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If you go with the principle, you should go with the principle. If I really saw the subject very differently than ten years ago, I would have done a different movie.

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
Years
Ten
Really
Subject
Would
Saws
Subjects
Principles
Movie
Done
Differently
Different
Principle

More quotes by Michael Haneke

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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 to do with an art form.
Michael Haneke
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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
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A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.
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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I always seek to mobilize, to call on the imagination of the spectator. It's well-known that the images that are created by one's imagination are far stronger than any that I can show. In fact, it's an error, a widespread error in mainstream cinema, to always want to show things and to depict things.
Michael Haneke
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In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.
Michael Haneke
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It became a gamble to myself whether I was able to do the exact same film [Funny Games]under very different circumstances.
Michael Haneke
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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
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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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Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself
Michael Haneke
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The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.
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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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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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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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
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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
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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
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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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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
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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