Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
JENNIFER BURRIS
Whitney Museum of American Art (ISP)
ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
Michael Hanekes Cach/Hidden (2005) has generated a level of critical discus- Haneke
sion that has quickly established the film as a defining work of early twenty-first Nauman
century French cinema. Noticeably absent from this wealth of analysis is an exami- surveillance art
nation of how Cachs formal experimentation with surveillance technology directly CCTV
informs its treatment of the political and ethical issues of postcolonialism. Drawing Algeria
from the practices of 1960s surveillance art, as well as the CCTV aesthetic of real- postcolonialism
ity television, this article addresses this critical gap by focusing on how Cachs
filmic apparatus captures the alienation of emotion from phenomenological experi-
ence. Cach presents an alternative to Foucaults visual economy of self-regulation
(panopticisme) in that its protagonist Georges internalizes the disinterested and
subject-less gaze of the ever-present camera rather than the interested gaze of the
prison guard. This process results in a state of emotional indifference: Georges is an
unmoved witness to traumatic events as well as his own history. In Cach, Haneke
shows how this indifference helps produce the stratification and paranoia of a post-
colonial society.
151
1. Even work that at Georgess familys estate are called to a protest in Paris by the Front de
directly addresses the
mechanisms of looking
Libration Nationale. Along with the roughly 200 other Algerians who are killed
and vision in Cach and drowned in the Seine that day under the orders of then Paris police
attributes a temporal chief Maurice Papon, they never return. Georgess parents decide to adopt
dimension to its filmic
space. For example, the couples son (Majid), but a number of lies told by their own son the false
for Libby Saxton, the accusation that Majid killed a rooster in order to scare Georges, a claim that
visible is roughly he spits up blood convince them to change their mind. Majid is sent to an
equated with the
present and the hidden orphanage and Georgess life continues as normal: conscience undisturbed,
with the past; this memory seemingly untroubled. That is, until the arrival of a series of anony-
present is determined
by a return of the past,
mous surveillance videos and child-like drawings force Georges to recall these
the screen a window suppressed events. The undesired gifts precipitate a series of confrontations
onto off-screen space between the now middle-aged Georges and Majid, and ultimately lead to
(Saxton 2007).
Majids suicide.
Cach has generated a level of critical discussion that has quickly estab-
lished the film as a defining work of early twenty-first-century French
cinema. It has an ability to touch on questions of concern in fields of
inquiry ranging from cultural, social and literary theory to film aesthet-
ics, history, philosophy and psychoanalysis; it elicits an unusually wide
range of responses from an equally wide range of perspectives (Ezra and
Sillars 2007a: 211). As seen in the 2007 Screen dossier on the film, these
responses tend to fall into two categories: (1) A fascination with Hanekes
formal and ontological experimentation via point of view, the video image
and the interpellation of the audience, and (2) an interest in the politi-
cal and ethical issues dependent on the films postcolonial context and the
historical trauma it evoked (Austin 2007: 529). Noticeably absent from this
wealth of analysis is criticism that bridges these two categories by address-
ing how Cachs formal experimentation directly informs its portrayal of
individual agency in a postcolonial context. This absence is particularly
apparent in discussions of Cachs treatment of temporality. Where formal
responses focus on Hanekes groundbreaking use of high-definition video
cameras to shoot the entire film, a technique that enmeshes the virtual and
the actual into almost simultaneous presents that overlap in an uncanny
fashion (Beugnet 2007: 230), thematic discussions tend to invoke a psycho-
analytic framework. In these later analyses, the titular hidden is an issue
of memory rather than visibility, buried secrets rather than an obscured
present (Austin 2007; Ezra and Sillars 2007b; Khanna 2007).1
This disjuncture between the two categories of critique does a disservice
to the film that Catherine Wheatley calls Hanekes most complete attempt
to date at a harmonization of content and form (Wheatley 2009: 154). It also
ignores what is perhaps Cachs most compelling contribution to contem-
porary cinema: its ability to deal with the hidden in a non-temporal way.
