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Funny Games



Michael Haneke's most notorious provocation, Funny Games spares no detail in its depiction of the agony of a bourgeois family held captive at their vacation home by a pair of white-gloved young men. In a series of escalating "games," the sadistic duo subject their victims to unspeakable physical and psychological torture over the course of a night. A home-invasion thriller in which the genre's threat of bloodshed is made stomach-churningly real, the film ratchets up shocks even as its executioners interrupt the action to address the audience, drawing queasy attention to the way that cinema milks pleasure from pain and stokes our appetite for atrocity. With this controversial treatise on violence and entertainment, Haneke issued a summation of his cinematic philosophy, implicating his audience in a spectacle of unbearable cruelty.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New 2K digital restoration, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
• New interviews with Haneke and actor Arno Frisch
• New interview with film historian Alexander Horwath
• Press conference from the 1997 Cannes Film Festival featuring Haneke and actors Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Mühe
• Trailer
• New English subtitle translation
• PLUS: An essay by critic Bilge Ebiri

KJones77 wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 6:58 pm The artist who designed the 2007 remake poster stated in an Instagram post that she was asked to re-create it for the 1997 version for the upcoming Criterion release.

Here's a screenshot in case the post gets deleted.

Oh man. That's so brilliant. And is making me sad considering that the two leads are no longer with us, with tragic circumstances surrounding both of their much too early departures. Day one purchase.

Did hemean Haneke vetoed using his poster for the release (if that's possible) or did I misread?

dda1996a wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 7:11 pm Did hemean Haneke vetoed using his poster for the release (if that's possible) or did I misread?

Yes, I took it to mean that as well. I guess Haneke didn't like the idea of using the same style poster as the 2007 release.

mfunk9786 wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 7:00 pm Oh man. That's so brilliant. And is making me sad considering that the two leads are no longer with us, with tragic circumstances surrounding both of their much too early departures. Day one purchase.

I know that Muhe passed away from cancer but I never got a clear answer as to what happened to Lothar. I am assuming that because the cause of death wasn't disclosed it means what I think it means?

Regardless I'm a big fan (As much as one can be?) of Funny Games and am looking forward to this.

Great news. Something that might make an excellent left-field addition to extras might be that short film that Susanne Lothar starred in a few years after this, 2001's To Have And To Hold, which puts her into a similarly harrowing situation.

Is the remake speculated to be included or are the rights too sticky for that one?

Either way, great news.

I'm positive Warner owns the rights so they probably could get them but I'm sure that would be cost prohibitive just to license the film as an "extra."

Maybe sister releases, if anything

Something like the Yojimbo/Sanjuro double release?

Sister releases are more like the two Mungius that separately came out on the same day last year

The cover discussed in the first post of this thread would also be a fantastic cover for a Lower Depths-style double feature release.

Only hopping in here to harp on an old point, but that artist is Akiko Stehrenberger and she’s a woman. K, thanks.

DRW.mov wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 11:59 pm Only hopping in here to harp on an old point, but that artist is Akiko Stehrenberger and she’s a woman. K, thanks.

That's my mistake. I'm sorry. Fixed in the OP. Not sure why I said he.

DRW.mov wrote: Fri Feb 01, 2019 11:59 pm Only hopping in here to harp on an old point, but that artist is Akiko Stehrenberger and she’s a woman. K, thanks.

Could have made your statement without the snootiness at the end. K, thx

Anyways I've been an admirer of Stehrenberger's work for a while. Incredible news that her work will be featured for this release.

So no mention of the remake in the supplemental material. It does mention a new English translation for the subtitles though, which is curious because as I remember it, the remake’s dialogue followed the translation on the Kino DVD of the original almost word for word.

But maybe I’m misremembering it as more similar than it actually was.

"Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does" said Haneke. What does he think about his film entering the Criterion closet?

dda1996a wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:11 pm "Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does" said Haneke. What does he think about his film entering the Criterion closet?

The disc is actually empty except for a short video of Haneke chastising us for trying to watch Funny Games.

You could certainly do a nice Smug Moralizing double feature of this and La vérité. No doubt a future Criterion Channel theme

dda1996a wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:11 pm "Anyone who leaves the cinema doesn't need the film, and anybody who stays does" said Haneke. What does he think about his film entering the Criterion closet?

I dunno about the closet, but jeez, what an asshole.

I’ve seen and admire much of the rest of Haneke’s output, but I’ve never had even the tiniest desire to see this in either version. Everything Haneke has said about it suggests that I’m not the target audience.

Selling the art-house audience on their own need for stern-faced punishment is a good racket, I guess.

MichaelB wrote: Fri Feb 15, 2019 11:39 pm I’ve seen and admire much of the rest of Haneke’s output, but I’ve never had even the tiniest desire to see this in either version. Everything Haneke has said about it suggests that I’m not the target audience.

I would never recommend the film to someone who dislikes Haneke, but to someone who admires his other films, I would encourage you to ignore what Haneke says and see what you think on your own terms. Haneke's statement quoted above is so ridiculous that it qualifies as a piss-take whether he intended it to be or not. In fact I think it's a very funny troll of critics, even if he thought he was being dead serious when he said it.

The film itself is definitely a Haneke film in that it's not coy about its aims, but it's extremely effective as a horror film, even as it's repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to undermine its own tropes. Honestly it's really a hell of a thing in the way that it's constructed and executed. I can understand why someone like William Friedkin would be such a vocal admirer.

Brian C wrote: Sat Feb 16, 2019 12:41 am
I would never recommend the film to someone who dislikes Haneke, but to someone who admires his other films, I would encourage you to ignore what Haneke says and see what you think on your own terms. Haneke's statement quoted above is so ridiculous that it qualifies as a piss-take whether he intended it to be or not. In fact I think it's a very funny troll of critics, even if he thought he was being dead serious when he said it.

The film itself is definitely a Haneke film in that it's not coy about its aims, but it's extremely effective as a horror film, even as it's repeatedly breaking the fourth wall to undermine its own tropes. Honestly it's really a hell of a thing in the way that it's constructed and executed. I can understand why someone like William Friedkin would be such a vocal admirer.

I'm in full agreement here but I'll go one step further and say that I think Haneke is fully aware of the disingeniousness of his statement. I'll be interested to see what he says on the disc and how his thoughts have evolved since the film premiered over twenty years ago. I mean I'm fully aware of of how churlish he is but I cannot imagine he's entirely sincere about that past quote now when he's so involved with the release that he's specifying what he wants the cover of all things to look like.