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" On the set I make jokes I can't get too involved, or it turns into sentimental soup. I try to keep it light. "
Michael Haneke
Keep
Light
Soup
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" Usually music is used to hide a film's problems. "
Michael Haneke
Problems
Hide
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" '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
" When I first envisioned 'Funny Games' in the mid-1990s, it was my intention to have an American audience watch the movie. It is a reaction to a certain American cinema, its violence, its naivety, the way American cinema toys with human beings. In many American films, violence is made consumable. "
Michael Haneke
Violence
Funny
Cinema
" 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 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
" 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
Parents
You
Create
" 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
" 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
" 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
" An artist is someone who should raise questions rather than give answers. I have no message. "
Michael Haneke
Answers
Questions
Who
" 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
" 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
" 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
" What we're doing for another person is more important than what we're feeling for them. "
Michael Haneke
Feeling
Doing
More
" When my first film 'The Seventh Continent' was presented here 12 years ago, non-Austrian spectators would come up to me and say, 'Is Austria that terrible?', whereas for me it wasn't about Austria but about highly industrialised cultures everywhere. "
Michael Haneke
Cultures
Me
Here
" '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
" 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
Me
Art
Look
" 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
Try
World
Real
" 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
" Personally, I can't stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there's 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don't know why those directors aren't asked why they're such specialists for violence. "
Michael Haneke
Know
Violence
Why
" 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 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
" Films for TV have to be much closer to the book, mainly because the objective with a TV movie that translates literature is to get the audience, after seeing this version, to pick up the book and read it themselves. My attitude is that TV can never really be any form of art, because it serves audience expectations. "
Michael Haneke
Never
Expectations
Book
" 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
Doing
Control
Know
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" A feature film is twenty-four lies per second. "
Michael Haneke
Feature
Film
Twenty-Four
" My father and I had a good relationship, it was very relaxed. He had a lot of humour. He looked a little bit like me, although he had no beard. He had the appearance of a very elegant British-looking man. "
Michael Haneke
Father
Relationship
Me