Recommend me some Michael Haneke

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I watched The Piano Teacher recently. It's probably the best thing I've seen in a while. I can't recall seeing a film really explore the theme of masochism before. I liked the pacing a lot too. On an aesthetic level it seemed coldly constructed but not alienated from the characters' emotions. Very powerful.

Since I live in the middle of nowwhere, whatever I see next will have to be ordered so I'd like to hear other thoughts before I do so.

herbert hebert (herbert hebert), Monday, 23 August 2004 08:03 (nineteen years ago) link

The only two I've seen are The Piano Teacher and Funny Games. I highly recommend Funny Games.

Here's what else I have listed as essentials, though:

71 Fragments in a Chronology of Chance
Benny's Video
The Castle
The Seventh Continent

Girolamo Savonarola, Monday, 23 August 2004 10:29 (nineteen years ago) link

funny games is torture; anyone new to haneke might want to see some of his other films first to get a sense of his approach. it's probably the most "extreme" of his films, and my least favorite - though I'm not sure if the former explains the latter.

the seventh continent is really haunting and effectively unsettling. definitely search that one.

i think time of the wolf is also great; one of the best things i've seen this year. i've been sort of baffled by the mixed reviews i've read.

a spectator bird (a spectator bird), Monday, 23 August 2004 16:58 (nineteen years ago) link

Code Unknown is great - perhaps his most accessible film in that its sort of Short Cuts type story of a group of characters in Paris, but is also a subtly disturbing and ambiguous portrait of the problems of living in modern Europe. Immigration, multi-culturalism, the war in the Balkans, the dehumanising effect of the city....

I also liked Time of the Wolf. The story and theme suited his spartan, cold style perfectly.

Funny Games is a horrible experience. In a good way...

David N (David N.), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 00:34 (nineteen years ago) link

i thought piano teacher was one of the least pleasant most effective films i've ever seen. i hated watching it. but it was an excellently made film... it seemed to be successful at what it was trying to do.

firstworldman (firstworldman), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 19:21 (nineteen years ago) link

heh, funny games is the first haneke i saw. i highly recommend it, but my only advice is don't watch it before you go to bed.

other than that, i've nothing to say as i've only seen that and the piano teacher (which i thought was amazing).

joseph (joseph), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 02:50 (nineteen years ago) link

recommended haneke (five star films): le temps du loup (great lighting i.e. lack of, what happens when the world resets? power struggles again, again), le pianiste (power struggles, again), funny games (power struggles and audience implication), code inconnu (irrational romantic), the seventh continent (utterly dull, creeping inertia weird, sapping, studied in colours drab).

not recommended (but shd still be watched haha ok recommended): 71 fragments of a chronology of chance (fr the title alone? why not!) the castle, I haven't seen. bet it's good.

this is the part whr zemko comes in an mocks me fr posting abt haneke again, cept he doesn't read ILF.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 August 2004 17:22 (nineteen years ago) link

I use the french titles = I'm haneke's demographic? wince or smile, wince or smile.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 August 2004 17:23 (nineteen years ago) link

haneke is capable of wonderful things with isabelle huppert.

cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 26 August 2004 20:20 (nineteen years ago) link

I've only seen his last 3 -- liked Time of the Wolf best, and Code Unknown right behind it. HATED The Piano Teacher (as written, only John Waters could've made it work).

Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius), Friday, 27 August 2004 18:23 (nineteen years ago) link

i need to try more haneke really, but disliked code inconnu wildly at the time. i wouldn't trust my judgement now, but partly i had issues with realism and malicious faux authorial distance. is time of the wolf to haneke what salammbo is to flaubert? (dont eat me i already told u i havent seen anything)

prima fassy (mwah), Friday, 27 August 2004 20:38 (nineteen years ago) link

i can stand boredom immersion (for want of a better blah) just fine btw! poss useless example: 'crimes of the future'

prima fassy (mwah), Friday, 27 August 2004 20:48 (nineteen years ago) link

I think the seventh continent is the only film of his which sates yr blah (bt even that's just more an issue of stylisation an coloring rather than content and acting.)

cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 27 August 2004 20:53 (nineteen years ago) link

two years pass...

'the castle' is out on R1 dvd in a month, which i am excited for.

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 23 July 2007 11:24 (sixteen years ago) link

Have since watched Time of the Wolf, and I think it's brill. There's a great article about it here: http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/56/timeofwolf.htm

Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 24 July 2007 17:17 (sixteen years ago) link

god i'd almost forgotten that film! like it more than cache.

