“Every film is manipulative, raping the viewer. So the question is: Why do I rape the viewer?”This controversial statementcame from none other than the equally controversial, and forever agitating,Michael Haneke.
For the past three decades, his work has focused on the estrangement of individuals in society.This alienation is expressedthrough technology, media, violence, class, history and deteriorated humanity. Haneke intends for his films to make bleak observations on pressing societal issues. For him, said issues are not to be depicted in a traditionally didactical or moralistic way, as he believes that the manipulation to which he refers, must respect the viewer and made in a way it gives audiences independence from the filmmaker and the film.
“I attempt to construct stories so that several explanations are possible, to give viewers the freedom to interpret,”Haneke explained publiclyat the Film Society of Lincoln Center. This reverberates in the strong criticism Haneke has directed towards mainstream filmmakers. He critiquedSchindler’s List, for transforming the Holocaust into a moralistic melodrama, andPulp Fictionfor equating violence to entertainment.
These statements may come as a contradiction, as violence is a constant in Haneke’s work. The director has repeatedly argued that his use of brutality comes from a vastly different place, and the execution of it in his films is one that treats violence in a realistic and responsible fashion. This approach also ends up making his movies way harder to watch than gore-driven horror or traditional violent dramas, but what is it exactly that has made his work so hard to watch? To grasp this, one must understand where the artist comes from and how this shaped his filmography.
The Influence of Austrian History on Haneke
After World War II, the official discourse Austrian authorities adopted was that they were thwarted into Nazism, becoming victims of it. This was far from the truth, as the country had nearly half a million Nazi party members out of seven million inhabitants. By obscuring their past, the elites of the country infuriated a generation of artists that would go on to vehemently criticize and attack their nation’s hypocrisy. In this context, Haneke began working and honing his craft through theater and television productions. By the late ’80s, his debut film,The Seventh Continent,shocked audiences with its grim and unsentimental portray of a seemingly normal middle-class family which slowly fades into their inevitable decay.
The Looming Insanity Behind Bourgeois Society
Most of Haneke’s characters form part of the stereotypical European middle class. The director’s upbringing as part of this social group granted him with the necessary knowledge and insight to build realistic depictions of petit-bourgeois society. In his films, the protagonists’ lives are a tumultuous mess of values and ideas, that are slowly eating them inside out. Much like the director himself, these characters are a byproduct of what came before them.
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When having to deal with that past, they find themselves at conflict. This goes very much in line with whatGerman philosopher Theodor Adornounderstood as the “neurotic” process that constitutes dealing with the past. For Adorno, working with through what came before, involves dealing with the present, and understanding that the horrors of past times live on through mostly unchanged societal conditions that validate barbarity. To comprehend this socially induced neurosis of society, would make any conscious being neurotic as well.
Portrayal of Violence
A vague observation of Haneke’s filmography would state that his work deals mostly with violence, but what it really deals with, is fear. He has stated on various occasions, his great fear and dislike of physical violence, thus the portrayal of it in his movies comes directly from that fact. Haneke feels a great deal of responsibility towards his audience, and such responsibility entails respecting their intelligence. This is why he does not make entertainment out of violence, he portrays it realistically, so it won’t feel comfortable. He says that no sane person would react to these depictions of fear and violence with the pleasing manners they have towards mainstream violent in films.
In most of his works, these heinous acts, happen off-screen. If they happen to appear in the frame, they are shown without emotion, morbidity or excitement. InBenny’s Video, the main character’s detachment from reality and obsession with media and technology, makes him completely unsensitized towards a horrible act he commits. The audience never gets to see what actually happens, they only get screams. InThe Piano Teacher, Erika’s (Isabelle Hupert) acts of self-mutilation come from a deeply complicated relationship to her own identity and sexuality. Haneke presents them as they are in still, long shots, without any kind of framing that would suggest a visual romanticizing of it.
Alienation Between Audiences and Haneke’s Films
It’s not often that people feel compelled to re-watch his movies, he frequently mentions that his films are harder for audiences to watch than for him, his crew, and actors to make.This effect can be attributed to his use of technical methods to accentuate his bleak and distant narrative approach. One very clear example of this are the blackout transitions. InCode Unknown¸ this not only works to accentuatethe film’s non-linearity, but to generate detachment between the material and the audience.
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By breaking apart the narrative, and setting a moment of nothingness between scenes, Haneke is allowing the audience to separate from his films. The priorly mentioned manipulation is here at work, and aims for the individuals who are watching to think and act as such.
The Pain of Not Knowing
The filmography of the Austrian auteur has been compared to the works of Franz Kafka. What today is understood as “Kafkaesque” refers to the individual’s helplessness in the face of an incompetent or malign state apparatus or the absurdity of life. Haneke taps into a similar notion: the face-to-face with the unknown through pain, the agony of what’s unknown.
He argues that fear is the main cause of violence, that humanity reacts towards the existential pain of doubt, by attacking, until the only there is no longer fear, only aggression. Hostility will then fill up the human psyche, leaving no psychological room for doubt. This is essentially why Michael Haneke’s work is so hard to watch (and even more to re-watch): because it forces humanity to stare into its own darkness, without any blueprint on to how to deal with it.
