My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its dis-empowerment of the spectator. They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent questions instead of false (because too quick) answers, for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness, for provocation and dialogue instead of consumption and consensus.

Michael Haneke

Categorized in : Cinema Distance Empowerment

I give the spectator the possibility of participating. The audience completes the film by thinking about it; those who watch must not be just consumers ingesting spoon-fed images.

Michael Haneke

giving watches thinking

Writers and filmakers, that is, people who describe the world, suffer from an occupational disease. They never experience moments in life quite spontaneously. You always look at yourself from the outside. Even as a child I always observed myself and the world. I believe that everyone who chooses this path in any way, who chooses to be a describer of life, suffers from this condition. It's like a mental obsession. It can be a great pity too. It robs you of a certain joy in spontaneity.

Michael Haneke

believe children people

Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself

Michael Haneke

express-yourself film way

I'm not really a happy person. It's a question of temperament. I have a tendency toward melancholy. You can feel quite happily melancholic.

Michael Haneke

tendencies melancholy feels

An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message.

Michael Haneke

raises-questions artist giving

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

important imagination thinking

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

raises-questions different home

I don't need a psychiatrist.

Michael Haneke

artist order needs

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

reflection art thinking

I try to get closer to reality, to get close to the contradictions. The cinema world can be a real world rather than a dream world.

Michael Haneke

real dream trying

Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth.

Michael Haneke

film lying

And I don't believe that children are innocent. In fact, no one seriously believes that. Just go to a playground and watch the kids playing in the sandbox! The romantic notion of the sweet child is simply the parents projecting their own wishes.

Michael Haneke

sweet believe children

If someone's lying to us, then it's rare that we know that they're lying to us. It's only in bad films that you recognize immediately that an actor's playing in such a way that you can see that he's lying, and that's simply dumb. But to reach that, it requires that you make a film in such a way that a spectator feels compelled to find his own explanation. You want to lead the spectator to find his own interpretation. To ask questions rather than provide all of the answers. Doing that leads to open endings and open dramaturgy.

Michael Haneke

film dumb lying

My feeling, however, is that films that are open are more productive for the audience. The films that, if I'm in a cinema, and I'm watching a movie that answers all the questions that it raises, it's a film that bores me. In the same way, 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

reading book moving

I think that what's important as a director is to give your actors the feeling that they're protected, the feeling of confidence, the feeling that if they make mistakes, then as a director, you'll know how to help them. If you're able to convey that, then the actors will give you wonderful performances. As well as the author, you have to write scenes that give the actors the opportunity to show what they're capable of.

Michael Haneke

mistake writing opportunity

I'm far more relaxed with German. I'm a control freak. I like to know exactly who's saying and doing what.

Michael Haneke

saying-and-doing relaxed freak

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

perspective disease laziness

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

answers want art

My mother as a young girl went out with a young SS officer and she didn't really know what was going on - she just liked the uniform. When he told her about the things that he did, she was disgusted and broke up with him.

Michael Haneke

uniforms girl mother

It's unbearable when someone changes around you. Just imagine that your life partner changes, then it is difficult to cope with. Or your mother. Or your father. They were strong and now they're like a baby - it's not so funny.

Michael Haneke

strong mother baby