Rather than translate a primarily chronological or temporally based account of
subjectivity into visual language, Haneke captures that subjects split psychol-
ogy with the spatial logic of surveillance technology. Georges is alienated
from his present rather than past self; he relates to the world as though it
were experienced from a distance. In this way, Cach presents an alternative to
Foucaults visual economy of self-regulation (panopticisme). Georges does not
internalize the imagined interested gaze of Benthams prison guard; rather, he
internalizes the disinterested and subject-less gaze of CCTV. Surveillance is a
visual model of intimate alienation in that, although it represents an intru-
sion of the camera into once private spaces, it is also characterized by bore-
dom, ambiguity and a lack of expression. Internalizing this perspective results
152
in the emotional indifference of an ever-present camera: an unmoved witness 2. Other critics who have
noted the irrelevance
to traumatic events. of this question include
This formal analysis of Cach answers the driving question of the Wheatley (2009: 163)
narrative (Wheatley 2009: 163) who is sending the tapes and why and Ezra and Sillars
(2007a: 212).
by rendering that question irrelevant. 2 No one is sending Georges the
tapes because they are nothing more than visual manifestations of his 3. This is the title of a
book by Eric Conan
paranoid self-surveillance; what Beugnet calls the disincarnated pres- and Henry Rousso on
ence [] that the films apparatus creates (Beugnet 2007: 228). Cach representations of the
is neither ghost story nor realistic thriller, but a Bergmanesque tale in Vichy occupation in
1990s France (Conan
which theoretical mechanisms take on a material reality. As will be and Rousso 1994).
discussed in greater detail throughout this article, this interpretation Translated as an
ever-present past, this
is made explicit by the film itself. The impossible angles from which phrase is also used
the surveillance tapes are shot, the exact repetition of the first surveil- by Blanchard, Bancel
lance tapes soundtrack within a scene that occurs in Georgess memory, and Lemaire (2005) to
describe the crossing
Georgess professional role as manufacturer and editor of television over of memory from
video, and the overlapping of camera perspective with Georgess physi- Algeria then to France
cal actions at central narrative moments all suggest that the surveillance now [] the ongoing
haunting of French
videos represent the internal economy of his self-alienation. In short, society by its colonial
Cach deploys formal innovation in the service of a philosophical exami- past (Austin 2007:
530). Furthering this
nation of affective disconnect. correlation between
This disconnect has both political and ethical implications: Georgess the Vichy occupation
childhood crime is directly tied to Frances colonial past. While, as has and the Algerian
war is the figure
been previously mentioned, the six-year-old Georges cannot be held of Maurice Papon.
legally or ethically responsible for his selfish act (Ezra and Sillars 2007b: Directly responsible
219; Gilroy 2007: 235), the adult Georges can be held accountable for for the 1961 massacre
of Algerian protestors,
his unwillingness to recognize the disastrous consequences of this act. Papon was also tried
Georgess professed absence of guilt mirrors the French governments and convicted in 1998
for his crimes under
failure to publicly acknowledge its 1961 massacre of Algerian protestors, the Vichy regime.
allowing the film to be seen as a metaphor for Frances history of involve-
ment with Algeria: un pass qui ne passe pas.3 Majids suicide, the suicide
of the repressed, is not only an expression of despair or the absence of
hope, but is also an act of attempted self-assertion: the desire to project
guilt upon those who have harmed him. This act is ultimately shown to
be futile, for even Majids extreme gesture of self-violence does not wake
Georges from his anaesthesia. Locked within paranoid self-surveillance,
Georges perceives Majid as nothing more than an image composed from
his own fear.
Cach, a film that inhabits the visual economy of Georgess self-alienating
perspective, similarly denies the character of Majid any opportunity to
develop a psychological gravity and complexity akin to its white, bour-
geois counterparts (Gilroy 2007: 234). As Guy Austin writes, what
remains almost entirely unspoken, a structuring absence at the heart of
the film, is the trauma suffered by Majid (Austin 2007: 534). While this
one-dimensionality has been critiqued as evidence of Cachs shallow,
pseudopolitical, or perhaps more accurately antipolitical engagement with
profound contemporary problems (Gilroy 2007: 233), it is perhaps more
accurately understood as Hanekes most incisive critique of political and
emotional disengagement. By confining the film to the internal landscape
of one privileged member of a postcolonial society, Haneke reveals how
this solipsism reduces the Other to nothing more than the projection of
ones own paranoia and fear, thereby eliminating any hope of compassion
across social boundaries.
