Quote

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.

Michael Haneke

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Michael Haneke
Age: 82
Born: 1942
Born: March 23
Film Actor
Film Critic
Film Director
Screenwriter
Theatrical Director
University Teacher
Writer
München
Young
Directors
Wanted
Couldn
Even
Television
Always
Days
Never
Freedom
Making
Tell
Producers
Didn
Starting

More quotes by Michael Haneke

Image
I consider all my films experiments.
Michael Haneke
Image
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.
Michael Haneke
Image
As a private person, professionally I am invisible.
Michael Haneke
Image
That is one of the characteristics of fascism, the idea that the state can provide all of the answers for everyone.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
If I tell the audience what they should think, then I am robbing them of their own imagination and their own capacity of deciding what's important to them.
Michael Haneke
Image
In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.
Michael Haneke
Image
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.
Michael Haneke
Image
I think that religion is an integral part of human needs, but the question also is how you understand religion.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
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
Image
A feature film is twenty-four lies per second.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.
Michael Haneke
Image
When you create a church, an institution, and you create a dogma. When you create an ideology, that's the danger. Communism, too, is a beautiful idea, but millions of people died when communism became an ideology.
Michael Haneke
Image
You become a film critic because you're interested in film. I don't know whether knowing so much about cinema leads you to make better films, but it certainly can't hurt.
Michael Haneke
Image
It's more enjoyable to shoot in a studio on a single location with two actors... if they are good.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.
Michael Haneke
Image
I'm interested in seeing films that confront me with new things, with films that make me question myself, with films that help me to reflect on subjects that I hadn't thought about before, films that help me progress and advance.
Michael Haneke