3 December 2020 Michael Haneke Mainstream cinema raises questions only to immediately provide an answer to them, so they can send the spectator home reassured. If we actually had those answers, then society would appear very different from what it is.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke I’ve never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn’t, I didn’t do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don’t have.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke Because I’m the author of my screenplays I know what I’m looking for. It’s true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it’s also a question of working with patience and love.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke To be perfectly honest, I think that as I’m growing older, I’m just growing more impatient. I’ll be very happy if at some point people say, ‘Michael’s grown wiser and softer in his old age.’ But we’ll have to wait and see what my next project is.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke 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.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke 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.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke It’s unbearable when someone changes around you. Just imagine that your life partner changes, then it is difficult to cope with. Or your mother. Or your father. They were strong and now they’re like a baby – it’s not so funny.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke Drama lives on conflict. If you’re trying to deal with social issues seriously, there’s no way of avoiding violence, which is so present in society.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it… that’s different.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke And if there was one title that could be applied to all my films, it would be ‘Civil War’ – not civil war in the way we know it, but the daily war that goes on between us all.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke My father and I had a good relationship, it was very relaxed. He had a lot of humour. He looked a little bit like me, although he had no beard. He had the appearance of a very elegant British-looking man.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke And I don’t believe that children are innocent. In fact, no one seriously believes that. Just go to a playground and watch the kids playing in the sandbox! The romantic notion of the sweet child is simply the parents projecting their own wishes.
3 December 2020 Michael Haneke 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.
