Funny Games (2008)

[children with angels]

I hate what Haneke has to say about the film and hate hearing him talk about it, because it makes him come accross as so arrogant, blind and small-minded about horror and Hollywood in general. But I still think the film itself is a great, fascinating, terrifying work. The thing is, it doesn't just exist outside the horror genre and point at it accusingly - it goes to show how interesting, fluid and broad the category of horror can be. The goodness of the film itself disproves the point he claims to be making.

I've seen the remake. It is identical - even closer to the original than Van Sant's Psycho is to Hitchcock's, the closest remake ever. This raises all kinds of interesting questions, but the most immediate thing for me (as a non-German speaker) was just how cool it was to not have to be reading subtitles. It really is that similar that it feels like watching the original but understanding the language. Overall, it's a bizarre and bold experiment. I liked it a lot.

[MacGuffin]

Warner Independent Pictures' Funny Games believes March is now a good time for the "fun" to commence. The company will now release Michael Haneke's remake in theaters March 14, 2008, a month later than its original bow.

[MacGuffin]

[clerkguy23]

this movie can be summarized as a giant fucking wink at the camera

isn't this sort of the whole idea behind the film? one of the characters even winks directly at the camera, out into the audience. i'm not sure why everyone is hating on this so much.. i was really intrigued by it and even genuinely surprised by some of his decisions. (i'm talking about the old version. haven't seen the new one yet). it's not every day you see a film like this. and even in light of all his other great films, i still think this one stands out as one of his best.

[MacGuffin]

Exclusive Interview: Michael Pitt & Brady Corbet
Source: ShockTillYouDrop

They're perhaps the most polite thrill-killers this side of the chopping block. Meet Peter and Paul. Or is it Tom and Jerry? Or try Beavis and Butthead... Whatever names they're going by, this moppy-haired pair adorned in shorts, starched white collared shirts and gloves make Naomi Watts and Tim Roth's lives a living hell in Warner Independent's Funny Games - but they do it with such courteous panache Hannibal Lecter would raise a glass of Chianti in toast to their methods.

For the remake of his 1997 film of the same name, writer-director Michael Haneke cast acerbic young actors Brady Corbet ("Thunderbirds") and Michael Pitt ("Last Days") as the Peter and Paul, respectively (roles previously essayed by Arno Frisch and Frank Giering). Together, they are fine young home-hopping and home-wrecking wackos whose charms and boyish good looks are offset by a devious desire to push their prey through terrifying trials.

Peter and Paul's presence serves a multitude of reasons, one being to break the cinematic fourth wall and draw the individual movie-goer into the action closer than he or she may care to go through a wry wink at the camera or, more overtly, tossing a question or two at the audience. As for the motivation behind their malicious games, Haneke wants you to figure that out for yourself.

By the indoor pool - which served as a humid hub for press interviews - of the Marriot Hotel in Park City, Utah, Shock joined Corbet and Pitt for a brief discussion about "Games" and its place in the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Corbet met us with fervent interest, as you'll read below, to reflect on the remake not only from the viewpoint of an actor but as an aspiring filmmaker.

ShockTillYouDrop.com: Did Haneke fill you guys in on why he was remaking the film?
Brady Corbet: Haneke's pretty practical and he doesn't speak about his decisions or his work that much. I have my theories. He said to me, 'I've directed the same play in different countries and different languages. The blocking stays the same, the text stays the same. The changes that were made were in the performance. It's amazing that if you keep something exactly the same, how different the tone of that piece can be.' It actually emphasizes the differences between the two. He always intended this to be an American film for American audiences. The original film had an English title - it was made for us.

Michael Pitt: I can't speak for Haneke but I've heard him say things in the effect of the film 'getting off on American violence.'

Corbet: He felt the themes of the original film were not very clear in that version because it wasn't the right setting. Plus he wanted to play with "celebrity." He thinks it's very funny how far we push Naomi Watts and also likes performances that are naturalistic. The first film is really great, but this is very different and succeeds on levels the original didn't. It's just so interesting. I think because it's a movie about movies, he could simply justify it by saying, 'Yeah, I made a movie about movies,' but only further putting you at arm's length. He wants you to be aware of what you are thinking and feeling. "Funny Games" is the most on-the-nose movie he's ever made. The original "Funny Games" and the new one - they're not even my favorite Haneke films - but I still love them.

