Hearing Haneke: The Sound Tracks of a Radical Auteur

233 Pages·2018·22.204 MB·English

by  Elsie Walker

Hearing Haneke
The Oxford Music / Media Series
Daniel Goldmark, Series Editor
Tuning In: American Narrative Occult Aesthetics: Synchronization
Television Music in Sound Film
Ron Rodman K. J. Donnelly
Special Sound: The Creation and Sound Play: Video Games and the
Legacy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop Musical Imagination
Louis Niebur William Cheng
Seeing Through Music: Gender and Sounding American: Hollywood,
Modernism in Classic Hollywood Opera, and Jazz
Film Scores Jennifer Fleeger
Peter Franklin
Mismatched Women: The Siren’s Song
An Eye for Music: Popular Music Through the Machine
and the Audiovisual Surreal Jennifer Fleeger
John Richardson
Robert Altman’s Soundtracks: Film, Music
Playing Along: Digital Games, and Sound from M*A*S*H to A Prairie
YouTube, and Virtual Performance Home Companion
Kiri Miller Gayle Sherwood Magee
Sounding the Gallery: Video and the Back to the Fifties: Nostalgia, Hollywood
Rise of Art- Music Film, and Popular Music of the Seventies
Holly Rogers and Eighties
Michael D. Dwyer
Composing for the Red Screen:
Prokofiev and Soviet Film The Early Film Music of Dmitry
Kevin Bartig Shostakovich
Joan Titus
Saying It With Songs: Popular Music and
the Coming of Sound to Hollywood Cinema Making Music in Selznick’s Hollywood
Katherine Spring Nathan Platte
We’ll Meet Again: Musical Design in the Hearing Haneke: The Sound Tracks
Films of Stanley Kubrick of a Radical Auteur
Kate McQuiston Elsie Walker
Hearing Haneke
THE SOUND TRACKS OF A RADICAL AUTEUR
Elsie Walker
1
1
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Publication of this book was supported by the Lloyd Hibberd Endowment of the American
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Walker, Elsie M., 1975– author.
Title: Hearing Haneke : the sound tracks of a radical auteur / Elsie Walker.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2017. |
Series: The Oxford music/media series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017021656 (print) | LCCN 2017038673 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190495923 (updf) | ISBN 9780190495930 (epub) |
ISBN 9780190495909 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780190495916 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Haneke, Michael, 1942—Criticism and interpretation. |
Motion pictures—Sound effects.
Classification: LCC PN1998.3.H36 (ebook) | LCC PN1998.3.H36 W34 3017 (print) |
DDC 791.4302/33092—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017021656
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Paperback printed by WebCom, Inc., Canada
Hardback printed by Bridgeport National Bindery, Inc., United States of America
For my daughters,
Charlotte Hope and Dorothy Jane.
Thank you for making me hear everything better.
And in memory of my mother,
Varvara Richards.
Thank you for giving me a voice.

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Prelude: Why Does Hearing Haneke’s Films Matter? 1
1. Introduction: Hearing Haneke through the Critical Ruckus 5
2. The Seventh Continent: The Noises of Consumerism, the Music
of Something More 17
3. Funny Games: Amplifying Violence, the Violators, and the Victims 41
4. Code Unknown: Sonically Representing Social Divisions, Diversity,
and Hope 65
5. The Piano Teacher: Musical Beauty without Transcendence 93
6. Caché: The Postcolonial Resonance of Silences and Saying “Nothing” 125
7. The White Ribbon: Hearing Symbolic Oppression and the Real
in Rebellion 151
8. Amour: The Screams of Life Answered with Love 179
Works Cited 205
Index 219

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I must begin by mentioning that extracts from the chapters on Funny Games
and Caché originally appeared in Music and the Moving Image 3, no. 3 (Fall
2010):15– 30. I thank the editors of this journal, Ron Sadoff and Gillian
Anderson, not only for their permission to reprint these extracts, but also for
their kindness. The Music and the Moving Image conference that they host has
become an essential part of my life, both for the camaraderie and for the inspi-
ration I find there. I know that many ideas within this book are a direct result
of my having met so many extraordinary scholars at this annual event. Thanks,
too, to the original anonymous readers for my book submission who gave me
invaluable feedback, and to Senior Editor Norm Hirschy for his patience, lar-
gesse, and clarity. I am grateful to Daniel Goldmark, Series Editor, for his
permissive and precise guidance, and to the entire production team at Oxford
University Press.
Writing this book has led me to reflect more on all the sounds I make, and
on how to hear the people around me better. My most personal thanks go to
Jim Burton, the best listener I know I’ll ever know. He is the one who intro-
duced Haneke’s films to me in the first place, and I was pregnant with our first
child when I watched most of them for the first time. It was a harrowing experi-
ence, as well as being one of the most significant for me. Jim helped me through
the emotional highs and lows of my coming to terms with what the films had to
say, and his love and faith in me is in every line of this book.
I want to give special thanks to some friends who have movingly shared
their stories with me, along with helping me find a stronger female voice of my
own: Cristina Cammarano, Céline Carayon, Louise Detwiler, Lana Foley, Tara
Gladden, Claudia Gorbman, Diane Illig, Loren Marquez, Susan McCarty,
Heather McGee, Vicky Pass, Michelle Schlehofer, Katherine Spring, Robynn
Stilwell, Erin Stutelberg, Leslie Yarmo, and Diana Wagner. Thank you to
Catherine Grant and Liz Greene for showing me what it means to be truly gen-
erous scholars. I am especially grateful for a kindred spirit through the entire
experience of writing this book: Danijela Kulezic- Wilson.
I am thankful for the freedom that my job at Salisbury University allows me
to pursue my professional dreams. The campus is a rare place of congenial intel-
lectualism, and there are many colleagues who make my working life wonder-
ful. Here, I particularly thank Jerry Tabor for the musical knowledge he shares
with Fulton Faculty, along with introducing me to the documentary Touch the
ix