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
couple nice giving
Usually, when making a film, the surprises are negative surprises. You don't get what you wanted or what you hoped for. The only nice surprises are those that are offered to you by actors when they offer you these gifts, when they are better and give you more than what you had originally conceived. That doesn't happen every day on set, but if it happens a couple of times in the course of making a film, you can consider yourself very lucky.
jumping giving flight
At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.
simple thinking giving
Films that are entertainments give simple answers but I think that's ultimately more cynical, as it denies the viewer room to think. If there are more answers at the end, then surely it is a richer experience.
artist raises-questions giving
An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message.
thinking giving spoons
I give the spectator the possibility of participating. The audience completes the film by thinking about it; those who watch must not be just consumers ingesting spoon-fed images.
buried confront country daniel france general guilt saw stunned third
I wanted to confront someone with something he had done as a child. That was the general idea, guilt and consequences. Then I wanted to make a film with Daniel Auteuil. And the third thing, I saw a documentary about the 1961 massacre. I was stunned that in a country like France it could be buried for so long.
audience certain envisioned funny human intention reaction toys watch
When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable.
aware constant difference images television
Manipulation is constant in the media. Even the images of 'reality' on television are manipulated. The difference in this film is that the manipulation is there to make you aware that you are being manipulated, that you can be manipulated.
chewing gratuitous gum perhaps physical run scared school wrapped
It's because I am a coward. At school, when there were fights, I'd run away. I have always been scared of physical violence. Perhaps that's the reason. But it also angers me to see gratuitous violence, wrapped up like chewing gum to be consumed. It's irritating; it's cynical.
conceived films funny intention mine people quite respond
'Funny Games' was conceived as a provocation. My other films are different. If people feel my other films are, or respond to them as provocation, then that's quite different. 'Funny Games' is the only one of mine where my intention was to provoke the audience.
highly presented seventh spectators whereas
When my first film 'The Seventh Continent' was presented here 12 years ago, non-Austrian spectators would come up to me and say, 'Is Austria that terrible?', whereas for me it wasn't about Austria but about highly industrialised cultures everywhere.
art bad began careful experience good images literature means readers reflect stories third war writers
You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not to do the same, which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same.
art attitude audience book closer films form literature mainly objective pick seeing serves tv
Films for TV have to be much closer to the book, mainly because the objective with a TV movie that translates literature is to get the audience, after seeing this version, to pick up the book and read it themselves. My attitude is that TV can never really be any form of art, because it serves audience expectations.
agreeing egos flatter provoke recipients seriously stimulate trying work
In all of my work I'm trying to create a dialogue, in which I want to provoke the recipients, stimulate them to use their own imaginations. I don't just say things recipients want to hear, flatter their egos or comfort them by agreeing with them. I have to provoke them, to take them as seriously as I take myself.