A Critical Essay Of Funny Games

Michael Haneke positioned as a European auteur has said: "all my films are about violence" (Haneke, 2009 cited in Brunette, 2010: 2). Violence in the world is thought of as unpleasurable but is a frequent selling point of films. His first German-language feature film displays violence but rather than to entertain as mainstream Hollywood does (Brunette, 2010: 60), Haneke uses violence as a reaction to media violence to shock the viewer into a position of ethical spectatorship. This self-contradiction, involving philosopher Karl Otto Apel`s liar`s paradox: all Cretans are liars, says the Cretan (Elsaesser cited in Grundmann, 2010: 56). A counter cinema as Metz describes as antithetic symmetry due to the aim of cinema is to invoke pleasure in the spectator (Wheatley, 2009: 85). Going against the conformity of the pleasurable image, this mode of filmmaking involves cinematic unpleasure, which creates a negative emotive response of discomfort, shame and guilt (ibid., 78) As a result, questioning their own reaction to the image and try to reconcile with a moral response. Haneke critiquing the middle class began in his early television career and his television feature Lemmings (Haneke, 1979), with its anti-bourgeois message and boundary-breaking themes, began the common trend throughout his body of work with a social commentary on the bourgeois values (Brunette, 2010: 5) By doing a thematic screen analysis I will consider the effectiveness of Funny Games (Haneke, 1997) as an "awakening kind of slap" (Haneke cited in Toubiana interview, cited in Brunette, 2010: 67) on the absurdity of violent media in European culture and how the bourgeois digest this content guiltlessly.

The transnational cinema of extreme art film as coined by Simon Hobbs describes bringing horror to art cinema through hybridised aesthetics (Hobbs, 2015: 33-34). These features outlined within the earlier paragraphs characterise the horror genre and Haneke`s mode of filmmaking classifies his oeuvre as overtly art cinema. The unity of Europe under siege through Britain`s Brexit referendum is countered through the transnational genre of extreme art cinema. The unedited static shot of Bunuel`s Un Chien Andalou (1922) razor through the eye scene characterised this aesthetic and extremity of realistic violence in historical European art cinema that has been continued in Funny Games (Hobbs, 2015: 36). By understanding the border crossing influence of this shocking and realistic imagery, it is possible to align Haneke`s work with the extreme art film. Another feature of the transnational cinema of extreme art film is the use of lowbrow devices employed in service of social and cultural critique as employed by Jean Luc Godard`s Weekend (1967) (Hobbs, 2015: 40). The use of the violent, lowbrow popular culture references in replace of the antagonist names keep the theme of a social commentary on the audience`s digestion of violent media. Having no confusion over the references said, Tom and Jerry from the popular children`s animation and Beavis and Butthead, the latter being described as the nadir of popular culture (Brunette, 2010: 64). Media consciousness manipulates the viewer to greater understand the motive behind the production of the image as a critique of our familiarity of the lowbrow violence in the media. The effectiveness of this transnational cinema is analysed through its reception which categorises it through simplicity and cheap attempts of grim fantasy and ultra-violent plotless, abstract expression (Brunette, 2010: 42). Robin Wood describes Funny Games as a minor work with a limited social/political resonance (Wood 2007 cited in Hobbs 2015: 42). Whereas it is regarded as a breakthrough in terms of a radicalisation of the response elsewhere (Wheatley, 2009: 78). The evidence provided through the textual examples and social acknowledgements of European culture dispute Wood`s claim. Rather it is a clear reference to motivated art cinema imagery with resonance to transnational boundaries.

