. Haneke allows for all of this even in his direst scenario, the apocalyptic "Time of the Wolf" where the partition between civilization and barbarism is revealed to be a thin tissue easily breached. Just consider the boy's attempt to redeem all of humanity by sacrificing himself to the fire.

Which, of course, reminds me of a certain other finger-wagging moralist that few would consider mysanthropic and most would acknowledge as being within the monotheist tradition (with certain panentheist leanings). And though Tarkovsky's protagonists succeed in their various immolations, also designed to redeem humanity (Domenico in "Nostalghia"; Alexander in "Offret"), doesn't Haneke's resolution seem more... humane? The boy in "Wolf" is saved before he can sacrifice himself, and by someone who is essentially a stranger. His consolation in the arms of that stranger strikes me as being more redemptive, more hopeful, than the (IMO) futile and extreme acts of Tarkovsky's God-fearing protagonists.

[Though I think the comparison is somewhat illustrative, I don't mean to set Haneke and Tarkovsky in opposition. Both are among my favorite directors, and I think the two have a great deal in common with one another, even beyond the finger-wagging moralism!]

[colinr0380]

The boy in "Wolf" is saved before he can sacrifice himself, and by someone who is essentially a stranger. His consolation in the arms of that stranger strikes me as being more redemptive, more hopeful, than the (IMO) futile and extreme acts of Tarkovsky's God-fearing protagonists.

I think that is an important part of Haneke's work. I was thinking that most of his films are about outside events overwhelming the characters in the film. The most obvious is in the senselessness of the family's torture in Funny Games or in the scene that Juliet Binoche's character is acting in Code Unknown. A great degree of chance factors into Funny Games, in how the main family meets up with the previous one as they arrive at their summer home, or how they then meet up with the next family at the dock. It doesn't particularly matter who is killed, or how, or why, just that they are there and playing out their parts.

I think this leads on to a more complex reading of the characters as products of a society that has passified and repressed them to such an extent that they are unlikely to be in a position to object if someone decides to interfere in their lives. The opening sequence of Code Unknown is perhaps the major example in that the boy from the country who has come to the city is told in no uncertain terms by Juliet Binoche's character that he is only there for a short time and then the situation that follows leaves both the illegal immigrant and the black guy equally victimised and pushed around. We follow different variations on the theme with Binoche playing at being a victim, or having the accident of her child dying occur; the farmer trying to save his business through cajoling or bribing his son into working for him; the wider theme of conflict and nations imposing force on each other through the work of the photographer; and the final scene with Binoche's character having taken the decision to lock her boyfriend out and the illegal immigrant being taken away again.

All show people in situations where some event has happened or someone else has made a decision which has changed their lives fundamentally and the focus is on how the person has to deal with that decision, and usually they don't know how other than to passively accept the situation. (EDIT: or bully others)

This is also a theme of the Piano Teacher, where the main character is in a battle of wills with her mother, and also has a job where she can make or break musical careers. Her passivity in the face of her mother's emotional control twists her in the way she uses her position. The one area in which she has control, in the music room, is used to destroy people, such as the girl who threatens her musical dominance.

Her passivity in the face of her mother has repressed her sexually making her mutilate herself, but she is trying to maintain an illusion of power and control. She begins her relationship with her student in that way, wanting to be the dominant force but it seems, to me at least, that her growing affection for him leads her to reveal her passive nature to him, and the student won't accept her attempts to be one thing in public and the other in private. The 'rape' scene is in a way his attempt to force her to wake up to the lie she is living, another act that although Isabelle Huppert's character has instigated the chain of events that lead to it, is taken out of her control, and in some ways is willingly taken out of her control and played to the audience of her mother locked in the next room. This is also where Piano Teacher adds something extra to the rest of Haneke's themes since there is a sense that the 'rape' is perhaps yet another example of Huppert's characters passivity - more acceptable to be assaulted than to confront her mother with the idea that she is an adult with sexual urges and desire for a relationship with a man? Unfortunately she appears to withdraw even deeper at the end of the film.

