Minister of Fear
Over the last two decades, the director has developed a reputation for stark, often brutal films that place the viewer -- sometimes subtly, sometimes explicitly -- in the uncomfortable role of accomplice to the crimes playing out on-screen. This approach has made Haneke one of contemporary cinema's most reviled and revered figures, earning him everything from accusations of obscenity to a retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art next month. "Funny Games," the movie Haneke was shooting in New York and Long Island, is the American remake of a highly controversial film by the same name that he directed in 1997. It was from its beginnings targeted at the American moviegoing public -- and no other word but "targeted" will do. "Funny Games" is a direct assault on the conventions of cinematic violence in the United States, and the new version of the film, with its English-speaking cast and unmistakably American production design, makes this excruciatingly clear. More surprising still, Haneke remade this attack on the Hollywood thriller for a major Hollywood studio, Warner Independent Pictures, and refused to alter the original film's story in the slightest. . . .
When I asked whether the average American moviegoer was likely to appreciate having his attitude adjusted, Haneke-style, the director thought for a moment, then threw up his hands in mock surrender. "I've been accused of 'raping' the audience in my films, and I admit to that freely -- all movies assault the viewer in one way or another. What's different about my films is this: I'm trying to rape the viewer into independence." . . .
"Funny Games" occupies a unique place in Haneke's body of work, not least because of his decision to shoot it twice. "Originally, I approached Michael about optioning 'Funny Games' for some other director," Chris Coen, the film's producer, told me. "And Michael's reply was that he'd do it himself, but only if I could get Naomi Watts for the lead. I hadn't thought about him wanting to do it, to be honest. But he said very clearly that 'Funny Games' was the one film of his that he'd allow no one else to direct." Hollywood has a long and hallowed tradition of buying the rights to art-house hits and refashioning them to suit its own ends -- in fact, the director Ron Howard recently acquired the rights to Haneke's "Caché" -- but Haneke's decision to remake his own film surprised fans and colleagues alike. The peculiarity of the project seems to have been part of its appeal. "To my knowledge, no one has ever remade his own film so precisely," the director told me in Vienna, with an unmistakable trace of boyish pride. "The new version is the same film superficially, of course, but it's also very different: a different atmosphere, different performances, a different end result. That in and of itself is interesting." . . .
Watching both versions of "Funny Games" back to back is especially revealing of Haneke's skill. Though the dialogue, framing and sequence of shots are identical, the end result is remarkably different . . .
New York Times Magazine, September 23

Links to threads on Caché (2005), Time of the Wolf (2003 -- with duplicate thread) and Code Unknown (2000), plus a general thread on Michael Haneke.

I'm not aware of too many cases in which a director redirects his own film for an American audience. In general, I am not too happy about films that are remade, and I certainly don't like most sequels. However, having seen the end from knowing the original, and knowing what great material this already is, I find this trailer to be tantalizing. I cannot WAIT for this to come out. Thanks for posting, Alan.

-s.

stef wrote:
: I'm not aware of too many cases in which a director redirects his own film for an American audience.

First examples that come to mind:

Francis Veber remade Les Fugitifs (1986) as The Three Fugitives (1989; starred Nick Nolte, Martin Short).
George Sluizer remade Spoorloos (1988) as The Vanishing (1993; starred Jeff Bridges, Kiefer Sutherland).
Ole Bornedal remade Nattevagten (1994) as Nightwatch (1997; starred Ewan McGregor, Nick Nolte).

If you like we could also add to the list:

Alfred Hitchcock remade The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934) as The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956); the original film was, after all, produced when Hitchcock was a British director and several years away from becoming a Hollywood director.

Via Brett McCracken: The 2008 trailer ...



