#devon gearhart

31 Day Horror Challenge:

Day 8: Meta Horror

Now Watching: Funny Games (2007)

"Two psychopathic young men take a family hostage in their cabin"

Happy Halloween!

This sounds very mean, but this man looks like the Walmart brand version of Devon Sawa.

Paul: So much stress for politeness' sake.

Paul: That in, let's say, 12 hours all three of you are gonna be kaput. Okay? Anna: What? Paul: You bet that you'll be alive tomorrow at 9 o'clock and we bet that you'll be dead. Okay?

Peter: They don't want to bet. Paul: Well it's not an option. There has to be a bet.

[turns toward camera, breaks fourth wall, addressing the audience] Paul: I mean, what do you think? You think they stand a chance? Well, you're on their side, aren't you? Who are you betting on, hmm? Peter: But, wait, what kind of bet is this? If they're dead, they can't live up to their side, and if they win, they can't live either.

What I love most about this fourth wall break is that it’s clearly done to show the audience that Paul is in control here. It’s his game.

Anna: Why don't you just kill us? Peter: [smiling] You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment.

[breaking the fourth wall, addressing the audience] Paul: I mean, do you think it’s enough? I mean, you want a real ending, right, with plausible plot development? Don’t you?

Paul: You have to admit, Ann... I'm being very generous here. You can prove to your pussy husband how much you love him.

ESE: 97/100

After more than two decades investigating the violence and cruelty that arise from hypocrisy and the blindness of society, a system with which we are supposed to coexist in relative peace and harmony, without suspecting that the miserable human condition often explodes in It’s most primitive nature, with even greater virulence, by denying itself.

That could be the main theme of all the work of Michael Haneke, a man of gentle manners and slow gestures, and who already has the aspect of a benevolent old man, he’s the owner of a serene and educated voice. A Presence that belies It’s amazing capacity to put before our eyes the sharpest and fiercest, most hurtful mirrors of recent cinema, mirrors that give us a true and mean image of ourselves; To analyze our bestial condition of not fully realised born murderers.

His controversial doublet, "Funny Games" (1997 the Austrian title, and the 2007 American remake Funny Games U.S) is perhaps his most important piece, which with fewer resources and fewer characters, with greater simplicity and audacity, manages to bring us back to our most primitive state, in the most ruthless and, yes, elegant way possible.

Not uncommon are the comments that ensure that Haneke "laughs at the viewer," as if this were possible without the naivete or complicity (or limitation) of the viewer himself. To make matters worse, the fact of having made a remake of a film of his own, made ten years earlier, with the supposed intention of "making more money" And in the United States, with American stars, is the last “Hollywoodian” straw according to some of It’s detractors. Personally, remakes never bothered me much, as long as they do it well, and this can be one of the most meaningful ones in film history.

As some of you may know, the remake of 2007 is identical in screenplay, dialogue and planning, point by point, frame by frame, the spooky title of 1997. Two things change: photography, as is logical and even necessary, and The actors, also logical and necessary. Normally with American remakes of European films, I tend to prefer the original European version, but for once the opposite happened, even if the original European film is still a masterpiece in my eyes. 

By bridging the distances, there is a difference between them similar to that of the first and second Hitchcock 'The Man Who Knew Too Much' (1934-1956). That is, the first is the work of a talented filmmaker, but with a few stuttering aspects. The second is the work of a consummate professional in the art of disqualifying the spectator. But not only that, there is much more, and the fact that the script is identical reveals it more clearly.

The 1997 photograph is by Jürgen Jürges, while the 2007 photograph is by Darius Khondji. The first is a well-known German operator, with numerous awards in his country and even abroad. His lighting is deliberately crude in this film, stylistically realistic, almost as if we were watching a video of great quality. This is deliberate, of course.