153
154
155
4. Beugnet (2007: 229), modernist reflexivity creates a tension between the spectators rational
Khanna (2007: 241) and
Wheatley (2009: 169)
awareness of the film as a construct and their emotional involvement in
have also observed this the world that this construct presents (Wheatley 2009: 153).
similarity. Haneke uses this tension to highlight the issue of real versus arti-
ficial life, emotions performed versus emotions felt, images created for
the camera versus images the camera seems to have caught unaware.
He proposes that such opposites are in actuality not that distinct: merg-
ing together, it is often difficult to tell them apart. In Cach, this folding
together of fictive and real life is a central theme, structuring not just the
form of the film, but also the lives of its characters. The white minimalism
and book-covered walls of Georgess living room is recreated in a more
abstract visual language as the set for his television show.4 In both cases,
the use of books as dcor suggests that their importance lies not in what
they contain, but in their use as signifiers of cultivation; well-chosen wall-
paper that projects an image of intellectual depth (Silverman 2007a: 247).
Round-table discussions of authors and books that take place on Georgess
television show are uncannily similar to dinner parties held at his home:
a lack of distinction highlighted in a dinner party scene in which a house-
hold guest performs the story of his day, an account eventually revealed
to be no more than an elaborate lie told for amusement. And in case we
miss the point, attendees at the cocktail launch for Annes book on globali-
zation (itself a reference to the attempt to smooth out the fractures of a
postcolonial society via generalizing language) are heard discussing Jean
Baudrillard, a prominent theorist of simulacra.
This intermingling of artifice and documentary also evokes, and appears to
take inspiration from, the recent avalanche of reality television. The post-war
avant-gardes interest in surveillance has been co-opted as a form of popular
entertainment; the knowledge that we are being filmed is no longer disarm-
ing, but often expected, and, in some cases, even desired. A defining char-
acteristic of this CCTV aesthetic is its poor image quality. Hanekes decision
to use digital cameras for the whole of Cach replicates this low-tech style.
He uses the mediums so-called limitation to suggest meaning in this relative
obscurity of the visible: In the postmodern climate of contemporary France,
the device par excellence for screening out the real is the image (Silverman
2007a: 247). A scene from the middle of the film shows Georges and Anne
repeatedly rewinding and then pausing one of the anonymous videos in an
effort to read a street sign. Despite Cachs thematic focus on vision, neither
the characters nor we, as viewers, ever really seem to see or understand what
is going on; our conceptual confusion reflects the tapes material quality.
A second defining characteristic of this CCTV aesthetic is the cameras
absolute indifference to what it films. Unlike traditional narrative film,
which visually follows a course of action, the surveillance camera pre-exists
any notable event. This reversal of cause-and-effect overturns the usual
rules of mise-en-scne (Blouin 2004: 33); in short, the paradigm of staging
disappears (Lestocart 2004: 41). As previously attempted by Jean-Marie
Straub and Danile Huillet, as well as by Warhol, the angle, placement and
composition of Hanekes shots all appear to be haphazardly positioned.
This inconsequential aesthetic, when combined with the virtual absence
of notable action, is almost astoundingly dull. Haneke chooses loca-
tions that are deliberately nondescript and without architectural distinc-
tion. The cameras apathetic gaze echoes the blandness of the places it
depicts. As with many of Hanekes films, we are never sure of what video
156
we are watching, when the scene took place, or who was meant to film it.
Time and date lose their importance in Cach; what seems to matter is a
sense of waiting, a sense of being removed from the present and an indif-
ference towards what is seen.
A NEW PANOPTICISME
While Cachs formal experimentation is characterized by the cameras
indifference and poor image quality, its visual style is often dominated by
doors, windows and exterior structural facades. Characters are encased in
this box-like environment, recalling both camera lens and television set.
