Michael Haneke is an Austrian filmmaker known for his dark and disturbing films that often feature dysfunctional families and ambiguous narratives. He frequently shocks and confuses audiences. Haneke's films exhibit recurrent characteristics of style that serve as his signature, suggesting he is an auteur. For example, Funny Games uses a perfect family preyed upon by outsiders to critique audiences who consume on-screen violence. When remaking Funny Games, Haneke kept the same themes and meaning to target those audiences in the English-speaking world. A scene from the film casually depicts the killers discussing murder while getting food, parallel to how audiences view on-screen violence as entertainment.

1. Example Presentation Script
Here is an extract from a well structuredPresentation Script (1,500
words) with good referencing and a relatively sound argument. Use it as a
guide to the way your own script should be submitted.
Dysfunctional families are a predominant factor in Haneke’s films.
Does this make Haneke an auteur?
Projector: Image of Michael Haneke (Item 16)
Speaker:
Michael Haneke is an Austrian filmmaker, and has made many films in the
languages of English, German and French. Anyone watching Haneke films
will recognize a similarity in his dark, disturbing style and his strong use of
dysfunctional families as well as his tendency to shock and confuse the
audience with ambiguous narrative.
I believe that these things, which I will explain in more detail later, make
Haneke an auteur. Auteurship cannot be given to all directors and in one
premise of auteur theory is the “distinguishable personality of the director”
and “Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurrent
characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Item 7).
Projector: Trailer of Funny Games (2007) – (2m 17s) (Item 19)
Speaker:
In this trailer for the US version of Funny Games you can see the
characteristics of the film displayed in a clear narrative, which is
contrasting to his style and the true ambiguous narrative, however it
appeals to the audience Haneke wants to attack it was as in an interview
he says Funny Games was “intended to be for a public of violence
consumers” (Item 14). It also highlights the „perfect‟ family and outsiders
that pray on this perfection, a lot like the viewers of Hollywood films do.
Haneke remade Funny Games to make it identical to the original with the
same recurring themes and interior meaning. When asked about the
remake in a 2008 on-set interview (item 15), Haneke stated “when I did the
first Funny Games it was intended to be for a public of violence consumers
in the English-speaking world … the German language the film stayed
always in the art houses and so didn't reach the public that it would need to

2. have.” Thus showing that the intention of the film was not to entertain but
for the purposes of highlighting our apparent acceptance of violence and
death in films. Haneke says that he finds it irritating that “in this kind of
post-modern view of life it became chic to make violence as an
entertainment, even for the filmmakers and the critics, and this I find is a
little bit disgusting.” (Item 15) It is this type of attitude that suggests that
Haneke is an auteur, as “The way a film looks and moves should have
some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels.” (Item 7).
Projector: Clip of scene where Georgie dies and Paul is looking in the
fridge at 1h 1m 10s – (1m) (Item 2)
Speaker:
As you can see, Peter and Paul casually discuss who to kill first, and Paul
says he‟s going to get something to eat, and asking who else wants food;
highlighting their casual view of killing people, paralleling how the
audience‟s opinion on violence/death in movies. In keeping with Haneke‟s
hate of violence on screen, when Georgie is shot, there is no violence
shown, just a gunshot and blood on the TV at the end of the sequence.
This is symbolic of Haneke‟s view of Hollywood/media in general – filled
with glorified violence. Also, the fact that a child is shot is shocking, yet
another aspect of Haneke‟s signature style, which once again supports the
argument for being an auteur as (Item 7) “a director is forced to express
his personality through the visual treatment of material”.