Shock: What is your favorite then?
Corbet: "Code Unknown." But I really love what he's doing here because it was an experiment with something that was so on-the-nose. It's so brave and so well made that even the schtick of glancing at the camera is something he can get away with because it's done so tastefully.

Shock: Brady's obviously schooled in Haneke's work - for you, Michael, what made you want to do the film, was it Haneke's rep or the material?
Pitt: We had a work session and I could tell during that - just from my background in theater and the time I spent with [Bernardo] Bertolucci [for "The Dreamers"] - I knew if I listened to Haneke, I knew he'd make me a better actor.

Shock: How so?
Pitt: He's just intelligent. He's old school and a lot of the newer filmmakers...the actors are seen more as just puppets, they'll figure it out in the editing. It's just a quality level that he brings to the table.

Shock: So for you there was no worry about the stigma that often comes with remakes.
Pitt: I didn't really care. I knew my take would be different. If it was a remake by a different director maybe I would've been more reluctant to get on board.

Shock: Naomi Watts serves as executive producer on this film - did she exert any creative control?
Corbet: No, she was 100% an actress as she sorta should be. I didn't even know she was an executive producer until I saw the credit. She was pretty much involved since day one. Haneke wouldn't do the movie without her - that was his one stipulation. He said, 'You get me Naomi Watts and I'll remake the movie.'

Shock: How did Haneke help you maintain such a sense of calm during the violence and mental torture you enact on the family?
Corbet: Haneke actually told us that we were in a comedy and the family was in a tragedy. When we shoot our close-ups and stuff, he went out of his way to make sure our eye line on Naomi, Tim or Devon [Gearhart], they were not acting too much. He told us, 'Every time we shoot your characters we're shooting a different movie' so we have to play those scenes differently. There's a scene in the movie - probably my favorite movie that was an accident - where I ask Naomi if she could make us something to eat. Michael then says, "Tubby, this is embarrassing..." and then he tickles me. It was a mistake, Michael wasn't supposed to do that. I tried to stay in character. We thought it was a f**k up. We lost it. If he Haneke hadn't cut to Naomi and Tim during that scene, it was just Michael and I laughing for two minutes. Haneke came out from behind the monitor and was like, 'That's amazing. It's so perverted and sick.' We were hard on them, we were really aggressive.

Pitt: Sometimes during those moments we left Devon out of the room.

Shock: Was finding your character a solo journey or one you shared with your co-star Michael?
Corbet: I never think too much about bonding with other actors. First of all, I think it's bullshit - method acting is bullshit. It's very "practical thinking" making a movie - the art comes in when you're writing it and when you're cutting it. But production is artless. It's a job. If you love the craft of acting, then go to the West End in London, you're not serving a filmmaker there. I'm very happy to be a part of the movie, but I don't have a sense of pride in my work. I'm just happy I got to work with one of the five greatest filmmakers in the world. This festival is very lucky to have him. It's not to say it's an honor, but it's in a festival with all of these films like "Juno" and "Garden State" - it's interesting "Funny Games" is in that mix.

Shock: Are you prepared for the fact that this film is going to polarize so many people?
Corbet: The first film is already so divisive and now you have an extra element of people who are just pissed that Haneke made this film. The people who love this film really love it and they have interesting things to say about it.

Pitt: I understand the purists who wonder why Haneke remade this, but he did it so people can see it. There are so many people who don't know of his work. And this works, I think we did a great job. It's different but the same. Anyone who's like, 'Oh why?!' is just a film nerd. All the films that I make, are controversial - "Bully," "The Dreamers," "Last Days" - I just try to do my job to the best of my abilities and not worry about it.

Corbet: Of course, people have been speaking about Gus [Van Sant's] "Psycho." You know, Gus' work can be campy sometimes. I think "To Die For" is a campy film and weirdly dated. "Psycho," I don't think, is quite as awful as people make it out to be. It's really interesting, it's not a good movie, but it's interesting - if it had been a video installation, it would've been the coolest shit ever. Unfortunately, it's ultra kitschy, but what's strange and what's hard for people to imagine is...people assume if he's trying to replicate something there's no soul in it. And if it's soul-less then it's probably pretty kitschy, too. Kitsch just doesn't exist in "Psycho" and it was a straight arrow in a way people didn't expect it to be. Or, the "The Vanishing." The first film is a masterpiece, the remake is a joke.

