MSN is hosting the trailer for Michael Haneke's Funny Games remake on their shitty player right here (via BD)... I really wish I could watch it in HD Quicktime the first time around, but it's not like I wasn't gonna watch it whatever format it comes in right away... I took some screengrabs, dutifully posted below like the faithful Haneke lover I am...
It really truly is looking like this thing is shot-for-shot from the original... I'm really curious how that will play, being so familiar with the original myself. It's a curious experiment a la Gus Van Sant's Psycho, only this time with the original director behind the lens.
The trailer lapses into an odd barrage of adjectives in the last moments - watching it without sound as I must do here at work, it played like a foreign film trailer does, as if they were covering for no one speaking English, if you know what I mean; it added a whole different level of dissonance, anyway.
I was thinking about this film yesterday and realized it's my #1 anticipated film right now; a shame it's been re-bumped to February.
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Also, unlike Psycho only about six people have seen Funny Games. Tonnes of people won't even know it's a remake, let alone that it's a remake of a film from 10 years ago directed by the same director using a shot-for-shot technique.
Methinks you're going to get something completely different out of this many most.
Having said that, while I am a defender of the Psycho remake, I just can't see the point of this. If it's Haneke just playing more mindgames or, perhaps, playing a big giant joke on American filmgoers then... well... that's just stupid.
Thoughts?
Oh, I should mention though that that's a really great trailer (I thought) and if the original Funny Games hadn't angered me so much I'd probably be interested in seeing it (I probably will because it's Naomi Watts).
You're def. right about not that many people having seen (or even heard of) the original Funny Games, so my (and your, Mr. Hater Man) experience will be different than most.
I do think there's a purpose for it though, and perhaps it's an insulting one (that's not to say I don't agree with the insult), but it's a purpose all the same - plenty of people will see this version that will have never given the subtitled one a chance. I don't exactly foresee it igniting the box office or anything, and am still under the assumption it will be more of an art-house attraction than playing crowds in the multiplexes, but I think Mr. Haneke wanted to aim this film, or more precisely the themes of this film, squarely at America, or at least English-speaking countries, and that's why he did it.
(And being a pro-flag-burning atheist homosexual myself, I'm all for it!)
Perhaps it is my negativity towards the film, but I can't help but feel that Haneke is doing this not merely as a way of having his film seen by more people, but as a means of mocking people who would go see this and not the original. I know I wouldn't react kindly to being laughed at simply because I don't like watching esoteric German movies.
Especially when the movie he's remaking is Funny Games, a movie that already sets out to play audiences like fiddles and manipulate the way they react to a movie.
It's like my feelings about the original multiplied because Haneke is already mocking audiences with Funny Games and then on top of that it's like some sick mindgame for him.
I... don't know. It's so frustrating. Perhaps it's none of this, I'm not sure, but I just know that it doesn't sit right with me. I'm gonna go watch Golden Girls and then go to bed. This movie makes me angry.
Random observation: Michael Pitt needs to do an emo character, like, soon.
Michael Pitt and Ben Foster need to be vanquished from the acting profession.
Funny Games is one of Haneke's movies that I haven't seen. Nevertheless he is absolutely one of my favorite filmmakers working today (if not my absolute favorite) and I am very excited about this remake. My question is, should I see the Original "funny games" on DVD before I watch this or, given how this is a faithful remake, should I wait to watch it on the big screen. I am leaning toward the latter right now. I thought the trailer was definitely not made by Haneke, what with it's ironically comic score and overloaded editing. I'd be shocked if he uses that music in the movie.
-matt sigl
Glenn - where's the Ben Foster dislike coming from? Did you catch Yuma? I thought Foster was really good in it.
I'm with ya on Pitt, though, he drives me nuts.
potato - Hrm, I'm not sure what to tell you, re: waiting to watch it or watching it first. Actually, scratch that, wait, watch the remake first, then I want to hear your reaction without having seen the original first. But you've def. gotta see the original at some point, it's one of the most important pieces in understanding Haneke. He is def. my fave living filmmaker.
I just finally watched the trailer now with sound, and thought it was terrific, though. I don't think we'll hear that music in the movie, no, but I thought it worked nice in the trailer. Since it seems it's gonna be 100% shot-for-shot, the movie itself will be, like all his other films, anything but hectic and hyper-edited; he's the exact opposite of that phenomenon.
Did you see "71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance?" at the anthology film archive in the Haneke retrospective they did last year? It was one of the most tedious movies I have ever sat through; and one of the most incredible. When the violence in the movie is finally unleashed-it's overwhelming. He spent the previous 70 "fragments" (the film is 71 shots) slowly, methodically setting you up- and then he unflinchingly refuses to turn away. All of society is indicted for one man's crime. It's a genius movie, though one I don't know if I could sit through again. I am definitely going to wait to watch the re-make of Funny Games in theatre per your recommendation.
My hatred for Ben Foster comes from Hostage. Easily the worst performance by anybody male or female of the last decade (in my eyes). Dreadful in every possible way. Ugh.
Yuma isn't out here yet, naturally.
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