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
To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.
My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.
What I like are films that take me seriously, that don't treat me as more stupid than I am.
You become a film critic because you're interested in film. I don't know whether knowing so much about cinema leads you to make better films, but it certainly can't hurt.
Classicism becomes avant-garde when everyone else is doing their utmost to develop new stylistic forms. I think it's healthy to return to classical forms.
I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.
To me, it's far more efficient to mobilize the imagination. It's far more efficient to hear a creaking step, for example, than to see the face of a monster, which usually looks ridiculous, and where you know that the blood is ketchup.
I like to write for actors I know and with whom I've worked before. You can write to their strengths and weaknesses and write roles that are better suited to them.
People expect me to be dark and gloomy, then write that I'm a jolly chap, and after all, that is what I am. I think it's a case of an absolute romantic naivety that there should be a parallel between the work and the artist.
I want to make it clear: it's not that I hate mainstream cinema. It's perfectly fine. There are a lot of people who need to escape, because they are in very difficult situations, so they have the right to escape from the world. But this has nothing to do with an art form.
I make my films because I'm affected by a situation, by something that makes me want to reflect on it, that lends itself to an artistic reflection. I always aim to look directly at what I'm dealing with. I think it's a task of dramatic art to confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug.
Like every filmmaker, I make my films to reach the widest audience possible.
When making a film, I'm never concerned about whether the theme is new or whether it's been done before in cinema or not. I'm led to make films if there's a theme that interests me or I experience something in my own life that confronts me with something that I want to deal with.
It's a fact that people who are in a weakened position, whether physically or mentally, have this perception of the outer world as threatening. Everything that is unexpected or unknown is seen as a potential danger.