| Author | Message | ||
     Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I picked this up in Zavvi yesterday for a fiver. Tartan DVD have released it (although the trailers seem several years old on the special features - and one of them is in foreign with no subtitles). So finally I get to watch the whole film after the projector broke at the festival several years ago. This was easily one of the most disturbing films I've ever seen. This filmmakes it impossible to create any emotional distance from the violence. When Paul/Beavis/Tom first turned to wink at the viewer Ifound myself thinking "don't try to involve me in your sick games". SPOILER SPOILER When the boy was shot and we have almost 5 minutes of a long shot of the room with the corpse sprawled in the corner it was alost unbearabe. The father's subsequent grief was as bad. This is a masterpiece of film making. A film about violence and about the portrayal of violence in film. The fact that most of the violence is off screen somehow makes it nastier. This guy has learned allHitchcocks lessons and improved on them. My one criticism would be that this DVD version has a couple of moments that feel like something's been cut. I seem to remember seeing the golf club hit the father's leg and wincing at the brutality of it. That didn't happen this time. He swung the club and it jumped to the father collapsing with a broken leg. Is my memory faulty or is this a cut version of the film? Does the English langauage remake compare favourably? | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
I loved FUNNY GAMES (didn't realise there was a remake) except for Haneke's meta-preaching, which was insulting and patronising and took me right out of the story. I don't want my horror films spoilt by the notion that I prolong the suffering of the characters by watching. They're fictional characters in a horror film; suffering is their raison d'etre! But that complaint aside, I thought it was an extremely unsettling movie and very well done. Having all the violence offscreen was surprisingly effective. Chilling, in fact. I have the Tartan edition too, but as it's the only version I've seen I can't say whether anything was cut or not. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
But Nikki, I'd dispute that Funny Games is a horror film. It's horrific, yes, but its aims are far more complex and abitious than your average horror film. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
It's supposed to put you off horror. It did me. For a bit. So therefore it must be horror masked as a moral warning masked as horror. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I'm with Niki. Surely being more complex and ambitious doesn't remove the film from the genre, however much Haneke would like to believe he's above it. I don't think it's more complex than Rear Window or Peeping Tom - all right, the Hitchcock isn't a horror film, but both films comfortably inhabit their genres while commenting on them with considerable intelligence. Haneke himself remade his own film (with the excellent Naomi Watts) but I've yet to see that version. The Tartan version doesn't look cut to me - there's no gap in the imagery. Alas, Tartan are now bankrupt. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
"Surely being more complex and ambitious doesn't remove the film from the genre" I'd argue that these days it does, Ramsey. The most complec and ambitious modern horror films I've seen aren't really horror films, per se. At least they aren't marketed as them. ;-) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
And they definitely don't appear in the Horror section of HMV or any other any major film outlet – any more than Psycho or The Haunting or Carnival of Souls or even The Masque of the Red Death: all mainstream films, apparently. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
I think there's a majot distiction to be made here between directors setting out to make a "horror" film and those which have horrific elements but are simply films. Films like SAW fall into the former category, whilst FUNNY GAMES I would put in the latter. IMHO, of course. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Forgive me, but I really think this is to reduce genre to its most generic and say that only the work that conforms to generic expectations belongs there. I've devoted most of my career to trying to refute this attitude to horror. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I'd also say that the Saw films aren't that accurate a comparison. Leaving aside whether or not we admire the film, is Last House on the Left a horror film in the terms of this discussion? How about films that followed it, such as House on the Edge of the Park? All are about terrorisation, like Haneke's film (in the latter case, domestic too like Haneke's). | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Ramsey, I've always refuted the very thing I'm bringing up here, too; I'm just a bit jaded with recent generic horror output, I suppose. In retrospect, I think I'm actually making a dig at the marketing of horror, you know, rather than the output. It seems to me that filmmakers are constantly narrowing the definitions of horror when what we really want is for them to embrace the broadness of its potential. Am I making sense? Even I don't know! :-) | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
The editorial team of FEAR magazine were pushing the same commercial philosophy two decades ago: if it doesn't have chainsaws it's not horror. One of them said to me that the readership of horror wasn't intelligent enough for any other approach to be workable. Horror fiction print has dug its way out of that hole (at the cost of losing 90% of its readership), but film-makers are still down there and the daylight is a long way away. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