Shock: It's got Sandra Bullock in it...
Corbet: [laughs] Exactly, it's that kind've thing. But you're [the "Games" remake] for five seconds and you've got silent credits that roll seemingly forever. Haneke's taking his time. Then he opens with an improvement on the first shot of the original film. [Cinematographer] Darius Khondji's work is so subtle and so brilliant. Some idiot reviewer criticized Darius' work, and really...what a f**kin' moron. I don't know what movie this guy is watching. Darius took a step back here, because he can really put a stamp on films, for this he really chose to serve Michael's intent.

Shock: There's a moment where you and Tim are sitting in the house. You're looking out the door and suddenly the daylight dims a bit and you say something to the effect like, "It looks like it's going to rain." And it's that subtle shift in light that hints at a cloud passing overhead - was that a happy mistake and improvisation?
Corbet: We were shooting in a soundstage, actually.

Shock: No kidding, so that was intentional.
Corbet: Yeah, we had to shoot in a stage for all of the interior house stuff.

Shock: Because Haneke utilized the same blueprints for the house from the original film.
Corbet: Right, he re-built the same house. The light in the film is interesting and the only thing I think is "true Darius" are the inky blacks. Sometimes people think something is wrong with the projection because some of the nighttime establishing shots are just black in this film. Like, what the f**k? I'm directing a series of films for a video installation and Darius shot my first film. When we were doing the digital grading, he was just going blacker, blacker, darker and darker. My movie, you need f**kin' night vision to see it.

Shock: Where will people be able to find this video installation you're working on?
Corbet: I'm hoping to do it in a particular spot in Paris in a year because I have two films left to finish. We'll see what happens. In the meantime, I'm going to take the first film to festivals and...we'll see.

Funny Games opens in theaters March 14th.

[grand theft sparrow]

I just saw the original for the first time this past weekend, my first exposure to Haneke.  Well-executed but I didn't ask for or need the lesson.

I can't wait to see the reaction to the remake.  It's safe to say that anyone who recognizes the name Michael Haneke will have already seen the original but anyone else will have no idea what they're in for.  I can't tell if the torture porn crowd or the middle-aged domestic drama crowd will be more inclined to see this but in either case, they're gonna want the heads of the people responsible.  And it'll be hilarious.  I may just see this to see the audience reaction alone.  People were pissed at the end of Cloverfield; imagine what they're going to do after this.

[godardian]

Wow, Brady Corbet is an asshole, and Michael Pitt seems at least somewhat thoughtful. I would've guessed the other way around.

I hope people aren't merely pissed off by this movie; if that's the outcome, it will have failed. I do hope people are provoked and disturbed by it. I would never, ever suggest it as anyone's first Haneke, as the only way it's really all that typical of his work is that it's masterfully done. I'd start with The Piano Teacher (essential viewing) and then Caché.

[jonas]

Am I the only person who thought that the trailer is a HUGE ripoff of the Clockwork Orange trailer? That's all I thought of when I saw it in the theatre.

[Sal]

I saw the original for the first time last night. I have a complete lack of interest in seeing the remake now. i have a hard time ascribing any value to the project other than a "conceptual piece of art" where the viewer is attacked for enjoying escapist horror films. I wouldn't have a huge problem with it, except that I am almost positive Haneke believes he's some kind of fucking genius for doing it.

[godardian]

Am I the only person who thought that the trailer is a HUGE ripoff of the Clockwork Orange trailer? That's all I thought of when I saw it in the theatre.

