Michael Haneke
Michael Haneke
Michael Hanekeis an Austrian film director and screenwriter best known for films such as Funny Games, Caché, The White Ribbonand Amour. His work often examines social issues, and depicts the feelings of estrangement experienced by individuals in modern society. Haneke has worked in television‚ theatre and cinema. Besides working as a filmmaker, Haneke also teaches film direction at the Film Academy Vienna...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth23 March 1942
CityMunich, Germany
CountryUnited States of America
thinking needs humans
I think that religion is an integral part of human needs, but the question also is how you understand religion.
beautiful ideas people
The difficulty, then, is when you create a church, an institution, and you create a dogma. When you create an ideology, that's the danger. Communism, too, is a beautiful idea, but millions of people died when communism became an ideology.
character exercise ideas
The trouble is that when you read criticisms about the other films that I've made you get the impression that they're all about themes, or problems, or ideas. But those are actually things that develop out of characters, out of images and out of other things. These more abstract things develop while working on the material, and out of it. It's not a theoretical exercise from the outset.
thinking ideas firsts
Of course there are many films about the period of Fascism itself but I don't know of any about that period beforehand. But it wasn't that specific fact that they weren't there that got me to think about this in the first place. It's not what led to the basic idea for the film, although it became apparent when I began to think about it.
children kids hands
The smaller and younger kids are, the more patient you have to be. But if they're gifted, then it's a wonderful present that you're given by having a child like that in your film... more so than in the case of actors because, for example, if you ask them to play a lion, they don't then play a lion, they actually are a lion. So, a gifted child is something very special. On the other hand, if a child has no gifts in that way it's absolutely hopeless and there's nothing you can do!
religious impossible-things political
It could be Fascist, religious or political - it's always the same model that operates in these circumstances, and it's that which is the actuality of this film. Therefore, it's not specifically an explanation of German Fascism because that would be an impossible thing to do in any case.
white people trying
The film [the white Ribbon] does try to use German Fascism as an example, but not specifically Fascism... the results of German Fascism. It shows how people are prepared or indoctrinated for an ideology... people who are already in a state of repression who have been humiliated by society and who clasp at a straw that's offered to them. And how that's then developed into a form of indoctrination.
writing two people
It's much harder to write a script that involves two people in a single location than 20 people in 30 different locations.
cutting want film
If you do an original film and you want to cut a scene out you do it. But when you do a shot by shot remake you don't have that option and every scene has to work again.
games violence video
In my film "Benny's Video," I depicted violence but I failed to say all that I had to say, so I wanted to continue the dialog and that's why I did "Funny Games." The irony is that after I shot "Funny Games," but it hadn't been released at all anywhere.
dog hurt animal
You cannot hurt animals, so what do I do? I kill the dog first. Then I do it with the boy. You're not supposed to break the illusion of this being a film, so I make the actor talk to the audience. Provocation is the principle of the whole film [ Funny Games]. It is very ironic.
children numbers directors
Of course I am a child of European culture. There are a number of great directors from which I learned, but there is nobody in particular I got inspired from.
nuance details emotion
In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.
two actors location
It's more enjoyable to shoot in a studio on a single location with two actors...if they are good.