Amour (by Michael Haneke)

I'll watch any movie with beautiful shots of people waking around the desert

Life of Jesus is good

Is it Life of Jesus or L'humanité that begins with the close-up of the dead, raped girl's crotch and ends with the guy levitating? Because that movie was some bullshit.

L'humanité. That film was interesting imo.

I've found all of his films interesting although i haven't seen 29 palms. Hadewijch got a v limited release here Ward. I saw it at the GFT.

And 29 Palms was the couple driving across America, having sex and roaring like cavemen? Fuck that one, too.

I saw Hadewijch at the ICA. Older ones aside he and maybe Assayas are the only French filmmakers worth bothering with these days.

ohh nice jed and xyzzzz. haven't seen any of his films at the cinema, am hoping that the new one plays at the GFT. one of the things abt Dumont that i find interesting - perfect word! - is the way that he isn't afraid to cram the 'here and now' - the political-historical - into these abstract-spiritual art exercises. HADEWIJCH seemed partic successful in that regard.

there's an interview w/ dumont in the new sight and sound; his next film is abt Camille Claudel, w/ juliette binoche, which brings us nicely back to CODE UNKNOWN (that one has always seemed to me like Haneke's semi-tribute to Kiarostami, to me)

RE; THE PASSENGER commentary track - think i've heard/seen it claimed that nicholson had a bad cold or something that day - he cld be stoned, it's hard to tell 'cos we (me) almost never hear nicholson speaking out of character. if you're interested in more 'ravaged voice commentary track' curiosities, check out clive barker on the first hellraiser dvd.

the peploe commentary on THE PASSENGER disc is also worth listening to - interesting stuff abt peter wollen, someone v much of interest to me

to me

lol jack may not be the only one operating under the influence

Last time I was in the BFI shop I was looking at Wollen's bk on Snging in the Rain in that brand new cover to celebrate BFI classics anniversary - have you read it?

no i haven't - that's one of those where, i'm more interested in the writer than the film, i guess. also - they're expensive, i'm cheap, and i've never seen it second-hand.

have never seen any of the films he made w/ laura mulvey, either - have you?

yeah I've never seen it 2nd hand whenever I look, and my library only has a few of these.

There was one of their films on UBU, made a note to see it. Had another look but that's gone now.

the new cover on TAXI DRIVER by amy taubin is hideous, btw, though the interior stills look gorgeous (one i did manage to borrow from the library)

Have either of you been inducted into The Index of ILX Film Snobs yet?

Not sure whether I should be offended that I'm thought of as a film snob or that someone has only noticed it now.

That I'm listed 2nd is an insult to real snobs everywhere.

this is turning into Directors I'd Like to Waterboard

stay classy.

I'd put Bigelow on the short list of Directors I'd Like to Waterbed.

(Sorry, too easy)

for the first third i thought:"if it was'nt a Haneke film, no one would give a fuck"
but after that i realized it's one of his best films, and actually deals with his same subjects as always (only of course more subtle) but also suggests a moral solution to the "terror controls life" Haneke issues, that was missing in most of his films.

lol Josh

http://www.ica.org.uk/36047/Film/Hors-Satan.html

New Dumont in early Jan for - fans of waterboarding welcome.

An exploitation movie swathed in Schubert: Funny Endgames.

So vile.

I guess in a certain context, yeah, it could be construed as a comedy. Didn't see it that way at first, but now, yeah, wry and quirky.

'funny' as in his biggest fucking asshole movie ever.

Yeah, it's his The Patsy.

Nick Pinkerton ftw

Endemic to Haneke's dry, ratchet-turning movies is the anticipation of an Inevitable Awful Event—let us call it the "IAE"—an event in which the incipient horror of the human condition pops out from behind the veneer of civilization, an event that the veteran Haneke viewer understands, upon going in, is part of the contract. The IAE breaks the brittle surface of Haneke's style, and the bracing plunge after the crack of the ice delivers a harsh lesson. His pedantic, castigating filmmaking is a vehicle for these lessons, which have never yet confirmed man's high opinion of himself. The unit of the shot or the scene is rarely a source of pleasure or pain or conflict or resolution or beauty or individual life, only a flat and neutral plane against which the harsh truth can stand out all the more starkly....