The built environment saturates almost every frame, implying that there is
no outside to this endless proliferation of boxes within boxes, windows
within walls and rooms within other rooms. There is no real depth to each
frame because both foreground and background are shot in equal focus.
This aesthetics of dread permeates the image through the claustrophobic
effect of its immobile gaze and thwarted perspective (Beugnet 2007: 227).
Key to this argument is Cachs opening shot, repeated throughout the
film. Homes, cars, windows and apartments buildings stack on top of one
another. With no glimmer of sky or central perspective to give the appear-
ance of spatial depth, the street appears as flat as a stage set. In discus-
sions of this shot, numerous commentators have noted that this framing
helps give the home the appearance of a fortress or prison: Georgess and
Annes house is raised off the ground, barred by a high gate and obscured
by a large bush at ground level, with only a side door as exit and entrance
(Silverman 2007a: 246). This home as prison motif is:
Driven home visually and sonically: the composition of shots of its exte-
rior puts its vertical barred windows centre frame; horizontal bars cut
across shots; the iron gate clangs. Georgess and Annes grey, shape-
less clothes are reminiscent of prison uniforms [] These characters are
shown literally behind bars.
(Ezra and Sillars 2007b: 216)
In this context, the thousands of books lining the living rooms windowless
interior are more than mere simulacra of knowledge: they are a blockade
against the world, a buffer against the intrusion of unedited external reality
(Beugnet 2007: 229).
Hanekes combination of prison imagery with surveillance technology
recalls Foucaults discussion of the panopticon (Foucault 1975). In 1787, British
legal philosopher and utilitarian Jeremy Bentham proposed an architectural
model that could be used as a means of social control. Intended for prisons,
the panopticon is a multi-level circular building with cells spanning the outside
walls. At its centre stands a watchtower wherein a single guard has the stra-
tegic advantage of being able to oversee all cell inmates without being seen.
Because the prisoners are unable to determine whether this central watch-
tower is occupied, the guards gaze does not have to be real in order to be
effective. Through imagination and fear, the inmate projects his own surveil-
lance, and in so doing effectively watches him or herself. The disciplinary eye
of the other is internalized as the subject self-disciplines in accordance with
behavioural norms. For Foucault, Benthams panopticon spatially represents a
distinctly modern form of social control over human subjects (panopticisme).
157
158
The phrase Majid utters before slitting his throat is I asked you to come
because I wished you to be present. Majids desire for Georgess presence
signals his longing for an emotional response, a subjective witness for the suffer-
ing he has endured, and perhaps, as well, a desire to indicate or at least frame
Georges as his murderer. It is a wish that ultimately remains ungranted. Like the
unflinching, unmoving camera, Georges freezes upon the sight of blood; utter-
ing no cry or sob, moving neither away in fear nor forward in aid, he appears
devoid of any knowledge as to what this situation requires. It is at this climactic
moment that the surveillance cameras hidden identity becomes apparent. Both
camera and Georges react to Majids suicide with the same immobility, each one
a reflection upon the other. The mechanistic and depersonalized gaze recording
the scene is the same gaze with which Georges watches Majids death.
Cachs second trauma, while chronologically predating the first, is the
films penultimate scene. Against a dark screen the quiet sounds of chickens
introduce a straight-angled shot of a country house that remains unaltered for
the scenes entire three minutes and ten seconds. The camera is placed inside
a barn that stands across the gravel courtyard from the house: the frontal fram-
ing includes the barns shadows, a square of blue sky to the upper left and a
few scattered birds. The arrival of a car containing a man and woman inter-
rupts the peace. As the man loafs idly smoking a cigarette, the woman enters
the house before quickly exiting with a young boy and an older couple. While
being led to the car the child attempts to run away, crying to stay, and we
realize he is Majid: we are watching his displacement from Georgess child-
hood home. Turning away from the boys anguish, the parents re-enter the
house, and the car drives away with Majid locked inside. The scene returns
to its original condition as though nothing has happened. Neither death nor
childhood separation effect any change in the shots composition; we might
as well be watching a car drive down a nameless street.
