Program
German
College
Arts and Sciences
Student Level
Master's
Location
PAÍS Building
Start Date
10-11-2022 11:00 AM
End Date
10-11-2022 1:00 PM
Abstract
The Heimatfilm enjoyed great popularity, and was at its peak, in the German-speaking world during the 1950s. The complexity of the concept of Heimat is well-known, evoking feelings of belonging, simplicity, and engagement with non-urban life. My thesis examines Austrian director Michael Haneke's trilogy of emotional glaciation, i.e., the films The Seventh Continent (1989), Benny's Video (1992), and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. These three films embody the Heimat concept insofar as uncanny parallels to traditional Heimat films can be identified, but they also contradict it insofar as the films turn tropes of the Heimat film genre on their heads. Whereas Heimatfilm foregrounds the collective, Haneke's films emphasize the individual in relation to modern society. The collective or nuclear family is questioned and replaced by the isolated individual. Haneke uses elements of the Heimatfilm genre as a means to examine issues of space, place, time, identity, and belonging, which his films then renegotiate in uncanny ways. They examine inhumanity, materialism, and a lack of compassion. A major theme of these three films is the phenomenon of alienation and loneliness, themes that hark back to and are reinforced by modern life and the city. They correspond to the opposite of traditional notions of home and feelings of home and belonging. In relation to the discourse of Heimat, the paper also examines how Haneke draws on the semantics and syntax of the Heimatfilm genre to evaluate the complexity of Heimat in the context of post-1989 Austria. Haneke attempts to renegotiate and deterritorialize/demarcate the concept of Heimat to meet the changing needs of an increasingly globalized and multicultural society. The aim of this work is then to show how Haneke's films subvert and question the traditional aesthetics of Heimat films, their ideologies and anxieties.
Uncanny is the City: Michael Haneke's Trilogy of Emotional Glaciation as Anti-Heimat Discourse
PAÍS Building
The Heimatfilm enjoyed great popularity, and was at its peak, in the German-speaking world during the 1950s. The complexity of the concept of Heimat is well-known, evoking feelings of belonging, simplicity, and engagement with non-urban life. My thesis examines Austrian director Michael Haneke's trilogy of emotional glaciation, i.e., the films The Seventh Continent (1989), Benny's Video (1992), and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance. These three films embody the Heimat concept insofar as uncanny parallels to traditional Heimat films can be identified, but they also contradict it insofar as the films turn tropes of the Heimat film genre on their heads. Whereas Heimatfilm foregrounds the collective, Haneke's films emphasize the individual in relation to modern society. The collective or nuclear family is questioned and replaced by the isolated individual. Haneke uses elements of the Heimatfilm genre as a means to examine issues of space, place, time, identity, and belonging, which his films then renegotiate in uncanny ways. They examine inhumanity, materialism, and a lack of compassion. A major theme of these three films is the phenomenon of alienation and loneliness, themes that hark back to and are reinforced by modern life and the city. They correspond to the opposite of traditional notions of home and feelings of home and belonging. In relation to the discourse of Heimat, the paper also examines how Haneke draws on the semantics and syntax of the Heimatfilm genre to evaluate the complexity of Heimat in the context of post-1989 Austria. Haneke attempts to renegotiate and deterritorialize/demarcate the concept of Heimat to meet the changing needs of an increasingly globalized and multicultural society. The aim of this work is then to show how Haneke's films subvert and question the traditional aesthetics of Heimat films, their ideologies and anxieties.