Successfully blurring the diegetic and non-diegetic is a frequent style throughout Haneke`s oeuvre. In Code Unknown (Haneke, 2000), the boundaries between performance and the diegetic are blurred through style techniques which sees an active shot within the directors shot (Price and Rhodes, 2010: 19). This technique used again in Cache (Haneke, 2005), the opening scene sees an omniscient exterior shot of the protagonist`s house blur into the diegetic through a voice-over commenting on the effects on screen. This character`s commentary on the diegetic scene is a feature which is used in Funny Games. Features within the film such as "Aggressive second-generation modernism, aimed at calling the spectator`s attention both to the film as a construct and to themselves as a consumer" (Wheatley, 2016: 153). The aggressive second-generation modernist techniques employed within Funny Games mobilises the cinematic form over the film content. One scene which deploys second-generation modernism is the scene in one of the many games within the narrative, Anna (Sussanne Lothar) is instructed by Paul to find the missing family dog as part of a game of hot and cold`. As the European viewer who sees personified dogs feature in media and have them domesticated as pets, already emotionally invested into this animal. Upon playing the game with the character in the diegetic, Haneke mobilises this film form to directly involve the spectator and questioning their involvement. One of the antagonist`s Paul (Arno Frisch), winks to the viewer, breaking the fourth wall. This is Brecht`s Verfremdung technique (Grossvogel, 2007 cited in Hobbs, 2015: 41). While the viewer is accustomed to watching the horror unfold onscreen in Hollywood without fear of addressing their involvement, this is the opposite when watching the European art film Funny Games. The viewer is distanced from the actions of the character s through conscious observation. The sadistic version of the children`s game hot and cold is a device which successfully involves the audience through them tracking Anna`s movement in the yard, before unveiling the dead dog in the car. The performance of Paul structures the torture, so the audience is not excluded (Price and Rhodes, 2010: 23). The antagonist`s Paul and Peter (Frank Giering) critique the bourgeois social commentary of crimes in humanity. When explaining the reasoning behind their actions, they ridicule Georg`s (Ulrich Muhe) for his attempt to understand their motive. The viewer is forced to question the director s motive for creating this moving image that overwhelms the senses (Elsaesser cited in Grundmann, 2010: 62). Embedding the action in a climate of wit and satire, as used to reach a large audience (Haneke cited in Grundmann, 2010: 577), allows the violence to become parodied as well as liberating for the audience`s moral spectatorship. The motive within European art cinema is not easily distinguished from the cause-and-effect narrative of Hollywood, as is clear in the antagonist`s motivation. Creating humour within the diegetic creates unease on the spectator whose participation is questioned, unable to answer for their participation and neither of the antagonists saying their cause, interrupts the pleasure drive and calling to the film as a construct (Wheatley, 2009: 162). The sadistic exercise of these two antagonists is a representation of Haneke`s control over the motive of film. An understanding of the antagonist s motives is often set up in fictional violent media to emancipate the viewer from being a victim of the image (Haneke cited in Grundmann 2010: 579).The pleasure expressed on the actors` face is in direct contrast with the unpleasure of the audience. While being appalled by his humorous response and involving us, we look to blame someone rather than ourselves for being a victim of the image. Haneke`s production of the image is beyond the average director through his extensive knowledge of cinema practices through his education and career in television and later cinema. These mind games put art cinema against Hollywood (Elsaesser cited in Grundmann, 2010:60). Drawing on political modernist thought and counter cinema practice (Wheatley, 2009: 77-78), Haneke has created an unapologetic game with the on-screen characters and the viewer for their involvement in choosing to watch this, distancing the viewer to a point of critical spectator awareness when analysing the use of violence.

Spectator awareness allows the film to be read beyond the fictional. The narrative can be read beyond the use of a filmic device for greater analysis of the spectator s viewing procedures. The manifestation of the bourgeois family institute, the father, mother, and child are a metaphorical projection of the position of the audience (Gr nstad, 2012: 150). The normative safety features that are relied on by the audience, narrative, and mise-en-scene are instead used for maximum effect on complicating the viewers` denial and guilt with the extreme art film. The narrative is the quintessential feature of trespassers and intruders while met with the image of intrusion (Gr nstad, 2012: 156). The safety features which the family rely on are turned against them the dog the gate and the gun. (Brunette, 2010: 53) The security of their bourgeois family home is overridden through the demobilised security features. While these are clear signifiers of the affluence through the classical music in the opening to the gated residence. As generic tropes are performed through Georgie`s escape the audience is forced to relinquish hope as approaching the gate, he is unable to overcome, go around or open it. When he goes beyond the house, he is a victim of his neighbours` house whose security lights prevent his presence from being secretive. The gun which Georgie tries to kill Paul with is used against him in his fatal shooting (Brunette, 2010: 62) Haneke is not critiquing the family for expecting their safety but rather their lack of awareness in their complicity in their own demise. This complicating awareness of their own devices is the motive behind the construction of Haneke`s image. This anti-voyeuristic director is critiquing the bourgeois spectator for not being culpable for their choice of film. The family ignorance to the abnormality of their reception on arrival aligns with the spectator`s ignorance of being a culprit of the image rather than a victim of guilt upon spectatorship. The sanctuary of the film, like the sanctuary of the bourgeois family is at manipulation of the director and the audience as victims of their own moral law.

