Blind spot
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 10496994 |
|---|---|
| Authors | M Beugnet (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 227-231 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Screen (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0036-9543 • E-ISSN: 1460-2474 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/screen/hjm019 |
| OpenAlex | W4243236397 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
The opening images of Caché encapsulate everyday, middle-class ordinariness: shot in fixed frame, the unblinking long take shows the façade of a comfortable-looking house partly hidden behind a thick privet hedge. After a while, a passer-by crosses the frame, then a cyclist. The door opens and closes as a woman leaves the house. When no human presence is in sight, only the slight shiver of leaves in the left-hand corner indicates that the shot is live. For all the image's reassuring dullness, Haneke's aesthetics of dread is already at work, permeating the image through the claustrophobic effect of its immobile gaze and thwarted perspective: on each side of the frame, the end of a street narrows the confines of the view; at the back of the house, a row of tall buildings blocks the entire perspective – rows of anonymous windows gazing back at the camera. Breaking a long-lasting silence (films on France's ‘dirty war’ were censured at the time and there have been few since), a number of films of the Algerian war by French filmmakers have been released recently (such as Mon Colonel [Laurent Herbier, 2006], La Trahison [Philippe Faucon, 2005] and 19 Octobre 1961 [Alain Tasma, 2005]). These films often describe the complex situation of the alienated protagonists of a dirty conflict, inviting identification with unexceptional men and women torn between contradictory allegiances. In comparison, Haneke's treatment stands out for the chilly vision that the instrumentation of the film and video apparatus creates. Is it Haneke's hybrid identity as a director – as the most French of Austrian filmmakers, at the cross between two national cultures known for their propensity to historical amnesia – that gives him the necessary detachment to scrutinize his characters like an entomologist
Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Perspective (graphical · Shot (pellet · Silence · Visual arts · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Historical Art and Culture Studies
| Citations per year | 0.31 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2010 - 2021 (12) |
| Highly cited | No |