Michael) For Film Studies

Michael Haneke is a famous Austrian director. His movies, whose subjects always focus on the urban life and the middle class, pay close attention to the imperfect individual life, reveal human being’ s spiritual crisis and their difficulties in life under the pressure of modern civilization and probe into their psychological and social root cause which leads to the disorder of life. His composing mode of "Concept First", stylistic long lens scheduling and strong philosophical foundation make his movies show the distinctive rational spirit and speculative color. In his composing technique, he always adheres to the tradition of modernist aesthetics, advocating the aesthetic principles of minimalism, whose style is calm and grim. He i s a movie master of rare abil ity in contemporary European movie circles.This article is divided into four chapters. Chapter One explains how Michael Haneke, taking family as the starting point, explores the plight of mankind in modern society and on this basis elaborates the penetration of the existentialist philosophy into its theme. Chapter Two expounds the narrative strategy of Michael Haneke’ s rational restraint from three aspects: space construction, the presentation of violent elements and unique narrative carrier. Chapter Three analyzes Haneke’s gloomy and solemn style of the image from the angles of screen shape, lens use, light and color. Chapter Four attempts to trace the cause of Michael Haneke’ s movie style from his unique personal experience and the impact of a variety of literary and artistic trend after World War Ⅱ.