Another scene which successfully calls to the film and a construct is the dialogue performed by Paul when addressing the audience on the outcome of the full-length feature film. While adhering to generic features, it attracts the wider audience for its appeal due to the genre format. The same year as Funny Games` release, the US horror film Scream 2 (Craven, 1997) grossed $100 million at the US box office (IMDb, 2018). Hollywood horror having a clear appeal during the year of release. The use of first- and second-generation modernism differs this art film from its Hollywood counterpart. This film is used as an example of his radical social commentary on our consumption of this media violence. Anna and Georg Schober are victims of the diegetic violence that Paul and Peter commit while the audience is victims of the image but Haneke`s control as well, using violent intrusion of filmic techniques (Price and Rhodes, 2010: 23). The audience is confronted with violence aurally from the opening scene`s use of lowbrow punk music and diegetic violence through a golf club beating and creating the feeling of unpleasure through this ruptured pleasure drive of viewing the attack. Creating an atmosphere of unpleasure through unaccountable realistic violence. Then by continually breaking the fourth wall, winking at the camera and then commenting on the outcome of the film, the audience is made aware of their participation in the horror. Interrupting the audience`s pleasure drive of a safe experience by directly addressing them, contributing to the cinema of unpleasure. Haneke`s critique of societal values of spectating media violence is mobilised through these modernist techniques. June Price Tangney and Ronda L Dearing believe a shamed person seeks to blame outwards (Tangney and Dearing cited in Wheatley, 2009: 167). The director is the authority figure who created the film and a shame is an immediate response, the viewer does not want to be accountable for their participation and outwardly seek the cause and blame the director for manipulating the genre format and employing modernist techniques which question our moral sentiment and ruptures the pleasure drive (Wheatley, 2009: 88, 170). The impact of this film depends on how you read the features vital to suspending the viewer into spectator awareness and the violence the viewer is accustom.

Haneke`s oeuvre looks to provoke the viewer through devices within the diegetic and the non-diegetic. Upon breaking Georg`s kneecap with the golf club, the emphasis is not on the act of violence itself but the effects of this violence: the debilitating nature, the aggressive impact and the continuous effect of this one act. This is metaphoric for the entirety of Haneke`s modus operandi to create a scene which the impact resonates beyond the direct act but through the entirety of the film`s address. Looking to exploit the audience`s spectatorship, using off-screen violence to create an effect. This itself is manipulated within the film`s narrative. The murder scene of Schorschi (Stefan Clapzynski) and the ethical awareness created through reflection of his actions reinforces Haneke s commentary of violence. The spectator negation of guilt when Georg is attacked with the club aligns the audience beliefs that it is retribution on Paul`s behalf because how he was treated did not uphold the bourgeois politely. Paul being spoken to aggressively and even slapped. Anna and George not committing to the values that their institute uphold. The impact of Schorschi s murder is even more greatly manipulated through the lack of shame the viewer feels upon the violent act to Georg. Instead when Schorschi is murdered, Haneke utilises viewer manipulation through a tracking shot of Paul walking out of the room, into the kitchen making a sandwich when Schorschi is shot (Wheatley, 2009: 175). Paul`s direct involvement in this heinous act is clear despite not being the one to the trigger. Metaphorically, this is Haneke being directly responsible for creating this unpleasurable cinema while being oblivious to his own hypocrisy. This hypocrisy of creating a violent cinema to combat media violent is read through Paul`s ignorance of his own involvement while being angry at Peter`s mistake. The diegetic audio of screams and tracking shot into the living room creates a sense of guilt. The Brechtian distancing effect used to withhold information from the spectator in this scene (Elsaesser cited in Grundmann 2010: 61-2). Forcing the pleasure drive to be interrupted and criticising our desire to see the murder. This is once again utilising the Brechtian technique of creating a physical distance from the murder, to create an inner distance and a conscious awakening. The critical aesthetic initiates spectator awareness and the narrative content creates a disturbing pleasure in the unpleasurable, questioning the moral content. Humility amongst the viewer is interrupted through the shock of the child`s murder. As a result of this scene, the pursuit of pleasure is interrupted by Kant`s moral law. "the spectator, horrified by the unexpected violence, is then forced to contemplate the image over an extended period, to share the consequences of violence in the face" (Wheatley, 2009: 159). Denial of their responsibility looks to blame the other, that being the director for denial of responsibility for creating the image.

Haneke`s use of the transnational cinema of extreme art film is performed through narrative devices and content. The extremity of normalised violence is critiqued as a social flaw within society through mobilising the same format that is used to entertain, to create a rupture in the viewer`s pleasure drive, thus creating an emotional response. His extensive knowledge of cinematic practices and European culture is tested in the collapsing boundaries of extreme art cinema and the horror genre. Moral laws of the spectator illuminate the success of narrative and film devices. The shame and guilt felt by the viewer due to self-reflexive modernism resonate the director`s intentions of critiquing our consumption of media violence. The institutes that the audience is used to ensuring safety the family and the cinema is used against the viewer as a means of emotional manipulation. The intruder of the film is the director himself, critiquing the construction of the economy of the bourgeois culture. The average horror fan is a victim of Haneke`s political counter cinema while the art cinema spectator is a victim of extremity in an art film. Calling to itself as a film and using modernism successfully suspends the viewer into a position of ethical spectatorship of violence in the art film. The inspiration derived from earlier European art cinema and the horror genre met with a socio-political reading of violence in the media. The success of this film is due to it creating a passive viewing of a European horror art film as well as encouraging an active emotional response to violence in the horror genre, emancipating the viewer of their naivety of media violence and their own moral laws.

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