Director Michael Haneke’s Cache (2005) is an extremely discomforting, mysterious French thriller, which violates several codes and conventions of Hollywood films. The film focuses on Georges Laurent and his family. They receive tapes in the mail along with pictures, which imply that his family is being watched and threatened. The film follows Georges’ quest to find who is watching him. Georges faces both external and internal conflicts, resulting in a psychological “thriller” (although it is not always so thrilling).
The movie lacks a concrete or explanatory introduction, so the audience has no idea what they are looking at during the exposition. The opening scene is an extremely long, boring, shot of the Laurent household. The audience assumes that this shot is live; however, when the audience realized that the shot can be paused and rewound, and pairs that realization with the non-diagetic sound, the audience realizes they are not watching a live shot, but rather a video. Once the audience realizes that they are seeing a video, because of Hollywood conventions, the audience expects to see who is filming this shot or how the film arrives on the Laurents’ doorstep, but Haneke refuses to give the audience that information. This is the first instance when the audience understands that they cannot trust that camera. This approach is unusual because in the vast majority of Hollywood movies, the camera serves as the collective eye for the audience, and they do not even think twice about trusting what the camera shows them. After this opening scene, the audience is cynical with each new scene and asks the question, is this shot live or is another videotape?
An example of this is the collection of shots leading up to Majid’s apartment. The first time we see Majid’s apartment is in one of the tapes sent to Georges’ home. When Georges himself approaches the apartment, the shot is filmed from a point of view shot, in the same exact fashion that the video was filmed. This forces the audience to step back and question what is going on? Haven’t I seen this already? Haneke again forces the audience to step back, thus forbidding the audience from “losing themselves in the film,” or forbidding the audience from being sutured in.
In Daniel Dayan’s writing “The Tutor-Code of Classical Cinema” he introduces the concept of “the absent-one.” Dayan states that the“Absent one is masked, replaced by a character,”then replaced by a “false origin.” This is the case in most movies, but in Cache, the absent-one is never replaced by a character, but rather Haneke lets the audience imagine who is watching. In most movies where shot-reverse shot is utilized, the audience's is shown who is watching, eliminating their imagination, and thus is "at the mercy of the code." In Cache, the audience is at the mercy of the director who forces them to use their imagination (unlike other films which don't allow the audience to use their imagination).
Haneke does what most directors are afraid of; he does not utilize the shot-reverse shot, thus avoiding an extremely common in Hollywood cinematic technique. During Cache, the audience is often shown a shot, but the audience never sees the “absent-one,” or who is watching the shot. An obvious example of this occurs during all the surveillance scenes Someone obviously must be watching the Laurent family, or setting up the video camera, yet Haneke never tells us who it is. This allows the audience's mind to wander and step back from the film.
This inclusion of the unknown absent-one can serve as a metonym for the film itself. Georges never gets a concrete answer on who is watching his family or why they are torturing him, and the audience fully understands who the absent-one is, or why Haneke leaves them so confused and uncomfortable throughout the movie. There is also a parallel with mistrust. The audience finds out early that they cannot trust what is shown to them. They must always think and analyze to decide if what they are seeing is live or if it is a video, and they also must decide what the purpose of each shot is. Georges is also constantly questioning. While the audience cannot trust the camera, Georges does not trust his friends who he has over for dinner, nor does he trust his wife when he leaves her in the dark on his past and most of his theories. Because he leaves his wife in the dark, he also leaves the audience in the dark, which leaves the audience hungry for answers. Most viewers of this movie have an extremely unsatisfying feeling at the ending of this movie.
