The Portrayal of Social Catastrophe in the
German-Language Films of Austrian
Filmmaker Michael Haneke
Dennis Eugene Russell
The Edwin Mellen Press, 2011
In The Portrayal o f Social Catastrophe in the German-Language Films o f
Austrian Filmmaker Michael Haneke, Dennis Eugene Russell presents a
meticulous and insightful semiotic analysis of some of Michael Haneke’s major
films, which allows him to reach both pertinent and irrefutable conclusions
regarding the significance of this particular body of work within the
contemporary cultural landscape.
Russell’s open-ended critical approach is not the least remarkable aspect of
his essay, for it allows him to establish a concrete conceptual base for the
interpretation of Haneke’s work, which is neither forced nor subjected to
fashionable rhetoric excess. His critical sources are selected according to their
pertinence vis-a-vis the matter at hand and we find, next to Baudrillard’s notion
of simulacra, the crucial concepts regarding the society of spectacle put forward
by Guy Debord, a doubtlessly pivotal thinker whose fundamental contribution to
a critical view of consumer’s society has been so far grossly overlooked by
postmodern inquiries.
Russell’s insightful study of Haneke’s cinematographic semiotic codes
points to crucial issues of modem consciousness, such as the communicative
breakdown of postmodern exchange, the alienation of the self in a
spectacularized reality, and the deep epistemological crisis that challenges the
very foundations of a post capitalistic order. Russell considers both the narrative
mechanisms of Haneke’s work and their relationship to our perception of reality;
hence, his book is not only relevant within Cinema Studies, but also within the
field of sociology as well, for it relates in a theoretically sound manner filmic
semantic structures to historical contextualization.
Russell’s book responds to a very present need in our field for it addresses
fundamental questions raised by the works of an important film maker in a clear,
conceptually informed manner served up in an engaging and convincing style,
making it both a pleasant and highly informative read.
Daniel Ferreras Savoye ,