In keeping within its limited boundaries, in applying an unflinching style to an inevitable process, Amour has a certain perfection to it, but what Haneke expresses thereby—that culture is no protection from the final horror, that death be not proud—is so meager as to make it a single-minded, barren perfection. Haneke remains, by his rules, infallible. So what? A movie in which incident is as spare as it is in Amour can certainly be great; a movie in which ideas and feelings are so sparse cannot.

http://www.villagevoice.com/2012-12-19/film/michael-haneke-s-chilly-lauded-amour/

Woould re-making FG w/waterboarding scenes be more to your satisfaction Morbs? xp

er complaining that a Haneke film is sparse w/feeling is a treat.

otm

This movie, more than any of his I've seen, most convincingly explains that void.

Pinkerton is pointing the ice out as a career problem.

brainy NYC audience note: during the end credits, a couple of ppl audibly wondered what had become of JLT's character.

Don't see 'ice' as a problem.

I wanted to know what happened to Alexandre Tharaud's character: Alexandre Tharaud.

It was pretty clear from the way he shifted around in his chair that MH really hated him.

He must've lost in a Chopin play-off challenge.

Pretty sure you actually are Armond, Morbs.

http://cityarts.info/2012/12/26/illness-as-metaphor/

Amour is no more life-affirming (or cinema-affirming) than The Dark Knight Returns.

Dark Knight Returns was good however I don't go to films as a way to affirm life. This idea is mediocre.

lol at armond not knowing 'the dark knight' from 'the dark knight returns.'

or The Dark Knight Rises

yes, Eric, AW and I are the only ppl on earth who think Haneke is an arid misanthropic shithead.

If anyone detects his usual assholism in Amour, let me know, 'cause I didn't.

― Simon H., Friday, 14 December 2012 03:26

I probably totally misread the film but I detected massive assholism.

It seemed to me that up to a certain point the film was all "aw, isn't that touching the old guy looking after the fading wife he's loved all these years so heroically" and then Haneke was like "o ho, you massive sentimental idiots, this the cold awful reality that you are too feeble to face up to" and then there was a lacuna and he kicked the nurse out and everything changed.

then Haneke was like "o ho, you massive sentimental idiots, this the cold awful reality that you are too feeble to face up to"

in the voice of Werner Herzog

Nah Herzog has more 'quirky' humour than Haneke, wouldn't work.

So finally watched this...

There was a reality of a care for the elderly that really feels wholly depicted - not that many ever try, films about this subject are few - and to add to what Ward says, there is also a depiction of the dilemmas faced by sons and daughters in providing care, the choices they want to make. I am always awed by Huppert, she was great here.

But if there is a reality he never allows us to forget that this is a fiction too: at one point Anne calls Georges "a monster but funny sometimes" iirc. This is at the point between the two strokes, and before Georges gets rid of the nurse, so you could see what was coming. Its certainly as if she knew he would comply with her wishes. The usual effects are there, i.e. a look at landscapes after the first 'incident': art will not save, but I've so internalised them over the years there is a joy in seeing them again, but in a sober setting of a one well designed (bourgeois) apartment.

My favourite scene was Huppert's first encounter w/her mother after her second stroke: the angle is perfect, you see half (but it isn't quite half, maybe her face in 55:45 ratio) of Huppert's face as she tells her mother what seems like house price talk for like a min or two, and Anne can only speak words here and there in return, her ability to speak in sentences lost forever. Language now gone. Huppert's face is expression-free, or numb (HaneKe knows you want to see her whole face and decode any expressions, that is why the choice of angle is perfect). This goes on for a good minute or two, seems forever before she comes out and tells her father she is speaking 'gibberish'. This is where the brutality was most felt, how 'banal' some of the talk becomes when talking to an ill, elderly relative...what to say. Just who was speaking gibberish to whom here? The scorn is total.

great post xyzzzz, and agree that huppert is great in this - the mixture of compassion, selfishness and fear flashing across her face

Dumont next week so hopefully this is the start of an excellent run :)

Huppert is obv conceived of as a bitch, like every person on screen cept the two leads

The Dumont doesn't appear to be on the GFT this month :-(

Don't agree w/that reading Morbs. And 'every person'? Even the nurses and the neighbours who helped?!

Actually thought about this as a sequel of sorts to Piano Teacher. Need to watch it again.

Hors Satan => film of 2013!!! YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST!

Morbs and Josh => please avoid at all costs.