I'm going to argue that there is a subconscious shot-reverse-shot in Cache, in that after we see the image of the surveillance tape we cut immediately to the people watching it. The murder scene when Majid commits suicide in front of Georges, is seen immediately after by Georges himself. He is watching himself. Perhaps it is also these surveillance tape shots that sutures the audience into the frame. We become aware that we are watching Georges as he watches himself. Perhaps Georges is also aware of the fact that we, the audience are also watching him, causing him a constant paranoia. We are the ones judging Georges as an impartial spectator who watches his actions and comes to conclusions about them. By the end, are we sympathetic or are we disdainful, judgmental? I think I was probably the later. I agree, Haneke is definitely unconventionally creative with the way that he has made these shots in that he actively sutured the audience into the film
ReplyDeleteI like how you mention that the audience’s position in the film, when where it is not allowed to merely suture itself into the narrative and the other where it cannot simply disengage itself from the film puts it in a frustratingly precarious position, a cinematic limbo. I like your point about the audience being unable to trust the camera. The illusion of being on the street when in fact the audience is on the living room television is so disconcerting and difficult to distinguish that it cultivates an implicit distrust of the camera. Here, Haneke does not place emphasis on the narrative itself so much as the mode in which the narrative is conveyed. The narrative becomes the viewer’s relationship with the plotline rather than the sutured immersion into the plotline and a narrative composition of character dialogue and action. The phrase “false origin” can almost apply to the audience’s assumption of the film’s origin. As you write, the audience is never given the satisfaction of the shot-reverse-shot on the surveillance scenes. I like your parallel of Georges’ quest to find the hidden cameraman and the audience’s intellectual plight; neither achieves satisfaction in the end.
ReplyDeleteYour example of the trick Haneke plays on the audience at the very start of the movie perfectly describes the sort of viewing experience that he is setting us up for.
ReplyDeleteAs you said, we are led to believe that we cannot trust the camera, as we normally would in Classic Hollywood Cinema, in which the camera represents the ideal viewer. In this film, however, the camera is flawed with many omissions and question marks. What makes this experience even stranger is that the way in which the film is shot and presented makes us feel that we may be the absent one. We may be the one who is watching Georges as well as the one who cannot be trusted.
I'm glad there aren't many other movies that do this-- this makes me way too uneasy.
I think we are all getting at something here. Between you post and the others on Cache, I think that what we have come to is an understanding that this film could be seen parallelling the act of watching film. I think you have touched on some good moments in the film that are particularly confusing and disturbing to the audience. What also strikes me is what parts of the film each person chooses to focus on, we all took away something different, but equally disturbing from this film, and if that is the director's quest (to disturb us) than he has succeeded.
ReplyDeleteWe are continually discussing Dayan's concept of the "absent-one," and I can't help but wonder if there is a name for the lack of an absent-one, such as we see in Cache. Is such a reverse concept so out of the ordinary that it exists only in Cache? To be sure not, but I can't seem to find other examples.
ReplyDeleteYou present an interesting idea when you describe what happens between viewer and Cache as a relationship, rather than a simple suture. I continually want to say we are sutured into Cache, but in a different way than is traditional. Perhaps it would be better to call it a relationship, as that distinguishes the important difference. Cache forces us into the movie. We are watching and do have a relationship to what we see. Unlike, actual suture however, we are given no face. There is no person in the movie we can blame the voyeuristic viewing on, but ourselves.
I like the parallel you make between Georges' incomplete answers to questions he is asked on screen and the audience's incomplete knowledge of what actually is happening in the film. This can be extended to make a comparison of Georges to the director Heneke himself. Georges makes the conscious decision not to trust his family and friends with all of the information that he knows. He intentionally (as you say), leaves them in the dark. In the same way, Heneke refuses to trust his audience with the answers that we seek and that films typically provide us. This implies that Georges knows the answer to what is going on, because Heneke of course knows the big picture about his film. He simply chooses not to share it with us and we are left frustrated like Georges wife.
ReplyDeleteShould we cheat on him like she does and go see work by other film makers? I think yes.
I like your point about trust. It is one that I have not seen in anyone else's blog so far. In addition to being frustrated and disoriented, and much more than a bit confused, I knew I absolutely could not trust what the camera was showing me from the very beginning. I can't think of any other film I have seen where I could not immediately and constantly trust the camera to show me what I needed to see eventually. Because of this, however, I absolutely became a more active film viewer. When the camera did not provide me with all the information I needed to know, I was forced to interpret and actively seek out information myself. It got to the point that, in that last long shot, I was constantly scanning the screen, darting around to any new movements, trying to decipher any point there might be to it, because I knew Haneke wouldn't do me the favor of pointing it out to me. Its not necessarily an experience I would want to have frequently, in fact I mentioned feeling worn out after watching it in a few different comments, but it was definitely an interesting way to view a film.
ReplyDeleteclear, persuasive post! There's a lot of talk throughout the blogs about Haneke frustrating us as viewers. I'm also thinking about how much credit he gives us, assuming each one of us is an intelligent, analytical member of society. He assumes we can make sense of the film (in a variety of ways) without all the spoon feeding we've become accustomed to.
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