Destabilizing the Rhetoric of Villainy With Haneke's Cache
Type
conference paper
Date Issued
2010-09-14
Author(s)
Abstract
Michael Haneke's critically acclaimed Caché (2005) begins with a disturbing visual message from an unknown sender, and much of the narrative is dedicated to the problem of identifying this villainous, potentially dangerous, sender. As with the image-based legitimation for an invasion of Iraq, the search for a hidden villain in the film is problematized by projections of phantasmatic desire and their disruptive effects on the external world. Of particular interest in this regard, and equally not coincidental, is that the ideological and psychological critique in Haneke's film also extends to a critique of the visual medium itself. Set against the double backdrop of French postcolonial guilt as well as the media's portrayal of the US political and military search for the unseen villain, Haneke's Caché might be viewed as a meditation on the highly problematic "rhetoric of villainy," particularly in relation to notions of colonial sovereignty and visuality. In this mediation on villainy, questions of safety and security regarding domestic space are directly linked to the visual: who sees what? What kind of authority or threat to authority might be established through the power of vision? How are positions within a rhetoric of villainy versus virtue negotiated in relation to various notions of home and within the field of that which can be seen? To sufficiently address these questions, we want to consider villainy from both a historical and a systematic, theoretical perspective.
Language
English
Keywords
Melodrama
Villainy
Victimhood
Michael Haneke
Jacques Derrida
Film/Cultural Studies
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
No
Publisher
Priory House
Publisher place
Oxfordshire UK
Volume
Session 4: Cinematic Villainy
Event Title
2nd Global Conference Villains and Villainy
Event Location
Oxford, UK
Event Date
14.-16.09.2012
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
69351