Funny Games

This chapter is concerned with Michael Haneke’s Funny Games and the role of imagination in cinematic engagement. Drawing upon the work of Richard Moran, the chapter shows how Funny Games makes the case that a film’s audience is, through its imaginative engagement, morally implicated in the events depicted on screen. I demonstrate that Funny Games develops certain themes found in Moran’s “The Expression of Feeling in Imagination.” While the bulk of Moran’s article is devoted to attacking a particular trend in the philosophical aesthetics literature, wherein film viewing is understood as an exercise in make-believe, Moran ends on a constructive note, recommending additional ways that imagination might be deployed for the purpose of appreciating art. My suggestion is that Funny Games uses the resources of its medium to investigate the role of imagination in our engagement with film in ways first suggested by Moran, thereby engaging philosophically with questions about aesthetics, art, and the philosophy of film.