IN print, I mean. | ||
| Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
I agree with you both, chaps! | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
May I just say that I haven't seen any of these films. Thanks. It's always useful to have an outsider's opinion. | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Zed: I agree with you re: the marketing. I've always hated the notion that horror is something to be ashamed of liking and that any film that happens to be good can't possibly be horror, then. It's hard to pigeonhole movies that can fit in several genres, but if a film can straddle the line between, say, "crime drama" or "thriller" and "horror", most filmmakers will choose the former categories - probably because they have more mass appeal. It's like the distinction made betewen "erotica" and "pornography". Respectable people will go see a "thriller" called SILENCE OF THE LAMBS, but market it as a horror movie and suddenly it's got some kind of genre stigma attached to it. I've never understood it and it's frustrated me as much as it has Ramsey. I think the unspoken logic is that any good film with horrific elements that has a degree of mainstream success has risen above the "horror" label. Hmph. DELIVERANCE is as much a horror film as THE DESCENT, just marketed differently. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
>>>suddenly it's got some kind of genre stigma attached to it. I've never understood it It's just ostensibly cultured folk who worry about what their neighbours think of them. People who spray air-freshener in the bathroom after taking a dump. Forgive the inelegant metaphor. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
As ye Landlord says: "Horror gets identified with its worst examples." | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
Indeed. Although I put forward my points rather clumsily, I guess it's the marketing perception of horror I'm complaining about. I always say: Horror is a house with many rooms. Horror is a feeling, an emotion; a personal something you cannot adequately label. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
It's like when Ramsey states: "I’m Ramsey Campbell. I write horror." He doesn't say "I'm a horror writer." I truly believe there's a major difference here that needs to be stated. Maybe I'm wrong, but it's certainly something I think about a lot. Maybe I should get out more... | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Depends how much you have to get out... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
Science fiction writers used to have the same problem - their stuff was habitually identified with BEMs, men with pointy ears and Martian princesses in distress. The horror clichés are perhaps even more blatant - grinning skulls, coffins, graveyards, bats, spiders . . . Whether your scriblings are literary or not, once you're labeled 'horror writer' a skull will grace the cover of your book. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
How did sci-fi get out of it? Was it good writers like Ballard, Moorcock, et al? | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
I like skulls. I'd never have bought my first Ramsey Campbell book if I hadn't been drawn in by the image of an evil-looking little girl in flames on the cover. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Has Sci-fi got out of it? It's still seen as the genre for geeks... | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
Gary: A gradual evolution towards more literary forms, certainly. More 'lit'ry' guys got attracted to the field. Also at some point they dropped the bogus science and went on to explore the real thing. Films like 2001 (which had a formidable impact) helped to establish sf as a serious form of art. Arguably horror is less cerebral, more direct in its appeal to primordial emotions. Only my personal opinion, mind. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
If you were to tell someone that 2001 was your favourite movie, most people would peg you as a geek. (I'd just think you were boring coz I hate that film - I've commented on it before) there may be more literary types in the Sci Fi genre these days, but a lot of them try to deny any involvement - check out Margeret Atwood refusing to admit that Handmaids tail is SciFi. I'm sure there's dozens more examples. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.22.230.18 |
I suppose one would have to ask her what she thinks sf is  Space opera is alive and well, of course, and some people may feel offended by films like Star Wars (GREEN pointed ears!?). | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.71.248 |
In my view, Haneke would have been more successful in his preaching if his thriller hadn't been so damned effective. I still love Funny Games, but because it's Haneke's most openly didactic film, in my view it's his least successful. It'll still scare the crap out of you, though. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
After all these years I still fail to see what's wrong with being didactic in film or fiction. For me, Funny games is Haneke's most effective work because its so didactic. It simply wouldn't work otherwise. In fact, the whole point of the film is to be didactic. IMHO it's a masterpiece. Also IMHO, he's probably made 2 others: The Piano Teacher and Cache. His next one sounds pretty interesting, too: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1149362/ | ||
| Niki Flynn (Niki) Username: Niki Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.32.69.29 |
