Overview

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.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ben Mccann ,  David Sorfa
Publisher:   Wallflower Press
Imprint:   Wallflower Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.80cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 23.20cm
Weight:   0.488kg
ISBN:  

9781906660291

ISBN 10:   1906660298
Pages:   256
Publication Date:   18 May 2012
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Language:   English

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements Contributors Introduction, by Ben McCann and David Sorfa 1. Domestic Invasion: Michael Haneke and Home Audiences, by Catherine Wheatley 2. Acting, Performance and the Bressonian Impulse in Haneke's Films, by Ben McCann 3. Ethical Violence: Suicide as Authentic Act in the Films of Michael Haneke, by Lisa Coulthard 4. Thinking the Event: The Virtual in Michael Haneke's Films, by Oliver C. Speck 5. Michael Haneke and the Politics of Film Form, by Temenuga Trifonova Space 6. Glocal Gloom: Existential Space in Haneke's French-Language Films, by Kate Ince 7. The Vacant Vacationer: Travel as Symptom and Antidote in Michael Haneke, by Christopher Justice 8. Cosmopolitan Exteriors and Cosmopolitan Interiors: The City and Hospitality in Haneke's Code Unknown, by Paula E. Geyh Unseen Haneke 9. The Early Haneke: Austrian Literature on Austrian Television, by Deborah Holmes 10. Tracing K: Michael Haneke's Film Adaptation of Kafka's Das Schloss, by Willy Riemer Glaciation 11. Attenuating Austria: The Construction of Bourgeois Space in I, by Benjamin Noys 12. Supermodernity, Sick Eros and the Video Narcissus: Benny's Video in the Course of Theory and Time, by Mattias Frey Funny Games 13. The Ethical Screen: Funny Games and the Spectacle of Pain, by Alex Gerbaz 14. Superegos and Eggs: Repetition in Funny Games (1997, 2007), by David Sorfa 15. From Culture to Torture: Music and Violence in Funny Games and The Piano Teacher, by Landon Palmer The Piano Teacher 16. Images of Con,nement and Transcendence: Michael Haneke's Reception of Romanticism in The Piano Teacher, by Felix W. Tweraser 17. Two Meanings of Masochism in the Language of the Art Critic, by Iuliana Corina Vaida Hidden 18. Subject to Memory? Thinking after Hidden, by Nemonie Craven Roderick 19. Digital Cinema and the 'Schizophrenic' Image: The Case of Michael Haneke's Hidden, by Ricardo Domizio 20. Hidden Shame Exposed: Hidden and the Spectator, by Tarja Laine The White Ribbon 21. The White Ribbon in Michael Haneke's Cinema, by John Orr Filmography Sources and Bibliography Index

Reviews

Following a string of successful, and highly provocative films that have won significant critical acclaim and no little commercial success, Haneke has become one of the most debated auteurs of recent years. Sorfa and McCann have assembled an impressive array of scholars in this volume, which provides both a timely and accessible introduction to Haneke's work for those as yet unfamiliar with him, and makes a significant contribution to high-quality scholarship on the director. A valuable addition to the Directors' Cuts series, it is sure to become a well-thumbed tome on library bookshelves around the world.--Owen Evans, Edge Hill University

Author Information

Ben McCann is lecturer in French studies at the University of Adelaide. David Sorfa is senior lecturer in film studies at Liverpool John Moores University and managing editor of the journal, Film-Philosophy.

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