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It's the duty of art to ask questions, not to provide answers. And if you want a clearer answer, I'll have to pass.
Michael Haneke
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Michael Haneke
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 23
Film Actor
Film Critic
Film Director
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
University Teacher
Writer
München
Asks
Art
Clearer
Provide
Pass
Questions
Answer
Duty
Answers
More quotes by 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.
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
I think that religion is an integral part of human needs, but the question also is how you understand religion.
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.
Michael Haneke
People have been educated to expect answers, even before the questions come along. It's the TV principle. You offer three possible answers before the questions come to relax and calm the audience.
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.
Michael Haneke
Because in the feudal system of that period at least 80% of people lived in villages, so it's very simple to get a cross-section of society in a single village. You get the microcosm of the social macrocosm.
Michael Haneke
It became a gamble to myself whether I was able to do the exact same film [Funny Games]under very different circumstances.
Michael Haneke
Of course there are many films about the period of Fascism itself but I don't know of any about that period beforehand. But it wasn't that specific fact that they weren't there that got me to think about this in the first place. It's not what led to the basic idea for the film, although it became apparent when I began to think about it.
Michael Haneke
You cannot hurt animals, so what do I do? I kill the dog first. Then I do it with the boy. You're not supposed to break the illusion of this being a film, so I make the actor talk to the audience. Provocation is the principle of the whole film [ Funny Games]. It is very ironic.
Michael Haneke
Film is the manipulative medium par excellence. When you think back on the history of film and the 20th century, you see the propaganda that's been made. So there are moral demands on the director to treat the spectators as seriously as he or she takes himself and not to see them merely as victims that can be manipulated to whatever ends they have.
Michael Haneke
Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite.
Michael Haneke
A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.
Michael Haneke
The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.
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.
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 confront us with things that in the entertainment industry are usually swept under the rug.
Michael Haneke
I want to be able to control things and that's very difficult to do if you're not 100% in a particular language. It makes you uncertain and it makes you nervous.
Michael Haneke
I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears with my work. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.
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.
Michael Haneke
Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable.
Michael Haneke
