Narratological Analysis of Cache

Paper Summary:

In this article, the writer studies the film 'Cache', by writer and director Michael Haneke, through a narratological analysis. The writer first provides a definition and analysis of narratology. The writer then notes that 'Cache' is a complex and ambiguous drama that readily makes itself available to narratological analysis due to its deceptively "simple" visual presentation and story structure, which in fact disguises a profoundly inventive underlying narrative approach reminiscent of Antonioni in its lack of closure and refusal to manipulate or pander to audience expectations. The writer concludes that Cache also plays with the ambiguity between the hermeneutic code and the proairetic code. The writer maintains that by allowing these two codes to interplay without well-defined closure, Haneke is able to provide his audience with an active role in the decipherment of the film's "text," a task which can continue long after the film has ended.

From the Paper:

"The opening fade-in to what appears to be a simple long-shot of the house front, held for an interminable amount of time, is in fact revealed to be a videotape of the house front being watched on their television by Georges and Anne. This identical shot, or shots very nearly identical to it, is repeated several times throughout the film. Other shots which appear at first to be ordinary omniscient narrator shots (such as Georges' first visit to Majid's apartment), turn out, when repeated minutes later in another context, to have been in fact point-of-view shots taken from the position of the mysterious voyeur's hidden video camera."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Felluga, Dino. "Terms Used by Narratology and Film Theory." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. 26 November 2006. Purdue University. http://www.purdue.edu/guidetotheory/narratology/terms.
• Harmon, William and Holman, Hugh. A Handbook to Literature. 4th Ed. Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall 2006.
• "Narratology: The Study of Story Structure." ERIC Digest. 2006. http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-921/story.htm.

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