Of course there's nothing wrong with being didactic or having an agenda; that's the filmmaker's choice. But I disagree that it makes the film more effective. When the characters break the fourth wall it just yanks me right out of the story, as if Haneke had wandered onto the stage and read out a proclamation to the audience: "These people are bad. If you find this entertaining, YOU are bad." | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
I felt it dragged me straight IN when they broke the fourth wall. It was possibly the most uncomfortable film I've watched for a very longtime (possibly my entire 36 years). What are you peeps's reccommendations for the next Haneke to watch? | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
The violence wasn't horrible. It was the scene with the eggs! That was scary. That nice faced man breaking eggs over and over. A subtle metaphor repeated until it becomes blatant? Seems to me that's a genius stroke. One egg broken means nothing. The more you break the more the metaphor rises to the surface and turns to fear as we subconsciously unravel the metaphor. The idea of people playing golf along a shoreline that backs onto houses. Horrible. Their costumes out of place and implying so much violence. Horror is the surreal. That's how you define it. Subtle surreal is modern horror. Or was. Now it's pap. Agree or I'll cry. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
I can't watch his film. Watched a few minutes and got too anxious. A week later I got a little certificate off Haneke through the post saying I was nice. Which was nice. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
:-) | ||
| Chris_morris (Chris_morris) Username: Chris_morris Registered: 04-2008 Posted From: 98.220.71.248 |
>> After all these years I still fail to see what's wrong with being didactic in film or fiction. Well, I was assuming no one likes to be scolded, especially for enjoying a film as capably made as Funny Games. I can't speak for everyone, but my aversion to didactic or strictly allegorical tales is a side effect of the filmmaker's attempt to do two things at once: the emphasis on subtext often destroys the illusion of disbelief in the main story, especially when that subtext is as easy to decipher as Haneke's scolding. On the other hand, stories including plainly evident subtext containing contradictory elements, or subtext that is not easy to decipher, such as Aickman's tales, for me, hits the nail right on the head. I think that is precisely my taste, and is the sort of thing I try to do (and fail) in my own work. Others, I'm sure, will disagree. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.4.245.218 |
I agree, Chris. Though usually the problem with didactic works is - they plain old suck. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
But surely the whole point of Funny Games is to be so well done that once the fourth wall is broken you feel uneasy. It's not a film you're meant to "enjoy", either - certainly not in the conventional sense. More a film to admire. The "rewind" scene in the film is the single most effective piece of "horror" filmmaking I have ever seen. For me, it's a moment of pure cinematic genius. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
There's nothing wrong with explictly didactic fiction. Folk don't have to like it. But when it's done well, it's remarkable. I'm just rereading the work of George Bernard Shaw - as complex and sophisticated and elusive in its depiction of real life as any of the greats, and yet also explictly didactic. | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
My missus' theatre group just did Pygmalion, Gary. Watched it last week. The actress playing Eliza is having awful problems at home and when it came for her to cry and lose her rag I almost cried myself; it was real, basically. And a very good play. What a shit Higgins is, trapped as anyone yet a voice of the future. It felt like the sixties started here, in fact, all that time ago. Btw both The Mist and Diary of the Dead were 'didactic' movies to be sure, and while I usually do dread such stuff in these two movies it worked. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Tony – yes, the sixties did start with Shaw: the class consciousness of 'Pygmalion' and the feminism and anti-clerical sensibility of 'Saint Joan'. Oddly, given my tastes in general, I'm not a huge fan of Shaw – Brecht seems more to the point somehow, especially 'The Life of Galileo'. He was writing a generation later, of course. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
I find Shaw irresistible. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Gary, that doesn't surprise me: Shaw is one of the very few British popular writers to work through complex theoretical arguments in narrative/dialogue form. He actually wants to get viewers arguing about political, psychological and philosophical issues. Colin Wilson wanted to become the Shaw of the late twentieth century, but failed due to lack of intellect and writing ability – rather significant lapses in this context. I admire Shaw but somehow don't find his idiom and perspective compelling. Probably my loss. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Do you like Iris Murdoch, Joel? | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
I don't read anything much except pulp horror and crime, Gary. It's safer that way. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I prefer my horror a brittle substance with flakey nodules. | ||
| Mick Curtis (Mick) Username: Mick Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.159.83.68 |
I prefer my horror a brittle substance with flakey nodules. Stop scratching! | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