I think the fire moment in Time of the Wolf is similar in the sense that the boy in that scene is the only member of the family who isn't passively moving from one situation to the next, but has made a decision to do something, even if it is a decision informed by a child's belief in stories. He gets stopped by a chance intervention but this time it is a caring intervention. More importantly it is an intervention from someone who understands the motivations of the boy, and not from someone who is just upset at the boy trying to hurl himself into the fire. I think this is perhaps one of the most important moments in all of Haneke's work, a moment where the themes have shown that sometimes decent things can happen to people by chance as well as bad things.

Although to me Haneke's films still don't yet seem to have dealt fully with the passive (socialised?) way in which people have been taught to accept whatever happens. The children in the films seem to be the ones who still have some wilfullness - I would add the boy who leads the family to the railway bunker but does not want to go in with them and the child from Funny Games who at least makes a stand before he is killed, but like Erika in The Piano Teacher their attempts at wielding some power or decision making ability marks them for victimisation. The boy in Time of the Wolf is prevented from making his fire sacrifice, but he isn't subsequently punished and I think that is a major turning point.

Unfortunately I haven't seen Cache yet - I wonder how that would fit in with this theory of passivity and punishment for attempts by the main characters to exert their will?

This also raises questions, similar to those raised with Bergman works like Shame, of how instead of a powerful God figure, the filmmaker is taking the place by creating the chance meetings and events of the film. In a way the saving of the boy from the fire is as much a deus ex machina at the hand of the writer/director as the unnamed event that has wrecked the society or the accidental murder of the father at the opening. Haneke has planned the unplanned to illustrate his points, nowhere more clear than the rewinded sequence of Funny Games. I wonder if that is why he tries to keep his characters at arm's length in that he is extremely involved with the structure of the plot. I think that the plot is not what interests him though, it is trying to create a believable reaction by the characters to the events they find themselves in, more than creating a believable environment, like putting rats in a maze to observe their behaviour. I think that makes the few moments the characters appear to escape the boundaries of prescribed behaviour exhilarating, if mostly futile.

[Antoine Doinel]

Michael Haneke set to remake his most violent film for Hollywood

Paul Arendt
Tuesday August 29, 2006
The Guardian

Michael Haneke, director of last year's arthouse smash Hidden, has revealed what may be his most controversial film to date: a Hollywood-style remake of his 1997 "anti-thriller" Funny Games. The Austrian film-maker known for his unflinching dissections of violence and middle-class hypocrisy has signed up to direct an English-language version.

The film will star Tim Roth and Naomi Watts as a wealthy couple who are trapped and tormented in their Hamptons holiday home by a pair of vicious psychopaths. The remake is aimed at a US audience unfamiliar with Haneke's work, and is a co-production between two UK companies, Tartan Films and Halcyon Pictures, and French production house Celluloid Dreams.

The original film was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival in 1997, where it divided critics with its clinical cruelty and genre-busting approach to the thriller. The antagonists, polite young boys in tennis whites, address the camera between bouts of torture and berate the audience for continuing to watch. Time Out described it as "a masterpiece that is at times barely watchable".

While Funny Games became something of a cause celebre in Europe, it was ignored in the US. "Its total box office was something like $5,732," says Hamish McAlpine of Tartan Films, who is producing the remake with Halcyon's Chris Coen. "If it had been an enormous success in America, then there wouldn't be much point in doing a remake. Neither Chris nor I ever thought for a moment that Michael would want to direct it. So when he said he would do it himself, it was as if we'd fallen upstairs. It was a dream come true."

McAlpine is adamant that the film will not be sanitised for US audiences. "There's no happy ending," he says. "What makes Funny Games so special is the way that it plays with all the cliches of the thriller, and then turns them on their head. The minute you sacrifice that irony, you're sacrificing Michael Haneke's soul, and the film."