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Thursday, 26 July 2007 22:17 (sixteen years ago) link

one month passes...

how, exactly, is one terrorized by Michael Pitt?

http://www.cinematical.com/2007/09/16/trailer-for-funny-games-remake/

Dr Morbius, Monday, 17 September 2007 17:51 (sixteen years ago) link

He's re-making it for the same reason he re-made "Benny's Video" as "Cache" and the same reason he doesn't make any movies in German anymore: he's a hypocrite coward going back through his films and removing any autobiographical clues that might implicate his own love for violence (the Boys in White were Austrian locals terrorizing rich Germans in the original film, ha ha take that you Piefkes) so that, as re-made, they become become mere well-shot fingerpointing exercises.

Also given that the film appears to be a shot-by-shot remake of the original, the trailer is truly pathetic.

Nubbelverbrennung, Monday, 17 September 2007 18:45 (sixteen years ago) link

dyou mean he was personally involved in terrorizing german tourists or sending videos to people?

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 17 September 2007 19:57 (sixteen years ago) link

You didn't see Benny's Video, did you.

Nubbelverbrennung, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 06:30 (sixteen years ago) link

The only excuse for even so much as tolerating the original Funny Games is if you have a deep hatred of horror movie fans.

Eric H., Tuesday, 18 September 2007 11:25 (sixteen years ago) link

I tolerated it.

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 18 September 2007 13:24 (sixteen years ago) link

i pretty much hated the original funny games. might be the first time i have strongly felt much much smarter than a filmmaker.

johnny crunch, Wednesday, 19 September 2007 00:42 (sixteen years ago) link

funny games was the first film that made you feel smarter than the filmmaker? are you out of your mind? do you not live in america?

later arpeggiator, Friday, 28 September 2007 16:03 (sixteen years ago) link

dyou mean he was personally involved in terrorizing german tourists or sending videos to people?

-- That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, September 17, 2007 8:57 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark Link

You didn't see Benny's Video, did you.

-- Nubbelverbrennung, Tuesday, September 18, 2007 7:30 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Link

no, must i?

i was responding to "he's a hypocrite coward going back through his films and removing any autobiographical clues that might implicate his own love for violence" -- was he personally involved in terrorizing german tourists or sending videos to people then?

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Monday, 1 October 2007 19:06 (sixteen years ago) link

I like the idea of a shot-for-shot remake (and even the trailer is nearly identical between the 1997 and 2008 versions) by the same director as an overt "fuck your ignorance of subtitled cinema" to American audiences. And if it makes back its money and inspires people to go back to the original (and see how unnecessary the remake was), so much the better, no?

Girolamo Savonarola, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 14:08 (sixteen years ago) link

"inspires"

Manohla Dargis had this balanced blurb in Sunday's Times (tho I think Le Pianiste is even worse than Funny Games):

At once admired and fiercely loathed, the German-born provocateur MICHAEL HANEKE polarizes critics far more than does any filmmaker of comparable stature working today. His bad rap is understandable, but it's also misleading and, given the recent on-screen evidence, out of date, out of touch and seriously out of bounds.

Born in 1942, Mr. Haneke started in television before making the move into film with his first theatrical release, "The Seventh Continent" (1989), about a middle-class family's cataclysmic meltdown. The first installment in what he calls his "glaciation trilogy" — the other two features are "Benny's Video," from 1992, and "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance," from 1994 — "The Seventh Continent" involves a number of Mr. Haneke's preoccupations, including what might be termed the pathology of bourgeois life.

Nobody sticks it to the middle class with such unforgiving ferocity (at least these days), which helps explain why he rouses critics to passionate extremes; they tend to reject his criticisms outright or embrace them as confirmations of their own (superior) worldview. There's something absurd about Mr. Haneke's condescending attitude toward the audience in some of his work, as if the art-house faithful, his core constituency, needed a lecture on the banality of evil. His overreliance on shocking violence to score his didactic hits has been particularly problematic — see the impeccably directed, intellectually bankrupt "Funny Games" (1997) — not only because it blunts the work's power, but also because it makes Mr. Haneke seem more like a sadist than a voice of troubled conscience.

