Michael Haneke - latest news.

Latest - July 2008. Michael Haneke's Hollywood remake of his own controversial 1997 film Funny Games, is receiving its UK DVD release on 28th July, shortly after its USA DVD release (10th June 2008). Although the release made little impact at the cinemas, it seems both strangely perverse and most fitting that a director, whose films are often seen as a comment on films and film audiences, should make an almost entire shot for shot remake of a film he had made with different actors some ten years ago. Good business if you can get it. Mr Haneke we salute you.

Michael Haneke - A Biography part 1: Early years to 1988. (Part 2)

Michael Haneke was was born in Munich, Germany on 23rd March 1942. Haneke's father was director Fritz Haneke and his mother was actress Beatrix von Degenschild. Raised in Austria Michael Haneke went on to study Drama at University before working as a theatre director, film critic and an editor at a TV company.

1973 saw his break into film in West Germany with a TV movie called After Liverpool, which was the first in a long line of films for television either written by himself or adapted by Haneke, from novels, stretching from 1974 to 1986.

1989 saw Michael Haneke directing his first cinematic release The Seventh Continent (AKA Der Siebente Kontinent) which was a script he wrote for a TV movie but which was rejected by the TV companies and therefore made as a feature film instead. The Seventh Continent shows the story of Georg and his wife Anna (an eye doctor) who, oblivious to the routine monotonous lives they follow, realize that living the suburban dream is a hollow one and decide an extreme way out of the rut. Already in this first feature film the style and themes that are a constant in Haneke's work are already apparent. We see the beautifully considered visual aesthetic of the cinematography, the story inspired by a real life news item, the claustrophobic monotony and repetition of the minutiae of the family's life, punctuated with long minimal dialogue, with the story being resolved in a violent (and many times unseen) manner. Also apparent is Haneke's idiosyncrasies (for instance the husband and wife are called Georg and Anna respectively - check out how many other of Haneke's films are the lead characters named with subtle variants of the same names).

A return to TV with the self penned Nachruf für einen Mörder (1991) before Michael Haneke was able to make his next feature film Benny's Video in 1992. Benny's Video told the story of Benny, a young man virtually ignored by his wealthy parents, who spends his time in his bedroom obsessively watching violent movies (including his home video of a pig being slaughtered). But Benny degenerates into further madness and ends up killing a girl with a stun gun and filming it on his video camera. The second part of the loose trilogy whic began with The Seventh Continent, Benny's Video is every bit as stark as Haneke's notorious debut and maintained his initial impact on the European cinema industry, along the way collecting a couple of European Cinema awards, it also contained themes (violence and the complicity of the media and the audience) that would be further explored 15 years later in later films culminating in Cache.

A further TV movie followed in 1993 Die Rebellion. Adapted from a novel Joseph Roth, the story follows Andreas a disabled ex-soldier, who at the end of his life considers what his actions have achieved for him. 1994 saw the release of 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (AKA 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls). The final film in the trilogy is the story (again inspired by real life events) surrounding a mass killing at an Austrian Bank. The 71 segments each tell unrelated and unremarkable stories of individuals who will become victims, and are spliced together with news reportage of various current conflicts and news items (such as the Michael Jackson child molestation trial).

1995 saw Michael Haneke submit a segment to the film Lumiere and Company (aka Lumière et compagnie). The project brought together 40 international film directors each given the task of providing a segment for the film using original Lumière Brothers Cinematographe equipment invented by them, and imposing similar restrictions that they would have been subject to in 1895 i.e. the film could be no longer than 52 seconds, no synchronized sound was permitted, and should be no more than three takes.

In 1997 Haneke returned with the feature film Funny Games which tells the story of a wealthy Austrian family who go to their summerhouse by the lakes for a holiday. A well to do pair of young men who, as they look trustworthy, manage to bluff their way into the house. Once inside they begin to terrorise the family and kill them one by one. Despite its gruesome set up, the terror is punctuated with some dark humour with the ironic referential comments by the torturers to the film's audience, and at one stage even rewinding the film to ensure a more satisfying outcome to the film for the pair. Funny Games was a critical success for Haneke, and the film gained a nomination for the Golden Palm at Cannes (even after a walkout at the screening by parts of the audience disturbed the violence) and marked Haneke's breakthrough into a higher level of European Cinema.

1998 saw a return to TV with The Castle (aka Das Schloß) Haneke's was a precise and faithful adaptation of Franz Kafka's famously unfinished novel. The story follows K, a Land Surveyor, summoned by a count to attend a castle. K successfully arrives at the village surrounding the castle but with the complicit, and entirely unhelpful villagers thwarting his every move, and the castle itself frustrating his own attempts at contact, he is left frustrated and helpless in the unfriendly and bureaucratic village.

continued on the Michael Haneke profile part 2