Re-reading Michael Haneke's La Pianiste: schizo-politics and the critique of consumer culture

Abstract

The paper argues that Michael Haneke's La Pianiste/The Piano Teacher (2001) has not departed from the critique of consumerist culture that his Austrian films represent, neither has Haneke devolved into individualist melodrama following his relocation to France, as some critics have asserted: rather, the film continues Haneke's critique of modern consumerist culture. Focusing on Haneke's characterisation of a psychologically disturbed piano teacher and the narrative construction of the film, this article argues that La Pianiste as a film is geared towards rupturing audience-screen identification with the aim of deconstructing subject positions in consumerist societies. And it is this deliberate rupturing that establishes a connection between Haneke's Austrian films his famous glaciation theory and critique of consumerism and La Pianiste.

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