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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
Someone
Change
Perspective
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" As a private person, professionally I am invisible. "
Michael Haneke
Person
I Am
Invisible
" To be perfectly honest, I think that as I'm growing older, I'm just growing more impatient. I'll be very happy if at some point people say, 'Michael's grown wiser and softer in his old age.' But we'll have to wait and see what my next project is. "
Michael Haneke
People
Think
Old Age
" 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
Me
You
Know
" You'll see more violence in any television crime series than you will in my films... Art is there to have a stimulating effect, if it earns its name. You have to be honest, that's the only thing. "
Michael Haneke
Violence
Name
Television
" An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message. "
Michael Haneke
Answers
Questions
Who
" Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different. "
Michael Haneke
Inevitable
Know
Feel
" 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
Parents
Romantic
Own
" In all of my work I'm trying to create a dialogue, in which I want to provoke the recipients, stimulate them to use their own imaginations. I don't just say things recipients want to hear, flatter their egos or comfort them by agreeing with them. I have to provoke them, to take them as seriously as I take myself. "
Michael Haneke
Work
Trying
Comfort
" All movies assault the viewer in one way or another. "
Michael Haneke
Assault
One Way
Way
" There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition - which means seeing things you're familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there's also hysterical laughter - a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us. "
Michael Haneke
Recognition
Laughter
Yourself
" 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
Audience
Watch
Film
" 'Funny Games' was conceived as a provocation. My other films are different. If people feel my other films are, or respond to them as provocation, then that's quite different. 'Funny Games' is the only one of mine where my intention was to provoke the audience. "
Michael Haneke
Intention
Feel
Audience
" There is just as much evil in all of us as there is good. We're all continuously guilty, even if we're not doing it intentionally to be evil. Here we are sitting in luxury hotels, living it up on the the backs of others in the third world. We all have a guilty conscience, but we do very little about it. "
Michael Haneke
Doing
World
Living
" 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
Us
War
Civil War
" I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director. "
Michael Haneke
Child
See
Men
" A feature film is twenty-four lies per second. "
Michael Haneke
Feature
Film
Twenty-Four
" 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
People
Art
Cinema
" 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
Television
Me
Always
" 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
Simple
Think
Answers
" I'm lucky enough to be able to make films and so I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears and all those things with my work. That's an enormous privilege. 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
Enough
Work
Privilege
" You can use your means in a good and bad way. In German-speaking art, we had such a bad experience with the Third Reich, when stories and images were used to tell lies. After the war, literature was careful not to do the same, which is why writers began to reflect on the stories they told and to make readers part of their texts. I do the same. "
Michael Haneke
Experience
Bad
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
Uniform
Girl
Young
" I think it's a little simplistic to explain a work through the psychology of its author. In other words, that Haneke has emotional problems, so I don't have to take his films seriously. By using this argument, the viewer retreats from the challenges of the film. "
Michael Haneke
Think
Challenges
Problems
" 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
Beginning
Ideas
Impossible
" I'm not someone who enjoys long talks, long rehearsals. I'm very technical: I tell my actors, you come in, you sit down, you pick up a coffee, you look here, you say the line. We try it with the cameras rolling, and if it doesn't work, we adjust it until it does. It's very simple. "
Michael Haneke
Work
Simple
Look
" 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
Love
Know
Looking
" 'The White Ribbon' had to be in German because of the subject matter, that was clear. But in the case of 'Amour,' it could have taken place in any country. "
Michael Haneke
Matter
Place
White
" 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
Unexpected
Perception
People
" 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
Violence
You
Trying
" 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
Funny
Mother
You