... and the 1997 trailer:

There’s Disturbing, There’s Scary, There’s Terrifying. And Then There’s This Movie
The psychological thriller “Funny Games,” opening March 14, rivals and probably tops the Ellen Page internet-predator film “Hard Candy” in disgusting, vile, vicious, incandescently brutal wickedness. So why did I love this evil film, one I would strongly disrecommend to almost everyone I know?
Kyle Smith, March 4

The Confessions of Haneke
The real reason it makes so much sense for Haneke to remake this film, then, is that its attitude toward sin is so thoroughly Puritan. The film essentially adapts Matthew 5:28 to a different sin: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart,” Jesus states. Haneke is basically saying: “Anyone who watches Saw IV has already committed murder in his heart.” He makes the case for a direct link between watching torture porn and being complacent to real torture, if not actually committing it.
For a thoroughly progressive filmgoer who is nonetheless a big Dirty Harry fan, that can be a tough pill to swallow. But it’s not exactly a new argument: after all, the early Christian church objected to the theater as much as the gladiatorial arena. . . .
It’s difficult to look at a film like Funny Games in the traditional terms of a film review, or even a casual discussion. You can’t really like or dislike a movie like this; it doesn’t work that way. In that regard, it’s similar to another recent film that is both about the depiction of violence and an example of it, a film that similarly seeks to make its audience complicit in the brutality onscreen: Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ. As with Gibson’s film, there are those who will hate Funny Games, but that’s generally because they’re looking at it as a movie among other movies. Ebert is onto something when he states that “this isn’t a movie, it’s a thesis,” but by that token it’s difficult to discuss in the terms of a movie review. Its goals and its methods are entirely elsewhere. But it’s not exactly a thesis—it’s a sermon. Haneke admonishes us to hate sin; unfortunately for him it’s a sin that most of us Dirty Harry fans aren’t willing to give up.
Gabriel McKee, Religion Dispatches, March 17

- - -

Of course, the same early-church types who scorned the theatre were quite content to anticipate the pleasure of watching the damned suffer in Hell; I think primarily of Tertullian here, but I'd be surprised if he was the only one.

Perhaps The Gold Rush would qualify as well. Though it wasn't so much of a remake as a ... renarration.

Over at my blog, there is a heated debate brewing about whether anybody should go see this film...

People keep linking to that Religious Dispatches review. I heartily disagree with it. A History of Violence is a much better "sermon" with the message defined by the review. Funny Games is better thought of as a "parable" since one must participate in the reality which it describes to understand it. This seemed to be the point of all the self-consciousness of the camera work in the first Funny Games, Haneke rubbing our nose in how full of bloodlust we all are.

Games people play
Something to puzzle over ...
No Country for Old Men: serial murderer, deaf to every human appeal for mercy, goes about his business with implacable dispatch -- Academy Awards: best picture, best supporting actor, etc.
Michael Haneke's Funny Games remake: serial murderers, deaf to every human appeal for mercy, go about their business with implacable dispatch -- back of the critical hand, lots of righteous huffing and puffing, etc.
Not much difference between the two, at least in my opinion, yet one movie's lionized, the other savaged as exploitive swill. . . .
Pat Graham, On Film, Chicago Reader, March 21

"Funny Games" spills out into the lobby
Finally when it was over and my "friend" looked like a deer in the headlights -- I was physically sick. I demanded my money back from the box office only to have the girl laugh at me -- at first. I threw up on the floor right in front of her -- and it splattered. She gave me the money, helped me clean up and actually cried. My "friend" was embarrassed by my behavior -- and therefore has lost my friendship. This whole last scene (starring me, my friend, the cashier at the box office), seemed a sequel to the movie.
Kate Johnson, letter to the editor, RogerEbert.com, March 21

This is ridiculous. What a load of crap.

This is a person that needs to quit on film, cuz they just. don't. get it.

Strong words, stef. Because they were sickened by a movie which sets out to be sickening, they should quit on film?

Somehow I'm not seeing how it's the viewer's fault...

Why didn't she leave the film before the end if it was bothering her so much?

Elitist.

Wow. After viewing the American version I'm eating my own words. I guess I can see how someone might have that reaction, although it still seems a bit over the top to me.

This film is seriously agonizing to watch. I don't remember the European version being quite as harsh.

Did everyone else here skip it?

I'd like to see how the two films differ. It's been years since I saw the original, but I know I saw several differences between the two.