"You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment." In fact so important, so narcissistic is entertainment that you go ahead a blow a few million just to remake your Austrian obscurity of hyper violence shot for shot in English because really, "it's an American story." I take this to be more of Wim Wenders or Werner Hertzog maneuver, assuming Haneke for a more streamlined and antiseptic intellectual than the others, but whatever... I don't know, the quality of Americanness to the narrative implies an oversight and an error on the director's part. That error in point is the apparently unrealized "requirement" the first time around that Haneke should have used inferior, maginally Hollywood, English language actors to capture the true essence of this so called American story as opposed to employing German speaking European actors of superior talent.
Fact is, you shouldn't exactly believe all the hyperbole around this film, because the narrative is probably the least American in character than other films from this director. You're more likely to find Ralph Lauren style serial killers in Austria or on the shores of Lake Geneva (where the real money is at) than in Manhattan Beach, CA -especially these days, in this market, if you know where I'm headed with that statement (*see the American economy circa 1929*). Because US Americans rob banks before they return to their day jobs (at the bank) on Monday, and when they need drugs to ameliorate all the pain they feel, being an American, they stick their best friend for what turns out to be three dollars when it was potentially ten... right before they sell off their VCR to the local Pawn and Gun.
This is where Haneke falls down: the point of violence is not simply pointless sport at all in the good ole' USA because violent tactics are usually associated with the art of getting money not with people who already have it. Or at least violence is one way of going about it, and, as it turns out, an increasingly common way of expanding and building personal wealth particularly those with much to build upon, much of nothing that is.
Not to say, really, speaking of money, that American's don't enjoy cinematic projections of pointless violence as orchestrated and executed by European film directors adept at their craft as is Haneke. Indeed, there is a rich history of that scenario playing itself out in the history of entertainment theory; and lest we forget LA is the cinema's world stage. You wanna make world movies, take it to LA... That, as De Palma would have it, "violence is inherently cinematic," is reason enough to put one's investment dollars behind the remake of a relatively obscure ultra violent film especially if it's being remade for the benefit of the USA and in the lingua franca. Lesson: film-making is almost exclusively and specifically about making money.
So that's why... That's why they did it: For the money. Haneke's cinema violence is interesting, sure, it's lesson teaching, it's well directed, even philosophical but its violence doesn't cease to be violence. You can intellectualize it all you like; however, it remains that violence in film is a time-worn yet unmistakably proved commercial formula, while shunned and frowned upon in Europe and thriving always in the States, that plays off our lizard brain fears of the unknown sort of like Republican Politics. And, gee, by the way, I'll be darned, let me tell you, violent movies generate a lot of money, Batman. So every time you pop into the cinema with your gfriend, keep in mind, it's sort of like a Funny Game to separate you from what you're holding in you're pocket book. If a film was determined at some point that it couldn't do that, it wouldn't be film. And this includes "Art films" even, like Funny Games. (*Remember: Basically if you call a film an art film, it just means you were left behind. Avoid that.*)
Over all the lack of departure form the original is what makes this film so post-postmodernly interesting. Funny Games EL Redeaux is better lit than the first film, and you can discern pretty clearly the advances in film stock since the mid-nineties; take a close look at that last 400 Blows style freeze frame shot at the end of each movie and compare the two - the new film is better. Apart from that, folks, very few differences exist between the films. It's my stance that the performances in the Austrian version are better because the actors in that picture are better actors but that's just my stance... You should see both, though, just for fun.
Fact is, you shouldn't exactly believe all the hyperbole around this film, because the narrative is probably the least American in character than other films from this director. You're more likely to find Ralph Lauren style serial killers in Austria or on the shores of Lake Geneva (where the real money is at) than in Manhattan Beach, CA -especially these days, in this market, if you know where I'm headed with that statement (*see the American economy circa 1929*). Because US Americans rob banks before they return to their day jobs (at the bank) on Monday, and when they need drugs to ameliorate all the pain they feel, being an American, they stick their best friend for what turns out to be three dollars when it was potentially ten... right before they sell off their VCR to the local Pawn and Gun.
This is where Haneke falls down: the point of violence is not simply pointless sport at all in the good ole' USA because violent tactics are usually associated with the art of getting money not with people who already have it. Or at least violence is one way of going about it, and, as it turns out, an increasingly common way of expanding and building personal wealth particularly those with much to build upon, much of nothing that is.
Not to say, really, speaking of money, that American's don't enjoy cinematic projections of pointless violence as orchestrated and executed by European film directors adept at their craft as is Haneke. Indeed, there is a rich history of that scenario playing itself out in the history of entertainment theory; and lest we forget LA is the cinema's world stage. You wanna make world movies, take it to LA... That, as De Palma would have it, "violence is inherently cinematic," is reason enough to put one's investment dollars behind the remake of a relatively obscure ultra violent film especially if it's being remade for the benefit of the USA and in the lingua franca. Lesson: film-making is almost exclusively and specifically about making money.
So that's why... That's why they did it: For the money. Haneke's cinema violence is interesting, sure, it's lesson teaching, it's well directed, even philosophical but its violence doesn't cease to be violence. You can intellectualize it all you like; however, it remains that violence in film is a time-worn yet unmistakably proved commercial formula, while shunned and frowned upon in Europe and thriving always in the States, that plays off our lizard brain fears of the unknown sort of like Republican Politics. And, gee, by the way, I'll be darned, let me tell you, violent movies generate a lot of money, Batman. So every time you pop into the cinema with your gfriend, keep in mind, it's sort of like a Funny Game to separate you from what you're holding in you're pocket book. If a film was determined at some point that it couldn't do that, it wouldn't be film. And this includes "Art films" even, like Funny Games. (*Remember: Basically if you call a film an art film, it just means you were left behind. Avoid that.*)
Over all the lack of departure form the original is what makes this film so post-postmodernly interesting. Funny Games EL Redeaux is better lit than the first film, and you can discern pretty clearly the advances in film stock since the mid-nineties; take a close look at that last 400 Blows style freeze frame shot at the end of each movie and compare the two - the new film is better. Apart from that, folks, very few differences exist between the films. It's my stance that the performances in the Austrian version are better because the actors in that picture are better actors but that's just my stance... You should see both, though, just for fun.
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