Film Lecture Notes Flashcards
Who was the director of ‘Das weiße Band’?
What sort of cinema did he make?
What are common themes in his work?
Michael Haneke
Disturbing cinema — facing the ‘heart of darkness’ in humanity
Violence, guilt, humiliation, punishment
Haneke’s Upbringing
Austria
Grew up in a film family
— mother was a stage actor
— father was an actor/director
— stepfather was composer
Protestant upbringing
Studied philosophy
What did Haneke say about his own cinematic work?
Violence is always represented as somehow “konsumierbar” on screen but it shouldn’t be
— He wants to present truthful violence in a way that the spectator can’t stand and has to look away which means the film will be more than just consumed
You do not get what politicians give you from a Haneke film — “Sicherheit liefern die Politiker …”
He doesn’t want to be a “Lehrer” — wants to give the spectator responsibility “ob er was erkennen will oder nicht”
What do other people say about Haneke’s work?
Code Haneke doc he’s described as a truth seeker, happy to address painful subjects
Sees the “Herz der Finsternis” in society [heart of darkness]
Actor Isabelle Huppert — “brutale, unberechenbare Filme … ehrlich”
Challenges and trusts the spectator, doesn’t allow us a comfortable perspective, it’s an active process of viewing, not just consumption
What has been said about Das weiße Band?
shocking violence, cruelty, physical, sexual and psychological abuse, suicide
disturbing tone — deliberately hard to watch, spectator is in an uncomfortable ‘voyeur’ position
Genre and Form of DWB
Voiceover narrator [teacher]
mystery with a lack of resolution
uncanny children who are often victims of violence in his films, but also are capable of the violence
Key Theme: Children
Innocent or monstrous?
Victims or perpetrators?
They are supposed to be spared of violence; society is supposed to be horrified by violence against children/animals but in the movie they’re often victims of such violence
Children and sexuality - Martin tied to a bed in the presence of younger siblings (what will they make of this?)
Key Theme: Spectatorship and Complicity
An uncomfortable watch
How are we being drawn into the guilt? Why can’t we find a more comfortable position of identification?
Characters’ behaviour is not easily explained
The number of characters — are there too many for identification?
Why is the spectator complicit?
—lack of non-diegetic music
—long takes
—framing
—focalisation
Why do we feel like we’re watching something we’re not supposed to be watching?
— it goes against all our moral values
Are we the spectator in the shared position of
— the teacher [bystander, observer] or
— of the children [listeners, bystanders, eavesdroppers, receivers of commands]?
Is DWB a pre-haunting foreshadowing of National Socialism?
Teacher in voiceover narration at the start of the film maybe mysteriously connects the events in this fictitious village to what came later:
I don’t know if the story I want to tell you is entirely true.
Some of it I only know by hearsay.
A lot of it is still obscure and many questions remain unanswered
The strange events of this village could perhaps clarify things that happened in this country
> Lots of uncertainty and doubt here
— Violence against Karli, disabled boy, foreshadowing of persecution of people with disabilities during NS
— white ribbon around the harm to hint at swastika armband
— emphasis on bystanders, observers, complicity
Uncertainty and Doubt over time, motivation and perpetrators
Children’s motivation remains unclear and ambitious:
— can their violence be interpreted as rebellion against the authority of the patriarchal state/family unit
— as well as their submission to it’s disciplinary logic
Strong investment on the part of the director in not resolving this ambiguity but instead creating a space where different interpretations coexist and intersect
Victims are both the powerful and the vulnerable