His recent French-language films — including "The Piano Teacher," from 2001, and "Caché," from 2005 — are more honest and human, and often brilliant. They shatter, rather than punish. "Michael Haneke" runs from Wednesday through Friday at the Museum of Modern Art Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 1, (212) 708-9400.

Dr Morbius, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 14:24 (sixteen years ago) link

It was clear from your overly literal understanding of what I meant by "autobiographical elements" that you hadn't seen "Benny's Video". I mean that dude left his own language and country behind in his films because in his early films, fucked-up violence-obsessed Austrian youth are always sticking it to the bourgeoisie -- an accusation that can and has been easily made against him (dig for instance the Dargis article immediately above this).

Haneke was only "German-born" in the most literal sense (only coincidentally born there because it was the nearest hospital to were the family lived in Salzburger Land) -- he grew up about a half hour away from my cabin in the Vienna Woods. I kinda know his type.

And Dargis is way wrong on one thing: to the extent that his non-German language films appear more human, I suspect that they are less honest.

Nubbelverbrennung, Tuesday, 2 October 2007 21:46 (sixteen years ago) link

once again Nubbelverbrennung, no i haven't seen 'benny's video'.

too shaming, i know.

you implied that haneke had violent past. what you meant was he was fascinated by violence.

Haneke was only "German-born" in the most literal sense (only coincidentally born there because it was the nearest hospital to were the family lived in Salzburger Land) -- he grew up about a half hour away from my cabin in the Vienna Woods. I kinda know his type.

he was born in 1942...

That one guy that hit it and quit it, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 08:00 (sixteen years ago) link

Never confuse your own inference with some else's implication, dude.

"he was born in 1942..."

You don't know any Austrians, do you.

Nubbelverbrennung, Wednesday, 3 October 2007 08:11 (sixteen years ago) link

So I guess you aren't going to any of these at MOMA, are you, Morbius?

James Redd and the Blecchs, Thursday, 4 October 2007 03:18 (sixteen years ago) link

It's possible if any of the baseball series end early, since I get in free w/member card. (Funny Games is the only pre-Code Unknown one I've seen.)

Dr Morbius, Thursday, 4 October 2007 13:36 (sixteen years ago) link

As much as I hate Haneke's stuff, I actually think most of his early movies are worth watching once.

Nubbelverbrennung, Thursday, 4 October 2007 15:39 (sixteen years ago) link

I thought Caché was brilliant.

I know, right?, Monday, 8 October 2007 08:51 (sixteen years ago) link

I might try this 2-part 4-hour TV epic Lemmings on Saturday, as '79 sounds like long enough ago that he was probably free of the recent bad habits.

http://moma.org/calendar/films.php?id=6249&ref=calendar

Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 10 October 2007 16:27 (sixteen years ago) link

two years pass...

i know this is prob a long shot, but has anyone seen the german film "this very moment"

goon with the wind (J0rdan S.), Wednesday, 7 April 2010 22:53 (fourteen years ago) link

one month passes...

Funny Games is good but I'd steer clear of the American shot for shot remake by Haneke himself..Time Of The Wolf is mind blowing and terrifying..definetly don't watch late at night

PresidentLogan, Sunday, 16 May 2010 05:05 (thirteen years ago) link

two years pass...

Cannes goes bananas. "Tender" (???) but "grueling."

http://www.fandor.com/blog/cannes-2012-michael-haneke%e2%80%99s-amour/

World Congress of Itch (Dr Morbius), Monday, 21 May 2012 19:29 (eleven years ago) link

six months pass...

https://twitter.com/Michael_Haneke

Michael Haneke ‏@Michael_Haneke
playin ‘who has the most parms dorz’ with terruns malick gets so borin. im sick of winnin evrytime lol #teamhaneke

Michael Haneke ‏@Michael_Haneke
jst hurd that amour got no nominayshuns in the #sagawards but marigold hotel did!!1! mor like #saggyawards lol

Michael Haneke ‏@Michael_Haneke
aparentlee i jst wons an Las Angelies critix award for best picture!!1!! @brettratner can u pick it up 4 me wen ur out of hooters lol

Michael Haneke ‏@Michael_Haneke
wot did evry1 think of the new terruns malick film? o thats rite, it still doesnt hav a releese date. wondr wot that means lol #teamhaneke

your damn bass clarinet (Eazy), Thursday, 13 December 2012 05:41 (eleven years ago) link

one year passes...