But his photography does not reach the subtleties and emotional gradations of those of the great Khondji, who rose to fame in all fairness thanks to his photograph of 'Seven' (Fincher, 1995). With its white light, which complements perfectly with the white costumes of the murderers, Khondji plays with contrast, creating a nightmare of golden tones, with hardly any dark tones, which strikes us with greater force because it seems to us at first cozy, but reveals itself much more terrifying, because in our mind blood and horror do not fit in our sunny everyday life.

The actors of the first part, in my opinion, perform more than well. Both Ulrich Mühe (already deceased, famous for his role in The Lives of Others (gorgeous film btw) and Susanne Lothar are the perfect middle-class losers Also, Arno Frisch is hateful and despicable enough. But the actors in the American version are superior. 

Tim Roth brilliantly captures his role as an utterly useless husband, Naomi Watts arguably the queen of remakes adds her power and beauty, and Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet manage to be far more abject, and disgusting, than their European counterparts, they’re blood curling. Their decevingly angelic appearance, soft manners, their appearance of perfect murderous androids, provokes a greater violence in the viewer, because it is much more violent to want to brutally kill two young men. 

Why does it make sense that 'Funny Games' should have a remake and, even more, that it has a script identical to the original? The story tells of the atrocities, the murder game, of two disturbed teenagers, on the verge of adulthood, who annihilate family after family, home after home.

They are relentless, and although the woman of the house grips the gun and ends the life of the weakest, the leader can pick up the remote control of the TV, rewind the sequence and prevent the defeat from taking place.

We know they come from doing the same thing with the family from the house across the street. And that at the end of the story will do the same with the next family. The murderer looks directly at camera, and tells the emotionally and physically exhausted spectator: "this will never end, they will never catch me, I will never stop killing".

Ten years later ... they just keep killing. One story connects with another as if the story were prolonged and repeated the same pattern of murder. As if the new assassins were disciples of the others, narrating an endless circle of violence around the world, unstoppable and frightening.

Of course, Haneke  economically benefitted from a broader American distribution but there is something fascinating, even frightening in confronting both films, as if we were attending a film class, in which with the same planes, with the same script, you get a completely different, equally frightening film.

If the first film made our stomachs sick, the second really makes us physically ill, it makes us feel even more powerless. We want to strangle, spit, and strike that blonde killer with the angelic blue eyes. Haneke summons our lowest instincts puts us almost up to the height of the aggressors, and even makes us wish that Watts would take the rifle and blow both their sick brains out.

There is no learning, no lesson, no trace of an illustrative character study. It's brutal violence, period. You have to have clear ideas, well-armed convictions, to create something like this. While other directors use violence for low or commercial ends, or even with aesthetic or ideological motives.

This filmmaker is not afraid to disgust with his images, to show that there is nothing beautiful or poetic about violence in his eyes It’s the lowest, most ugly, most despicable side of the human character and instinct, and should not be celebrated. 

He shows us exactly how used we’ve gotten to seeing violence so used in fact, that we’re not even shocked easily by it anymore unless it reaches levels of sickness that really are out of this world and how disturbing and abnormal that really is, that is the one lesson you can draw from it.

Anna: Why don't you just kill us? Peter: [smiling] You shouldn't forget the importance of entertainment.

Berk Reviews Movie Club Episode 026 – Funny Games (2007)

Berk Review Movie Club Episode 026 – Funny Games (2007) For episode 26 of Movie Club, Corey selected the film Funny Games from 2007.  It is directed by Michael Haneke and starsNaomi Watts, Tim Roth, Michael Pitts, Brady Corbert, and Devon Gearhart. It’s a favorite of Corey’s even showing up on her Top Five Villains and Top Five Remakes. That said, Jonathan has never seen it. Before getting to…

Devon Gearhart

Facts

May 5, 1995

American actor

Filmography

Anthony [Name Escapes me: 2018]

Cliff [Full Circle: 2013]

Ian [The Wait: 2013]

Georgie [Funny Games: 2007]

Jake [Little Men: 2005]

Appearance

dark blonde

blue eyes

1.75m

Roleplay