FM3 - Small-scale Research Project Guidance

Here is an extract from a well structured Presentation Script with good referencing and relatively sound argument. Use it as a guide to the way your own script should be submitted.

Dysfunctional families are a predominant factor in Haneke’s films. Does this make Haneke an auteur?

Projector: Image of Michael Haneke (Item 16)

Speaker:

Michael Haneke is an Austrian filmmaker, and has made many films in the languages of English, German and French. Anyone watching Haneke films will recognize a similarity in his dark, disturbing style and his strong use of dysfunctional families as well as his tendency to shock and confuse the audience with ambiguous narrative.

I believe that these things, which I will explain in more detail later, make Haneke an auteur. Auteurship cannot be given to all directors and in one premise of auteur theory is the “distinguishable personality of the director” and “Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Item 7).

Projector: Clip of Funny Games (2007) – (2m 17s) (Item 19)

Speaker:

In this scene for the US version of Funny Games you can see the characteristics of the film displayed in a clear narrative, which is contrasting to his style and the true ambiguous narrative, however it appeals to the audience Haneke wants to attack it was as in an interview he says Funny Games was “intended to be for a public of violence consumers” (Item 14). It also highlights the ‘perfect’ family and outsiders that pray on this perfection, a lot like the viewers of Hollywood films do.

Haneke remade Funny Games to make it identical to the original with the same recurring themes and interior meaning. When asked about the remake in a 2008 on-set interview (item 15), Haneke stated “when I did the first Funny Games it was intended to be for a public of violence consumers in the English-speaking world … the German language the film stayed always in the art houses and so didn't reach the public that it would need to have.” Thus showing that the intention of the film was not to entertain but for the purposes of highlighting our apparent acceptance of violence and death in films. Haneke says that he finds it irritating that “in this kind of post-modern view of life it became chic to make violence as an entertainment, even for the filmmakers and the critics, and this I find is a little bit disgusting.” (Item 15) It is this type of attitude that suggests that Haneke is an auteur, as “The way a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels.” (Item 7).

Projector: Clip of scene where Georgie dies and Paul is looking in the fridge at 1h 1m 10s – (1m) (Item 2)

Speaker:

As you can see, Peter and Paul casually discuss who to kill first, and Paul says he’s going to get something to eat, and asking who else wants food; highlighting their casual view of killing people, paralleling how the audience’s opinion on violence/death in movies. In keeping with Haneke’s hate of violence on screen, when Georgie is shot, there is no violence shown, just a gunshot and blood on the TV at the end of the sequence. This is symbolic of Haneke’s view of Hollywood/media in general – filled with glorified violence. Also, the fact that a child is shot is shocking, yet another aspect of Haneke’s signature style, which once again supports the argument for being an auteur as (Item 7) “a director is forced to express his personality through the visual treatment of material”.