Quote

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

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
Home
Appear
Different
Provide
Reassured
Would
Raises
Spectator
Questions
Spectators
Answer
Mainstream
Answers
Immediately
Society
Send
Actually
Cinema

More quotes by Michael Haneke

Image
It's impossible to consider living without ideals. However, when ideas lead to ideology, that's a very dangerous thing. Ideology then leads to creating the image of an enemy, and it leads to the murder and massacre that we've seen since the beginning of time.
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
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
Image
What we're doing for another person is more important than what we're feeling for them.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself
Michael Haneke
Image
If I'm reading a book that doesn't leave me with questions, moving questions, that I feel confronted with, then for me it's a waste of time. I don't want to read a book that simply confirms what I already know.
Michael Haneke
Image
I love actors, both my parents were actors, and the work with actors is the most enjoyable part of making a film. It's important that they feel protected and are confident they won't be betrayed. When you create that atmosphere of trust, it's in the bag - the actors will do everything to satisfy you.
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
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
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
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
Image
To decide to film a movie again shot by shot, you must be masochistic to a certain degree because it is a much greater challenge.
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
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
That is one of the characteristics of fascism, the idea that the state can provide all of the answers for everyone.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.
Michael Haneke
Image
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
Image
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