Ezra and Sillars observe a critical aspect of this penultimate scene:
In the films opening shot of Georgess and Annes house, we hear what
is apparently the ambient sound of birdsong [] What initially seems
like white noise, however, turns out to be very significant. The birdsong
from the films opening shot is identical to the birdsong in the penulti-
mate scene, the flashback to Georgess boyhood home when the young
Majid is taken away by force; in the farmyard, we see chickens but we
hear sparrows. In fact, the soundtrack in these two scenes sounds the
same (including footsteps crunching and car doors slamming) but for
one thing: Majids screams have been removed from the opening shot.
(Ezra and Sillars 2007b: 221)
159
the dominant critical response to this film in the UK and the US has
been the attempt to limit its exploration of colonial culpabilities to its
French setting [] a symptomatic acting out of the films themes of
displacement, avoidance and the refusal to look close to home.
(Ezra and Sillars 2007b: 215)
160
REFERENCES
Austin, G. (2007), Drawing Trauma: Visual Testimony in Cach and Jai 8 ans,
Screen, 48: 4, pp. 52936.
161
SUGGESTED CITATION
Burris, J., (2011), Surveillance and the indifferent gaze in Michael Hanekes
Cach (2005), Studies in French Cinema 11: 2, pp. 151163, doi: 10.1386/
sfc.11.2.151_1
CONTRIBUTOR DETAILS
Jennifer Burris is a 20102011 Curatorial Fellow at the Whitney Museum of
American Art Independent Study Program. She holds a BA from Princeton
University and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, Kings College.
Her recent publications include an article in The Journal of Aesthetics and Art
162
163
Afl]dd][lZggck
hmZdak`]jkg^gja_afYdl`afcaf_tooo&afl]dd][lZggck&[ge
F]oR]YdYf\;af]eY2 O]Yj]`]j]lgkmhhgjlqgmj
a\]YkYf\_]ll`]ehmZdak`]\&
Lgk]f\mkqgmjf]oZggc
Afl]jhj]laf_l`]HYkl gjbgmjfYdhjghgkYd$hd]Yk]
\gofdgY\Yim]klagffYaj]
=\al]\Zq9daklYaj>gp$:YjjqC]al`?jYfl$ ^jgeooo&afl]dd][lZggck&[ge&
Yf\@adYjqJY\f]j
AK:F1/0)0,)-(,*-,
HYh]jZY[c
MC)1&1-tMK,(
F]oR]YdYf\`Ykhjg\m[]\gf]g^l`]ogjd\kegkl
naZjYflde[mdlmj]kl]klYe]fllgl`][gmfljqk
]ngdnaf_`aklgjq&>jge]Yjdqkad]fl^]Ylmj]kdac]L`]
L]CgglaLjYadlgj][]fldekkm[`YkJan]jIm]]f$
l`akZggc]pYeaf]kl`]jgd]g^[af]eYafZmad\af_Y
k`Yj]\k]fk]g^fYlagfYda\]flalq&L`]ogjckg^c]q
\aj][lgjk$af[dm\af_H]l]jBY[ckgf$BYf];Yehagf
Yf\Naf[]flOYj\$Yj]afljg\m[]\afYf]oda_`l$
Yf\k]d][ldekYj]_an]faf%\]hl`[gn]jY_]&Oal` Lgna]ogmj[YlYdg_m]gjgj\]j
af^gjeYlan]Y[[gmflkg^F]oR]YdYf\k^Yk[afYlaf_ gmjZggckYf\bgmjfYdknakal
fYlagfYd[af]eY$l`akoaddZ]Yemkl^gjdek[`gdYjk ooo&afl]dd][lZggck&[ge
Yjgmf\l`]_dgZ]& Afl]dd][l$L`]Eadd$HYjfYddJgY\$
>ak`hgf\k$:jaklgd$:K).+B?&
L]d2#,, (!))/1-011)(
>Yp2#,, (!))/1-011))