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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

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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
Make
Interested
Things
Progress
Question
Confront
Seeing
Advance
Help
Reflect
Helping
Hadn
Film
Films
Thought
Subjects

More quotes by Michael Haneke

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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
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That is one of the characteristics of fascism, the idea that the state can provide all of the answers for everyone.
Michael Haneke
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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
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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
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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
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What we're doing for another person is more important than what we're feeling for them.
Michael Haneke
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I consider all my films an experiment, at least in my mind.
Michael Haneke
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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
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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
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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
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Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.
Michael Haneke
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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
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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
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Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.
Michael Haneke
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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.
Michael Haneke
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It's a disease of critics that once they've labeled someone, it's very hard to change their perspective. It's laziness.
Michael Haneke
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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
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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
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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
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It's more enjoyable to shoot in a studio on a single location with two actors... if they are good.
Michael Haneke