Andy Warhol relevance?

Yeah, I was wondering about that throughout the film. It kept reverting to Warhol's Marilyn Diptych..I think the collection of pop art had on the wall had to do with the film in itself; comment on social problems, media, etc. Just a guess, not sure myself.

I think it's trying to suggest at a history to the issues that Benny's character embodies. Warhol talks about a society increasingly mediated by images, which of course is at the core of "Benny's Video" as well. But while Warhol's work legitimises, or at least aestheticizes, media-obsessed society, Haneke wants to show what he sees as the alienating effects of it. He sees kids like Benny living their lives "second hand" because they're immersed in both the creation and consumption of images, and as a result they become somewhat detached from reality. Obviously Benny's character is an extreme version of this idea.

That Benny's parents have covered their dining room wall-to-wall with images suggests that they're from "Warhol's" generation; when the huge influence that media had on people's lives became mainstream with TV/magazines/etc. Benny's life is a continuation of this process. His room is also completely dedicated to images, except it's an even more immersive media, one that dominates the way he interacts with the world-- through his video camera.

Sorry if I rambled a little bit, but in short what I'm trying to say is that Warhol is an early icon of how media has changed how we see the world, so showing his work in the context of his parent's dining room is a way of really efficiently drawing attention to the fact that these issues have a history, and that the film isn't just the story about a single crazy teenager.

I read in an article in Sight and Sound that Michael Haneke considered pop art to be the worst kind of art, in the same way punk rock is to music. (I don't really have anything against punk rock, I am just quoting what the article said). So In the same way Benny listens to punk rock all day, he enjoys pop art. It is another way to dehumanize him.

I think it's the collection of works is more important than the one Warhol itself. The wall is so oversaturated that you can't give any one artwork the attention that it deserves. On top of that it has unimportant kitschy works mixed in(some butterflies someone put in a shadowbox for example). It speaks to this channel flipping generation that Benny is part of. Any artistic intent that might have been present in the works looses it's power in this presentation.

and it's not just pop art, as it often shows a still life of decaying fruit from time to time. It puts a strong focus on this after the vacation. Still life's of this sort were painted in order to remind the viewer than nothing will last.. a little foreshadowing.

I'll concede that the Warhol poster seems to stand out among the rest, but that being said, I think the collective of all the paintings on the wall is more important than the significance of any one. The film is about the ramifications of social alienation, a complete and unrelenting indictment of bourgeois life. One of the major themes we see throughout the film is the total inundation of pop culture and the relentless overstimulation provided by society and, more specifically, by media. Looking at the wall with the Warhol poster, it is a complete visual overload. The thing that struck me most was the placement of a Mona Lisa print directly beneath the Warhol. Somewhat of a contrast, don't you think? Suffice it to say, Da Vinci and Warhol aren't exactly side-by-side in the annals of art history. But on the wall of a bourgeois family home, they live adjacently to one another, whether they like it or not. Modern society has a way of forcing into close quarters things that might be better kept at a distance, including (and perhaps especially) human beings. Tenement housing, crammed residential sectors, business offices, cubicles, and so on. And there are consequences to this way of life. Obvious consequences. They manifest themselves fully about a half hour into the film, in the mandatory moment of shock value that finds its way into every Haneke film. In fact, there are more subtle consequences within the parameters of the wall itself. The paintings on the wall, individually, are destroyed by their proximity to so many other, essentially disparate works. The wall is littered with so much art of all kinds that any one piece loses its meaning. Similarly, we, as members of an equally congested society, are at risk of losing the meaning in our own lives. We risk losing our sense of compassion, our basic human morality, our sense of wellbeing, both our own and that of others, amidst the clutter and chaos of a society in disarray. And so the wall of paintings, I think, serves as a visual metaphor for bourgeois life in general, which is characterized by a failure to make a cohesive whole out of the individual parts. In the film, there is more data coming in than Benny's brain knows what to do with. He can't organize it -- he can't make sense of it -- and so it pollutes his mind and ultimately acts as a catalyst for terrible things. Haneke drives this point home almost incessantly throughout the film. The stereo plays music of questionable taste at a volume most people couldn't bear. The television offers more channels than most people would know what to do with, especially since all of them are populated by total garbage. And, yes, the wall is covered in more art than the human eye could ever possibly absorb in any meaningful way. I think it has a great deal to do with the notion of excess in bourgeois existence -- this idea that more is somehow better. And there's no better proof of the fallacy of this notion than to throw a hundred paintings on one wall, every one potentially beautiful and meaningful in itself, but all ruined by the collective mess and visual confusion that they project when gathered in such a small space. To me, the wall is very much a visual representation of what might be going on inside Benny's head: a cluttered mess of media stimulation, bourgeois values, and adolescent angst, the combination of which is more than poor little Benny's mind can handle. Of course, externally, he seems to handle everything quite well. And that's the most frightening thing of all, because in this way Benny is a perfect reflection of his society: calm and composed on the surface, but look a bit deeper and reveal the horrors that lurk beneath.