Michael Haneke: Glaciation, Legitimacy and Transgression

Abstract

This chapter examines the extreme cinema of Michael Haneke. Whilst increasingly well covered in scholarly accounts of extreme art cinema, Haneke’s work is most often approached from an aesthetic and thematic point of view, wherein the text becomes the focal point. While these studies are key to understanding Haneke’s films, and the metaphorical significance he places on scenes of brutalism and sex, it has left certain areas underexplored. This chapter addresses this by undertaking detailed paratextual analysis of Haneke’s key extreme films. Firstly, the chapter focuses upon Funny Games, the most critically disliked Haneke film. Looking first at Tartan Video’s release before discussing Artificial Eye’s remediation, the chapter highlights the important role time can play in defining the commercial validity of extremity. Showing how the growing status of Haneke’s auteur brand challenged the use extreme iconography, the chapter alludes to the ways highbrow commercial symbols compete with lowbrow traits. Thereafter, the chapter undertakes an assessment of Artificial Eye’s ‘Michael Haneke Trilogy’. This example – due the centralisation of a dead pig on the cover – exposes the way paratexts can oppose critical and cultural canonisation.