One person's "ripoff" is another's "homage," but yes. See also the Rules of Attraction teaser trailer:

http://www.movietome.com/movie/283337/the-rules-of-attraction/videos/index.html?tag=fs_nav;videos&om_act=convert&om_clk=fstabs

[MacGuffin]

Michael Haneke casts viewers as accomplices in 'Funny Games'
By Mark Olsen, Los Angeles Times

AUSTRIAN writer-director Michael Haneke's "Funny Games," which opens Friday, is a painstakingly exacting remake of his own 1997 film of the same title. The story begins when a pair of young men, dressed in immaculate tennis whites, arrives at the summer cottage of a pleasantly bourgeois couple, who are on holiday with their young son. After a seemingly innocuous misunderstanding -- something about borrowing eggs -- the boys take the family captive, subjecting them to brutal psychological humiliations and severe physical torments.

One of the world's most respected filmmakers, Haneke, who turns 66 this month, is a winner of multiple prizes at the Cannes Film Festival and a subject of a recent retrospective at New York's Museum of Modern Art. So there is something disconcertingly downmarket about such an upscale filmmaker doing an English-language remake of his own work. Yet in Haneke's world things are rarely as they seem.

Despite Haneke's use of formal devices of increasing audacity to break down the fourth wall and repeatedly remind audiences that they are only watching a film, "Funny Games" can feel at times like a dirty trick being played on viewers. The original sharply divided critics, many of whom could not stomach the cruel dispassion with which Haneke portrayed the sordid goings-on.

Which is precisely as it should be, according to Haneke. As in many of his previous films ("Benny's Video," "The Piano Teacher" and "Cache"), Haneke wants audiences to think hard about what they are watching rather than passively accepting the ideological implications of what flows from the screen.

"The film was always intended for an English-language audience because the subject matter -- the consumption of violence -- is most prevalent in English-language filmmaking," Haneke said via translator recently on the phone from Austria when asked why he chose to revisit his prior work. "Because the [original] film was in German it just didn't reach the audience for which it was intended."

The new iteration came about when producer Chris Coen approached Haneke for the remake rights to "Funny Games," and the director said he would prefer to do it himself. Having worked with such European stars as Juliette Binoche and Isabelle Huppert, Haneke insisted on casting Naomi Watts -- he said he would likely have not made the new film if she had said no -- rounding out the family with Tim Roth and Devon Gearhart and casting Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet as their captors.

For the shot-for-shot production, Haneke's original script was translated into English with a few minor changes to accommodate cultural differences, and he used his original storyboards to plan the new shoot. Where Haneke's shooting script during the production of the initial film was dotted with drawings, for the remake his script was augmented with screen captures from the original.

Where previous shot-by-shot remakes such as Gus Van Sant's "Psycho" often felt like cold exercises, Haneke's remake adds additional layers of discomfort to the experience. Even when you know what's coming, it still stings.

The cast members all watched the first version before shooting, in part to know what they were in for, but once the production started Haneke instructed them not to revisit it. Haneke's precise instructions made the performers feel at times as if they were working within a straitjacket, but they nevertheless manage to imbue the story with a dark humor that is largely unmined in the original, transforming the material at times into an unlikely comedy of manners.

"He's a pretty easy guy to have faith in," said Corbet, "and he was tough on everybody. He was very precise, like 'after this line, wipe your forehead here and place your right hand on the counter here and then take four steps forward.' It's not exactly organic."

"Sometimes he would get fixated on a certain thing and how he wanted it to be the same," explained Watts, "but he was careful to help us make sure that the first film was something separate. He didn't want to just repeat."

Close to the original

THE re-creation was so detailed that those changes that do exist -- the way Pitt glances at the camera or an alarming alteration in costume for Watts -- take on the feeling of enormous, seismic shifts. Even Haneke was shocked by how precisely the films match up.

"The film, as it happens, is really only 15 or 20 seconds different from the original," he explained. "If you look at the film as a whole, it's a few minutes, but that is simply because the credits in the United States are so much longer.

"And I didn't even do this intentionally. We shot about half the film and cut it, and when I asked my editor to compare it to the original it was just a few seconds' difference. We found this really quite amazing as we hadn't intended it to be that close on purpose."

One key moment of the film is an excruciatingly long take in which Watts, bound, struggles to make her way across a room. The raw physical effort involved, as well as the emotional dread her action underscores, reads as all too real. Haneke does not rupture the reality of the moment, taking an almost sadistic glee in what his star endured as the shot plays on and on.