SEE RANK
Flashmob (2015)
Drama
Not yet released (voting begins after release)
A story that tracks a group of people who come together via the Internet to stage a flashmob.

johnny crunch, Sunday, 26 October 2014 04:00 (nine years ago) link

one month passes...

I saw his four hour tv-miniseries Lemminge from 1979 today. Quite interesting. Thematically, seemed very of a piece with most of what he has done, even though there were a few scenes of true tenderness between young lovers, which is something very rarely seen further on. Filmically only minor things in place, a few jarring jumpcuts; some shocking violence, obliquely shown. Well and good. Haneke has apparantly made 11 tv-films - if the two-part Lemminge counts as two - but I think that with these two and The Castle, I'm not going to investigate it much further.

Frederik B, Wednesday, 17 December 2014 23:42 (nine years ago) link

one year passes...

so should i see his adap of Kafka's The Castle?

http://www.filmlinc.org/films/the-castle/

skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 January 2016 12:46 (eight years ago) link

It's just as absurd, amusing, and unfinished as the book.

ledge, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 13:22 (eight years ago) link

It's bad!

video2000, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 13:31 (eight years ago) link

I liked it better than a lot of his stuff, but I'm not a huge fan of his.

Frederik B, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 13:54 (eight years ago) link

There you go morbs, yes/no/maybe. Take your pick.

ledge, Wednesday, 6 January 2016 14:40 (eight years ago) link

Morbs - its not prime Haneke (made for TV), but as you don't like prime Haneke. It has a v good central performance (Ulrich Mühe)

xyzzzz__, Thursday, 7 January 2016 09:26 (eight years ago) link

i like a few, just not lately

skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Friday, 15 January 2016 23:05 (eight years ago) link

two years pass...

10-part English-lang TV series "set in a dystopian world"

http://deadline.com/2018/01/michael-haneke-first-tv-series-kelvins-book-fremantlemedia-ufa-fiction-1202270382/

ice cream social justice (Dr Morbius), Monday, 29 January 2018 19:31 (six years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Is Code Unknown good

flappy bird, Monday, 12 February 2018 20:53 (six years ago) link

It's great. It's my favourite Haneke.

Le Bateau Ivre, Monday, 12 February 2018 20:54 (six years ago) link

Cool I might watch that tonight. Either that or L’eclisse

flappy bird, Monday, 12 February 2018 20:56 (six years ago) link

thanks for the recommendation, I enjoyed it quite a bit! I like The Piano Teacher more but that was great, and refreshingly optimistic

flappy bird, Tuesday, 13 February 2018 05:10 (six years ago) link

one year passes...

Over on The Current, @GarthGreenwell explores one of the quietest, most unassuming moments in Michael Haneke’s THE PIANO TEACHER (2001) and how it serves as a microcosm of his themes of control and sexuality: https://t.co/mZ3ssgYzu1 pic.twitter.com/i3W3BX2kCF

— Criterion Collection (@Criterion) May 13, 2019

flappy bird, Monday, 13 May 2019 16:45 (four years ago) link

i pretty much hated the original funny games. might be the first time i have strongly felt much much smarter than a filmmaker.


Waaaaaaht. I thght it was terrific. The remake was good.

I don't think I disliked any of his movies (tho havent seen'em all).

Tbh I absolutely adore H. He has a world view which resembles mine.

nathom, Monday, 13 May 2019 17:28 (four years ago) link

two years pass...

The Seventh Continent was quite something as a first film

Dan S, Saturday, 2 April 2022 01:18 (two years ago) link

One of those directors some of whose work I hate (Benny's Video) and love (71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance, but I haven't seen a lot of his biggest films yet.

Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 2 April 2022 01:28 (two years ago) link

Agreed. Stuff I hate (Benny's Video; Funny Games), stuff I love (Code Unknown; Cache; probably Time of the Wolf on re-watch), and really big ones I still haven't seen yet (The Piano Teacher; The White Ribbon).

Max Hamburgers (Eric H.), Saturday, 2 April 2022 02:22 (two years ago) link

No-one's yet explained to me why I should see Funny Games, a film apparently meant to implicate the viewer in the violence of spectatorship etc. etc. OK, I won't watch it and Haneke and I can both win.

I'm now disappointed to discover that the only scene with any energy in Benny's Video is actually a clip from Toxic Avenger.

Halfway there but for you, Saturday, 2 April 2022 02:45 (two years ago) link


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