Michael Haneke is one of the most notable directors to have emerged on the global cinema scene in the past fifteen years. After gaining international attention in the 1990s with a string of iconoclastic films that analyze the dysfunctional state of Western society, Haneke has since established himself as one of art cinema’s most creative, controversial, and eloquent social commentators.
A Companion to Michael Haneke is the definitive collection of newly commissioned works exploring Haneke’s work in its entirety – from his early work in television and theater, through his prodigious cinematic output, to his 2009 triumph at Cannes. The volume brings together essays by some of the foremost scholars in film studies, as well as interviews with the director himself. Considering the themes that have formed the nucleus of Haneke’s work – intergenerational dysfunction and social alienation, colonialism and citizenship, surveillance and pornography, mass culture and media violence, the Companion offers a critical examination of Haneke’s oeuvre – from Three Paths to the Lake and Lemmings to Benny’s Video, The Piano Teacher, Caché, Funny Games, and the 2009 Palme d’Or winner, The White Ribbon. Designed for comparative literature scholars, students of film studies, Germanists, and today’s movie lovers, the Companion to Michael Haneke showcases this enigmatic and complicated director with unprecedented depth and breadth.
