Quotes by Michael Haneke

About Michael Haneke:

Michael Haneke is an Austrian film director and screenwriter best known for films such as Funny Games (1997), Caché (2005), The White Ribbon (2009) and Amour (2012). 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.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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.

Michael Haneke

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 be...

Michael Haneke

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 r...

Michael Haneke

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 t...

Michael Haneke

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 confron...

Michael Haneke

You'll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films... Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that's the only thing.

Michael Haneke

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.

Michael Haneke

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.

Michael Haneke

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.

Michael Haneke

My mother as a young girl went out with a young SS officer and she didn't really know what was going on - she just liked the uniform. When he told her about the things that he did, she was disgusted and broke up with him.

Michael Haneke

An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message.

Michael Haneke

What I like are films that take me seriously, that don't treat me as more stupid than I am.

Michael Haneke

It's harder to write a story with just two people in a room than with 50 characters.

Michael Haneke

Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence.

Michael Haneke

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.

Michael Haneke

What we're doing for another person is more important than what we're feeling for them.

Michael Haneke

I'm far more relaxed with German. I'm a control freak. I like to know exactly who's saying and doing what.

Michael Haneke

As a private person, professionally I am invisible.

Michael Haneke

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.

Michael Haneke

I consider all my films experiments.

Michael Haneke

Author Bio

  • NameMichael Haneke
  • DescriptionAustrian film director and screenwriter
  • BornMarch 23, 1942
  • CountryAustria
  • ProfessionFilm Director; Screenwriter; Writer
  • AwardsKnight Of The Legion Of Honour; Commandeur Des Arts Et Des Lettres?; Romy; Gold Decoration For Services To The City Of Vienna; Konrad Wolf Prize; Princess Of Asturias Award - Art