Introduction

Micheal Haneke is a film-maker whose main intention is to portray the ‘human’. He thematizes his subject complex, networked and close to reality. The allusion to the ‘actuality’ is thus strongly related to his characters and their surroundings. Therefore his people are inconceivable without the architecture, that reflects their emotional landscapes. Especially the house plays a key role in all of his films. The houses are like humans, complex and emotionally distant from any superficiality. But Haneke does not show every angle of the house to the viewer. The viewer creates a subjective image of the space and context in mind. Especially in his spatial narration, he talks about fragments. Most of his films consist of fragments which he eventually brings together to one piece. His background in theater and music also becomes noticeable in his soundscape as well as in the narrative structure. Even he took off his career as a dramaturg he resists the theatricality in film and is interested in the representation of reality. He works closely with actors, supporting them to become the mirror of the viewer’s inner world. Even if in most of his films there is a strong tendency to practice social criticism on modern society, Haneke does not let the viewer judge but instead makes them sense the seen image actively. His attitude leads to a sort of hyper-realism which reflects itself unavoidably in his use of architecture. The stages of Haneke are known for the careful and faithful details that sometimes can only be perceived by intuition. Space is not always fully narrated visually but is also defined by sound in combination with the visual absence of the action. The sound becomes a narrative element as relevant as the image itself. Thus he works not only with the physical but also with the ‘mental space’. Haneke’s characters inhabit the spaces always within a context in different scales depending on their inner state.

The Soundscape

Sound is so critical in Haneke’s films that he uses it as a narrative element and another tool to explore space. Haneke has frequently noted the significance of sound in his cinematic approach. Asserting that “the ear is fundamentally more sensitive than the eye” and that it “provides a more direct path to the imagination and heart of the human beings” (Haneke in Reimer 2000, 171)3, the sound engineer Jean-Pierre Laforce confesses that he had never worked with a director so involved in sound.4 The opening scene of Caché is a great example of using sound to discover space. It changes our perception of space as we get aware of another reality. The static image of a public place becomes a private living room revealed through ambient sound. In Amour and in La Pianiste sound and music play a central role for also the story. The diegetic and non-diegetic use of sound in Amour is used to describe what is real. The scene where Trintignant is watching his bedridden wife playing the piano and then suddenly stopping the CDplayer indicates a moment of realization that the scene was nothing but a daydream. It takes us from one reality to another one. Sound reveals truth and signifies movement. Also in the final stages of her life, Anne’s cries prompt Georges to go from one space to another. The use of space is determined again by sound. Amour is a film where sound and silence alternately change and are always in relation to space. La Pianiste also contains examples of how image and sound together can transfer the spatiality and emotion of a circumstance. The static shot of the bathroom showing the tiles does not show any action but is filled with ambient voice. The film ends with a similar scene where the conservatory is being shown with a static shot and the background noise of the traffic is heard. Erika, after stabbing herself in the shoulder, disappears in the nocturnal soundscape of Vienna. In most of the Haneke-Films music is diegetic. The pre-credit scene of Funny Games begins with classical music and the car of the family moving through the landscape. „Björling?“ asks a voice. At that moment we realize that actually, the music is not only a soundtrack but a part of a game the characters are playing in the car, where they try to guess the name of the singer or composers. As in the opening of Caché, we get introduced to the characters before we even see them and get aware of space outside the screen. There is a similar scene in the La Pianiste where we are swallowed up in Erika’s mother’s world by the sound of her television. In the film, music is of the diegetic source from the opening scene on. Erika is shown tutoring her pupils in the conservatory. This diegetic use of music is abandoned in only one scene where Erika is playing Franz Schubert’s Piano Trio in E Flat’ (1827). Even if the scene is cut, the soundtrack goes on and then the camera shows Erika moving around a pornographic video store. The music continues non-diegesis until it all of a sudden stops while Erika is walking in a sex cabinet. The rhythmical sound of the pornographic film that she is watching in the cabinet dissolves into the comparatively rhythmic opening chords of ‘Im Dorfe’, part of Schubert’s Winterreise (1827). The rhythm of the sexual sounds are an analogy to her profession. The following scene shows her again in her next lesson. The music here is used to convey the exactness of Erika’s musical understanding. It can be noted that in this stage of her life, she still has in a way the control over her life. When she meets Walter she experiences the uncontrollability of her unstructured sexual desires. On the contrary, in the sex cabinet, she has the same cold attitude and expression as in her music class.5

Voice-Over

Another sound element used often by Haneke is the voice-over. It is not only used to give his films a literary touch but also to make us aware of another dimension of the story that is currently not seen on the screen. The voice-over does not always correspond with the event and can be overlapped with the ambient noise. Particularly Drei Wege Zum See is a film that uses an omniscient voice-over. The flashbacks and psychological clues are explained through the character’s inner voice. Most of Haneke’s novel adaptations use the voice-over, particularly in the novel adaptation of Kafka, Das Schloss, as a kind of alienation. In Das Schloss (The Castle) it substitutes narration as well as the dialogues. The narrator not only describes the events but also gives the figures their words. Haneke’s use of voice-over differs from film to film depending on what he wants to achieve. In the film, Drei Wege Zum See he works with the principle of never showing the event simultaneously. In Das Schloss image and voice work together.6

Figure 1.1 Violence only told by sound, Code Inconnu, 2000

Violence

According to Haneke „we all know that we are consumers of violence“, but for him it is not the purpose of the film to tell it to the viewer, for him using violence is about to make the viewer sense what he normally consumes.7 Violence is a topic of his films and also in relation to sound. In his films there are several violent scenes where we hear the actions but do not see them. He leaves it to the spectator to compete for the violence in mind. In the White Ribbon, where we hear the pastor beating his child in the room, the camera stands in the hallway and there is nothing to see but to hear. In Code Inconnu, Anne hears the neighbors’ girl screaming and probably being beaten by her parents. The voice is disturbing. In the filmic narration, sound can probably induce more brutality than the visual itself. (Fig.1.1)

Film Within a Film

In the work of Haneke copies of reality erode the walls between the real and the imaginary. 7

Sources:

3 Coulthard Lisa,Haptic Aurality: Listening to the Films of Michael Haneke Film-Philosophy 16.1 (2012); Original source from: Nancy,

Jean-Luc (2007) Listening. New York: Fordham University Press.; https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/pdfplus/10.3366/film.2012.0002

4 Marshall Alexandra in The Hollywood Reporter, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/making-amour-michael-hanekespersonal-

393157?utm_medium=website&utm_source=archdaily.com, 11:00 AM PST 11/22/2012

5 McCann Ben and Sorfa David (editors), The Cinema of Michael Haneke Europe Utopia’, Wallflower Press, 2012; p. 187; Article:

Palmer Landon, From Culture to Torture: Music and Violence in Funny Games and The Piano Teacher.

6 Cieutat, Michel and Rouyer, Philippe (2013), ‚Haneke über Haneke’, Alexander Verlag Berlin, Köln 2013; p. 142

7 Part of an Interview shown in Michael Haneke - Cinematic Truths and Realities Lies | CRISWELL | Cinema Cartography by Lewis

Michael Bond and Luiza Liz, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlAoXZ5b3DE