Michael Haneke's Cinema

Catherine Wheatley holds degrees from the universities of Bath and Oxford, and is currently a researcher at the University of Southampton. She is a regular contributor to Sight & Sound magazine, as well as having published articles in several journals and books.

Both her exacting discussions of the films themselves and the even-handed, pointed summations of the critical debate around them are impressive feats - her succinct prose is eminently readable, even where couched in scholarly language.A" * Sight & Sound, The International Film Magazine This is a bold, lucid, fiercely intelligent book, a vital addition to the study of contemporary cinema by one of the UK's brightest young film critics.A" * Screen Haneke stands as one of world cinema's most important auteurs, and as such his work demands the kind of lucid and rigorous interrogation provided here. This is an essential book - the real first step in an understanding and an elucidation of Haneke's oeuvre.A" * Ben McCann, University of Adelaide Wheatley's compelling philosophical contextualization of the intrinsic rupture of filmic and spectatorial practice in Haneke's oeuvre provides a fresh and very rich platform for cinema and cultural studies. Her analysis of the filmmaker's sophisticated challenges and subversions suggests a path beyond traditional and counter-cinema, and will certainly shift established concepts of the art form and theoretical reception.A" * Robert von Dassanowsky, Professor of German and Film Studies, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs ... a timely and important contribution to film theory, European cinema history and to an understanding of Michael Haneke as an extremely important contemporary filmmaker. Wheatley provides a sophisticated but accessible philosophical framework within which to consider Haneke's films and grounds this work firmly through close analysis of all of Haneke's major films.A" * David Sorfa, Liverpool John Moores University

• List of Illustrations Declaration A Note on the Titles Acknowledgements Introduction Chapter 1. The Last Moralist? Chapter 2. Negotiating Modernism: Der Siebente Kontinent, Benny's Video, 71 Fragmente einer Chronologie des Zufalls Chapter 3. The Ethics of Aggression: Funny Games Chapter 4. Emotional Engagement and Narrativity: Code inconnu, La Pianiste, Le Temps du loup Chapter 5. Shame and Guilt: Cache Conclusion Appendix I Appendix II Bibliography Index