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
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
enormous fears films neuroses order privilege sort work
I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.
case german subject taken
'The White Ribbon' had to be in German because of the subject matter, that was clear. But in the case of 'Amour,' it could have taken place in any country.
emotional explain films psychology retreats simplistic using viewer work
I think it's a little simplistic to explain a work through the psychology of its author. In other words, that Haneke has emotional problems, so I don't have to take his films seriously. By using this argument, the viewer retreats from the challenges of the film.
care want matter
Never say no. It always depends on what's possible. I don't care so much where it is; it's what I want to do that matters.
years done saws
If you go with the principle, you should go with the principle. If I really saw the subject very differently than ten years ago, I would have done a different movie.