Sound in the Films of Michael Haneke from the Perspective of Phenomenological Aesthetics

Abstract

The philosophical and aesthetic ideas of phenomenology have been
present in cinema theory since the silent period. Methods of phenomenological
theory can be found in the analysis of the visual aspects of films or the artistic
style of their authors. The essay analyses signs of phenomenological thinking
in the audiovisual aspects of films - a little studied but significant area of
directorial aesthetics. Its theoretical and methodological foundation includes
the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and elements of phenomenological
aesthetics in the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Roman Ingarden. Taking
the work of a significant representative of auteur cinema, the Austrian director
Michael Haneke, the author explores cinematic variations of the concept of
phenomenological reduction, the method of “perfectly clear apprehension of
the essence” and the layered semantic structure of the film. Conclusions are
drawn about the presence of typological signs of phenomenological thinking
in the work of other filmmakers, such as Robert Bresson and Jean-Pierre and
Luc Dardenne. Visually, this presence is expressed in the tendency towards
asceticism and documentarism in the choice of artistic devices; towards the
disclosure of cinematic phenomena (“facts”); and aurally, in the tendency
to minimize off-screen music and get rid of the expressiveness in the actor's
speech, towards greater semantic significance of intra-frame music, individual
sounds, pauses and non-sounds.