[justeleblanc]

I'm still not convinced, Haneke's talent is so rare that I'd hate for him to be wasting time on this exercise of repetition. It will only bring out the snob in me, who will be forced to say "the original was better," which knowing the acting talents of Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, it most surely will be.

[toiletduck!]

which knowing the acting talents of ... Tim Roth, it most surely will be.

Whatwhatwhat?!?

-Toilet Dcuk

[justeleblanc]

which knowing the acting talents of ... Tim Roth, it most surely will be.

Whatwhatwhat?!?

You heard me, you toilet-drinking sonofabitch.

[colinr0380]

Here is a great post about the Code Unknown tracking shot from Filmbrain's blog.

[Cinesimilitude]

which knowing the acting talents of ... Tim Roth, it most surely will be.

Whatwhatwhat?!?

You heard me, you toilet-drinking sonofabitch.

Tim Roth is intense. An excellent actor. Have you not seen 'The Legend of 1900'?

[miless]

I'm still not convinced, Haneke's talent is so rare that I'd hate for him to be wasting time on this exercise of repetition. It will only bring out the snob in me, who will be forced to say "the original was better," which knowing the acting talents of Naomi Watts and Tim Roth, it most surely will be.

Well... it will apparently also have Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet (from Mysterious Skin)... and Naomi Watts is great (Mulholland Dr.?)

[dadaistnun]

Might be old news, but I just noticed on imdb that Darius Khondji is the cinematographer.

[stepps]

Haneke to remake Funny Games, some sort of April Fool's Joke? Reality really is stranger than fiction. But then again his films have been going steadily downhill since the masterpiece that was The Seventh Continent. Time of the Wolf was so bad i had to sell my copy on eBay (it went for £4.20). I'm not in the habit of watching eurotrash potboilers so I probably won't be watching any of his new content, he really is getting more decadent than Jodorowsky.

[justeleblanc]

Aaaaaand... scene!

[miless]

Haneke to remake Funny Games, some sort of April Fool's Joke? Reality really is stranger than fiction. But then again his films have been going steadily downhill since the masterpiece that was The Seventh Continent. Time of the Wolf was so bad i had to sell my copy on eBay (it went for £4.20). I'm not in the habit of watching eurotrash potboilers so I probably won't be watching any of his new content, he really is getting more decadent than Jodorowsky.

huh? more decadent than Jodorowsky? I don't see Haneke filming an execution scene with blue blood, bubbles and birds coming out of the wounds... and he was offered the chance to 're-make' Funny Games... he didn't set out to do it, from what I understand.

[Jeff]

It's been pushed to February '08. Too bad. It's had a few well-received critics' screenings. I hear it's just about as relentless as the original.

[miless]

It's been pushed to February '08. Too bad. It's had a few well-received critics' screenings. I hear it's just about as relentless as the original.

and apparently he rebuilt the house exactly so that he could shoot it exactly like the original.

[fred]

Interview with Haneke here.

I was asked to do a remake of Caché. I wouldn't be interested in doing it myself because I would have to adapt the storyline for an American audience. Ron Howard is considering the project now.

[rs98762001]

If there is a Hollywood remake of Caché, it would probably have to deal with race relations. Every country has its own set of problems that it likes to brush under the carpet.

I can just see it now. Tom Hanks as George and Denzel as "Majid" under the capable hand of controversial auteur Ron Howard.

[domino harvey]

we already discussed the Ron Howard thing to much comic effect in the Cache thread

[blindside8zao]

I'm guessing that the point of doing this for the US is to reach an audience that maybe needs a criticism of screen violence, but honestly I don't see most people really doing anything but recheering after the rewind.

oh, and Hour of the Wolf was a really great movie. I'm glad to see Haneke do something so different from many of the other films.

[Antoine Doinel]

Here are some stills from the film.