"He doesn't believe in stage binding, he wants everything to be 100% real," Watts said of the scene, which she recalled as the most difficult of the shoot. "At times, it was like torture."

The hard-core gorehound action junkies -- those movie-goers whose lids could be most thoroughly flipped by Haneke's inside-out convolutions -- will likely never turn up for something this heady. For Haneke, forcing viewers to examine their own expectations and responses is exactly the point.

"That is precisely why I made the film," he said, "the viewer pays for it, as you say, with having to think about it, his role as a viewer and as an accomplice in the action. I often say those who watch the film to the end, they obviously needed it, and those who leave early did not need it."

To reveal the ways in which Haneke continually throws viewers outside the action, only to reel them back into his false reality, would go beyond conventional spoilers.

"This is the method of the film, to show the viewer how manipulatable he or she is," said Haneke, "because, after all, I show that it is a film and five minutes later [the viewer] is back completely with it. I show this again and again, so the viewer realizes his role in this whole process."

"He messes with you as an audience," is how Watts explained Haneke's motives. "You're taken by surprise. And I'm not preaching or saying I'll never do another violent film, but I am quite proud to be involved in something that makes us as an audience question what we're cheering for when brains are splattered on the wall."

[tpfkabi]

** p.s. - mod and bon - what exactly do you not like about Pitt? **

Fuck, I'll say. At first he started out as the poor man's Leonardo DiCaprio which wasn't saying much because DiCaprio wasn't really an actor. DiCaprio was a good face who become affiliated with a blockbuster movie. He went onto starring roles that tested his bankability instead of his acting. So the only credibility Pitt had is that he shared the facial similarities with DiCaprio.

Then Pitt became the poster child for art movies. It's funny because he exhibits a whininess and unlikability in Finding Forrestor and The Dreamers. It doesn't feel like he is performing a role per say but that is his default performance for a "depth" role. It is also him trying to look cool and trendy. He plays two very different characters but my unlikability for him was for the same reasons. His performance in Last Days is a make up job. He has little to do but moap around a room and look depressed. The make up, coincidentally, makes up most of his character.

Then there is his identity as an advertiser for art movies. I remember reading an interview with him for Last Days. He was proclaiming Gus Van Sant's work as the most interesting work in cinema today. He wasn't giving any reasons, but being hip and cool to what he thought art was. I wanted to puke for how pedestrian his words were.

But actors like him aren't new. Other actors in the 60s were less known for their acting skills than their trendy popularity and would go from film to film essentially playing characters the same way. They did so to exhibit the qualities that made them hip and cool.

this is so funny to me.
i don't like him either for some reason.
my first exposure was when he was on Dawson's Creek.
when i first became aware of this project i was like,
"he better not get to do it with Naomi in the film or i'm going to get really pissed."
(maybe i'm jealous that he got to do it with Eva Green).
but even in his role in Dawson's Creek he exhibited "a whininess and unlikability."

[Pozer]

** p.s. - mod and bon - what exactly do you not like about Pitt? **

you didnt ask me, but i hate his face.

[godardian]

Michael Pitt receives all the hate a pretty boy usually gets--and by "pretty" I mean "at least somewhat androgynous" (I have a friend who DESPISES Cillian Murphy and J. Rhys-Myers for this reason)--but I don't see that he's done all that much to deserve it. I don't know that he's been called upon to do anything dramatically astonishing, but I also don't think he's been bad in any of the roles I've seen him in (The Dreamers, Last Days--again, not too demanding, but he was up to them). Like I said earlier, the shock is that Brady Corbet comes off like a self-important jerk in his interviews. I imagine it's because he's an aspiring auteur, but news flash for young Master Corbet: The Kubrick/Morrissey-level disdainful asshole-ism is a privilege you EARN by doing great work, not a prerequisite to same!

[tpfkabi]

according to wiki he was living on the street near NYU when sometime after a casting agent he mistook to be a policemen wanted him for Dawson's Creek.
it's not like he's made anyone choose him or made Bertoculli, Van Sant or even Thurston Moore like him.
but i don't know.
from what i've read about Funny Games, it seems like perfect casting for him.


and if you didn't know he has a band. Pitchfork even reviewed their album:
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/record_review/41730-pagoda