Table Of ContentNew Austrian Film
New Austrian Film
Edited by
R obert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck
Berghahn Books
New York • Oxford
First published in 2011 by
Berghahn Books
www.berghahnbooks.com
©2011 Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages
for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book
may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information
storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented,
without written permission of the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
New Austrian fi lm / edited by Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84545-700-6 (hardback : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-85745-232-0 (ebook)
1. Motion pictures--Austria--History. 2. Motion picture industry--Austria--History.
I. Dassanowsky, Robert. II. Speck, Oliver C.
PN1993.5.A83N49 2011
791.43’09436--dc22
2011000954
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Printed in the United States on acid-free paper.
ISBN: 978-1-84545-700-6 (hardback)
E-ISBN: 978-0-85745-232-0
Contents
Introduction New Austrian Film: Th e Non-exceptional Exception 1
Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck
PART I EARLY VISIONS/INFLUENTIAL SITES
Chapter 1 “Th e Experiment Is Not Yet Finished”: VALIE EXPORT’s 21
Avant-garde Film and Multimedia Art
Margarete Lamb-Faff elberger
Chapter 2 Franz Antel’s Bockerer Series: Constructing the Historical 43
Myths of Second Republic Austria
Joseph Moser
Chapter 3 Historical Drama of a Well-intentioned Kind: Wolfgang 54
Glück’s 38 – Auch das war Wien
Felix W. Tweraser
Chapter 4 Cartographies of Identity: Memory and History in Ruth 64
Beckermann’s Documentary Films
Christina Guenther
PART II BARBARA ALBERT AND THE FEMALE RE-FOCUS
Chapter 5 A New Community of Women: Barbara Albert’s Nordrand 81
Dagmar Lorenz
Chapter 6 Metonymic Visions: Globalization, Consumer Culture, and 94
Mediated Aff ect in Barbara Albert’s Böse Zellen
Imke Meyer
Chapter 7 Place and Space of Contemporary Austria in Barbara Albert’s 108
Feature Films
Mary Wauchope
vi Contents
Chapter 8 Connecting with Others, Mirroring Diff erence: Th e Films of 122
Kathrin Resetarits
Verena Mund
Chapter 9 Not Politics but People: Th e “Feminine Aesthetic” of Valeska 136
Grisebach and Jessica Hausner
Catherine Wheatley
PART III MICHAEL HANEKE AND ULRICH SEIDL: A QUESTION
OF SPECTATORIAL DESTINATION
Chapter 10 Allegory in Michael Haneke’s Th e Seventh Continent 151
Eva Kuttenberg
Chapter 11 “What Goes without Saying”: Michael Haneke’s Confrontation 166
with Myths in Funny Games
Gabriele Wurmitzer
Chapter 12 Unseen/Obscene: Th e (Non-)Framing of the Sexual Act in 177
Michael Haneke’s La Pianiste
Catherine Wheatley
Chapter 13 Th e Possibility of Desire in a Conformist World: Th e Cinema 189
of Ulrich Seidl
Mattias Frey
Chapter 14 Dog Days: Ulrich Seidl’s Fin-de-siècle Vision 199
Justin Vicari
Chapter 15 Import and Export: Ulrich Seidl’s Indiscreet Anthropology 207
of Migration
Martin Brady and Helen Hughes
PART IV RE-VISIONS, SHIFTING CENTERS, CROSSING BORDERS
Chapter 16 Crossing Borders in Austrian Cinema at the Turn of the 227
Century: Flicker, Allahyari, Albert
Nikhil Sathe
Chapter 17 “Th e Resentment of One’s Fellow Citizens Intensifi ed into 242
a Strong Sense of Community”: Psychology and Misanthropy
in Frosch’s Total Th erapy, Flicker’s Hold-Up, and Haneke’s
Caché
Andreas Böhn
Chapter 18 Trapped Bodies, Roaming Fantasies: Mobilizing Constructions 251
of Place and Identity in Florian Flicker’s Suzie Washington
Gundolf Graml
Contents vii
Chapter 19 A Cinephilic Avant-garde: Th e Films of Peter Tscherkassky, 263
Martin Arnold, and Gustav Deutsch
Erika Balsom
PART V STEFAN RUZOWITZKY AND NEO-CLASSIC TRENDS
Chapter 20 Screening Nazism and Reclaiming the Horror Genre: Stefan 279
Ruzowitzky’s Anatomy Films
Alexandra Ludewig
Chapter 21 Beyond Borders and across Genre Boundaries: Critical Heimat 292
in Stefan Ruzowitzky’s Th e Inheritors
Rachel Palfreyman
Chapter 22 A Genuine Dilemma: Ruzowitzky’s Th e Counterfeiters as 307
Moral Experiment
Raymond L. Burt
Chapter 23 National Box-offi ce Hits or International “Arthouse”? Th e 320
New Austrokomödie
Regina Standún
PART VI AUSTRIA AND BEYOND AS TERRA INCOGNITA:
GLAWOGGER, SAUPER, SPIELMANN
Chapter 24 Austria Plays Itself and Sees Da Him: Notes on the Image of 335
Austria in the Films of Michael Glawogger
Christoph Huber
Chapter 25 Confi gurations of the Authentic in Hubert Sauper’s Darwin’s 343
Nightmare
Arno Russegger
Chapter 26 Th e Lady in the Lake: Austria’s Images in Götz Spielmann’s 356
Antares
Sara F. Hall
Chapter 27 “Children of Optimism”: An Interview with Götz Spielmann 368
on Revanche and New Austrian Film
Catherine Wheatley
Select Filmography 377
Notes on Contributors 387
Index 393
Introduction
New Austrian Film:
Th e Non-exceptional Exception
Robert von Dassanowsky and Oliver C. Speck
In an article in 2006, the New York Times introduced a series of screenings of
Austrian productions with the following statement: “In recent years this tiny country
with a population the size of New York City’s has become something like the world
capital of feel-bad cinema” (Lim 2006). As the critic portrays the major directors, a
picture emerges that probably sums up a common sentiment regarding New
Austrian Film: not unlike other cinematic new waves, Austria’s artists are engaged in
a bitter fi ght against the prevailing petit-bourgeois mindset of their fellow citizens.
From this perspective, however, it must appear that New Austrian Film is caught in
a deadlock, a fi ght against its nation’s very image, be it the postwar self-stylization as
neutral Austria, Nazi Germany’s fi rst victim, or even the ironic self-perception as a
leftover of Kakania, Robert Musil’s famous satirical moniker for the k.und k.
(imperial and royal) Austro-Hungarian dual monarchy. In an eff ort to break the
illusions of the “offi cial” Austria and its long avoidance of dealing with its fascist past,
New Austrian Film is not only highly critical and counter-traditionalist (albeit using
traditional genres) but it takes on the very mechanisms of spectatorial trust in
cinema. And with a strong female participation that is signifi cantly prominent, we
can see how gender aff ects cinematic style and mood in dealing with contemporary
dystopias. Despite the challenges to the audience, the reductionist “feel-bad cinema”
label is itself only another totalizing concept that current Austrian fi lmmakers
would smash.
Th e problem with seeing the struggle against the petit bourgeoisie as the common
denominator of New Austrian Film, even as its main creative force, is that any work
debunking the former image as counter-factual and the latter as a disguise for
xenophobia and parochialism would already and inevitably be a reaction against
