avocado rabbit

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Member Since: 2/18/2008
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The Films of Michael Haneke ... Director's Cuts (vol. 1)

Artist Song
The Florestan Trio  Piano Trio in E-flat (Schubert)  
Elton John  Teacher Teacher 
The Dandy Warhols  Every Day Should Be A Holiday 
The Motorettes  Super Heartbeats 
The Push Stars  Everything Shines 
Erin Jordan  Edge of the Continent 
Gilbert Aitken  The Way 
Hank Ballard & The Midnighters  Continental Walk 
Sea Wolf  You're A Wolf 
Bright Eyes  Four Winds 
Lucinda Williams  What If 
Done Anker  Mes Anciens Inconnus 
Neil Young  Unknown Legend 
Cousteau  Talking To Myself 
The Killers  For Reasons Unknown 
Scissors To Lefty  Lay Down Your Weapons 
Edgar Jones  Necessary Evil 
Jem  Save Me 
Young and Sexy  Your Enemy's Asleep 
Norwenn Leroy  Une Femme CachTe 
Imogen Heap  Hide and Seek 

Comment:

Michael Haneke is an Austrian filmmaker and writer best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television, theater and cinema. He is also known for raising social issues in his work.

In this excerpt from an interview, Haneke expounds on his process. My films are intended as polemical statements against the American "barrel down" cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

This mix serves as a soundtrack to Haneke's body of work to date, specifically the cinema portion of it. He's currently in production of "Das Wiese Band," scheduled for release next year. None of the songs appeared on the official soundtrack albums with the exception of Schubert's e-flat piano sonata from "The Piano Teacher," which begins the mix. The other 20 songs are simply ones that I felt could have represented one or another of his movies. And those are ...



1989's "The Seventh Continent," which served to trace out the violent and bold style that would bloom in later years. It concerns a family, that consists of an engineer, an optician (his wife) and their daughter, who have a sudden decision to destroy their lives without any apparent reason. The film only implies some of their nervous depression and isolation in modern repetitive life. The continent is an imaginary one in the their minds.
In 1992, the controversial "Benny's Video" put Haneke's name on the map. The plot of the film centers on Benny (Arno Frisch), a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents (Anna (Angela Winkler) and Georg (Ulrich Mnhe)), who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and images.
"Funny Games" (1997) is an experimental horror film. The plot involves two sociopaths who hold a family hostage and torture them with sadistic games.
"Code Unknown:" Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a 2000 film where the plot centers in Paris (also Mali and Romania). The fates of several characters intersect and connect.
In "CachT," Georges (Daniel Auteuil) is a successful host of a TV program about books, who lives with his wife Anne (Juliette Binoche), a book publisher, and their son Pierrot (Lester Makedonsky). The family's comfortable bourgeois life is threatened when mysterious videotapes start arriving on their doorstep. The tapes show surveillance of their home. At first they seem relatively harmless, but later videos are accompanied by crude, disturbing crayon drawings. Little by little, the tapes bring out disquieting information about events in Georges' childhood. Georges hides as much about these events as possible from everyone, including Anne.
A disaster of some type has occurred in "Time of the Wolf," of which the audience only knows that uncontaminated water is scarce and livestock have to be burned. Fleeing the city, a family arrives at their country home, hoping to find refuge and security, only to discover that it is already occupied by strangers. Georges is killed and most of the family's belongings are seized. The film follows the remaining family members as they seek shelter and food in a world without government or laws.
Lastly, "The Piano Teacher" is a professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although she is in her 30s, she still lives with her domineering mother (Annie Girardot). Erika is only able to 'feel' by exacting cruel punishment on her students, whom she secretly detests. She destroys the musical prospects of a talented girl by hiding shards of glass inside of her coat pockets. Behind her icy fatade, Erika is a sexually-repressed woman with a long list of sadomasochistic fetishes.

image for mix

Feedback:

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avocado rabbit
Date: 7/12/2008
Continued from the comments section ...

Here's the quiz, where a free copy that is track marked and with artwork goes to the first correct answer. Which of Haneke's films won him the prestigious Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival and also won its stars the Best Actor and Actress awards that year?

Much appreciation goes to the Netflix Internet dvd rental company, which carries so many movies that cannot be found at a Blockbuster or Hollywood Video. All of Haneke's are available on their website.
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natalyesaurus
Date: 7/12/2008
sometimes our own soundtracks are better than the actual ones. good work, love most of these songs. the rest i don't know
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anthony lombardi
Date: 7/12/2008
the songs i know here, i like a ton, & the ones i don't, well - your track record is pretty great, so i trust you & would love to hear them - thanks for the download
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KathrynandRupert
Date: 7/12/2008
I think it was Code Unknown that won. Funny Games is a most unsettling film and a most unsatisfying experience, which may well have been the point. My favourite creepy continental film is The Vanishing (not the remake).
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avocado rabbit
Date: 7/12/2008
No winners yet on the quiz.
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njr
Date: 7/13/2008
La Pianiste. It creeps me out, given that our daughter is taking piano lessons and about to perform in her 2nd recital next Sunday.
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avocado rabbit
Date: 7/13/2008
njr has the winner in the quiz. She's right. The movie will give you the creeps.
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Rebel Princess
Date: 7/13/2008
I knew it was the Pianist! Mainly because it's the only one of his films I've heard of... But he seems to get all the good actors, doesn't he? And a mighty fine soundtrack too...
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Barrydali
Date: 7/13/2008
This is really terrific Mr Rabbit.
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musicgnome
Date: 7/13/2008
Menacing... Big smile!!!
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doowad
Date: 7/13/2008
Very nice, especially to even get Barrydali back on the board.
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arktical
Date: 7/13/2008
This looks fantastic. I can't wait to download and give it a listen.
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ghandi
Date: 7/13/2008
'Cache' is a superb film, now you've made me wanna see the rest. Once I've pulled myself away from AOTM I might have a look on Amazon for some of these.Hasn't he just done a Hollywood remake of 'Funny Games'?
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MarkSmith
Date: 7/13/2008
looks like a promising series...
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Captain Hi-Top
Date: 7/13/2008
Strange, amazing! I'll be seeking out those films.....
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Funky Ratchet
Date: 7/14/2008
Looks fantastic!
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buglady
Date: 7/14/2008
Very cool. I especially love the opener!
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sammyg123
Date: 7/15/2008
Wow, a comment from Barry. Proof if need be that this mix, amongst many of yours, is highly regarded.