The Doubling of Death
21
there. We might be wise to keep in mind, then, that there could be an underlying
promotion of violence in finding violence against animals and children overlyabhorrent. Fourth, and finally, Haneke’s choice to conclude his remarks with a
reference to a real incident from his own real life involving a real woman and a
real act of violence against a real child is interesting. He slips from an analysis
of what he is doing on film to a recounting of what he once did in life, as if the
latter should help explain the former, always and again standing in service to it.
He offers up what amounts to an apology for having Juliette Binoche slap a
child on film by evening out the cosmic scale of justice and taking to task a real
woman who slapped her real child off camera. Here, Haneke is careful to tell us
that he did not enact violence against the woman—other than the vocal and
emotional violence of yelling at her. Indeed, perhaps it is important that it is a
“lady” and not a “gentleman” in Haneke’s story. Perhaps he means to say that
women, too, are like children and animals.
We tread lightly inside the mind of Michael Haneke, wanting to avoid a
purely psychoanalytic reading of his work. But we cannot help but note how
many times he has said in interviews that his mother was more like an angel
than a human, how often he proclaims his undying love for his mother, how
emotionally he speaks of his mother’s overwhelming physical and otherworldly
beauty. Haneke’s father is not to be found here—as was the case in the young
Haneke’s real life as well. “I grew up with three women,” the filmmaker
explains, “my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt. It was great....I had a very
spoiled childhood. I didn’t have to fight with a man....I was never beaten.” The
real threat of violence is, for Haneke, the threat of the possible appearance of the
male. When Haneke thinks of something other than animal, child, or woman, he
thinks of death and violence. Indeed, so great is this fear of possible impending
disruption and violence that Haneke—both the man and the man-who-isfilmmaker—will happily make a preemptive strike against the potentiallyviolent male, thus becoming the abuser himself, thus starting the cycle of
violence himself, thus becoming the violent male. Consider: one of the few men
in Haneke’s early life was his uncle, someone Haneke describes as a “huge
man.” “There was a moment with my uncle,” the filmmaker confesses, “[when]
I thought he was going to hit me, so I pushed him [first]...and he fell over.”
After leaving the safety of his female-populated home, Haneke went off to
the university in Vienna. He enrolled to study theatre, but after one semester he
switched to philosophy. He kept up with the philosophy major for a time, but
ultimately found it unsatisfying. Men—potentially violent men—are, as usual,
all around in philosophy. As Haneke recalls it, “[I] met a distinguished
Hegelian....I thought he would explain the world to me, but I [came to
understand] it’s not the case.” Before real damage could be done, Haneke
intellectually pushed Hegel and the Hegelian over and turned to filmmaking.
There is a quality to the deaths portrayed in Haneke’s films that is unc anny.
Most of the deaths are unexplained and unexpected. Even in the case of The
Seventh Continent, which is based on a true story (whatever that means), the