But I like it when my bones bleed! | ||
| Tony (Tony) Username: Tony Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.148.96.124 |
I must mention that the girl in this production of Pygmalion is suffering money problems - massive money problems. I wonder if any of the play's point hit home. Talk about layers. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
The marketting of horror films is a strange beast. If you'll recall, the Silence of The Lambs was marketted as a dark thriller, there were a few grisly spreads in Fangoria of a flayed woman, and a close-up of a scared Clarice starling, but I believe that angle was low key. After the bloody Saw films, it seems that gore in marketting is good. The two big oscar winners this year were essentially horror pictures of sorts, or had the horrific in the human condition as a major part of their narratives, but they were certainly not marketted as horror pictures. It seems that publishers are terrified to market horror- books get pushed into the 'Dark Thriller' sections instead. I regularly blast Copenhagen book stores for having no horror sections anymore- they have a shelf of King books...only comic stores seem to have a horror section in books. And I have not seen the Haneke. | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.79.141 |
Hey Karim. I did my own little bit for horror last night. Library tour. 2,000 years of horror from SENECA to SHAKESPEARE'S Titus Andronicus to BRONTE'S Wuthering Heights, LOVECRAFT, AICKMAN, BLOCK, landlord RAMSEY CAMPBELL, Loads more to our very own JOEL LANE. One lady, as she gave me a large piece of chocolate cake and a strawberry cream scone said,' I didn't realize that I read horror.' 'Well you do' I replied as I reached tentatively for the last piece of cake. Cake - I get paid in it. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
Ha! Thats great. Nice to end it all with chocolate cake. Yummi. :-) OK 'nice to end it all with chocolate cake sounds morose', the tour of course. | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 81.96.242.126 |
"Cake - I get paid in it." :-) | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 67.116.103.246 |
When TITUS ANDRONICUS is involved, you only gotta be careful about the pie.... | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.236.131 |
I believe Liszt ate a lot of pie. Yes? | ||
| Zed (Gary_mc) Username: Gary_mc Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 213.219.8.243 |
No. He was more of a sausage roll man. Although I believe he did enjoy the occasional cheese pasty. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
His wife did the Chopin. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
Though he took Bach the empty bottles. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.149.134.59 |
And sometimes the bags of shattered Glass. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Shyte jokes. There really is a composer called Shyte, you know. I had to play one of his pieces for an exam. The examiners comments were entirely predictably: "His Shyte was sloppy." | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
They couldn't Handel it. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
All examiners need a good Haydn. | ||
| Albie (Albie) Username: Albie Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.195.244.67 |
I only like Liszt jokes today. Make a Liszt of them and get back to me. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Feeling Lisztless, are you? Steady yourself with a Pole: Chopin, maybe. | ||
| John_l_probert (John_l_probert) Username: John_l_probert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
They say Liszt had a foot fetish but I think he was just a Schumann | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Des lent me some Stockhausen the other day. Very happy to Borodin. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
Albs you just need to get out and go shopping maybe buy yourself a Schumann in a good store somewhere, maybe a pair of trainers or sandels. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
John beat me to it! | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
I can't Handel that, I'm going to go break some Glass with my Schumann and then give my Liszt of composers a Chopin | ||
| Allybird (Allybird) Username: Allybird Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 79.70.73.42 |
I would have leant him the book but I didn't Offen get'em bach. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
My sides are splitting. I must just Ripmy Corsetoff. | ||
| Karim Ghahwagi (Karim) Username: Karim Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.92.216.182 |
Makes you feel like a Friedhofer now. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.24.122.40 |
Silly bilious. | ||
| Hubert (Hubert) Username: Hubert Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.21.233.242 |
Doubtless his ski korsakovs needed rimming. | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.59 |
Mozart? Beethoven? Vivaldi? Tchaikovsky?... I'm waiting. Weber?.... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Oh Golly gersh, whin I turn my back for a day my thread gets invaded by bad musical puns. Well I'm Orff! I'm too Bizet for all this. I'll be Bach though | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Too many jokes, it's like we're've got to beat off 'em with a stick... | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 83.98.9.4 |
Weber realises how bad that was and backs out of the room with a shy cough(ski) into his handkerchief | ||
| Craig (Craig) Username: Craig Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 75.5.1.59 |
Not bad, not bad. B+ for trying. Mos' art is difficult anyway. |