Best 98 quotes of Michael Haneke on MyQuotes

A feature film is twenty-four lies per second.

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

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.

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.

As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody.

A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.

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.

Awards are important for all directors because they improve your working conditions. You're only as good as your last film, so if you get prizes or large audiences, then you get more money for your next film.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Even the most elitist director or author who claims that he doesn't care if his works are seen or not, then I have to think that he's either a liar or a hypocrite.

Every form of anti-Semitism, every form of xenophobia plays on the fear of the unknown, and unfortunately there are all too many politicians who know how to manipulate that. The dumber people are, the more they feel the need for a broad set of shoulders they can lay their head against.

Film is simply the most complex way you can express yourself

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.

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.

For me, it's always difficult when a historical film claims to depict or represent a reality that none of us can know, that is always different. It's always the case. We never know what happened then.

For me, it's always difficult when a historical film claims to depict or represent a reality that none of us can know, that is always different. It's always the case. We never know what happened then. So my approach with the narrator is to question that, to leave that open, to underline the fact that this is uncertain.

I consider all my films experiments.

I don't need a psychiatrist. I can sort out my fears with my work. That's the privilege of all artists, to be able to sort out their unhappiness and their neuroses in order to create something.

If a director says he doesn't care how many people see his films at all, I simply don't believe him. Otherwise why would he bother to make the film? The only explanation would be that it would be an act of masturbation. I think that every creator is looking for a receptor. He's looking for an audience. There are two parts of the equation: a creator and, necessarily, the receiver of the work. It's the same thing for a painter who wants his paintings to be seen.

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.

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.

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.

If you do an original film and you want to cut a scene out you do it. But when you do a shot by shot remake you don't have that option and every scene has to work again.

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.

I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.

I like to write for actors I know and with whom I've worked before. You can write to their strengths and weaknesses and write roles that are better suited to them.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

I never use soundtrack; it is always part of the story.

In German. I'm more sensitized to the details, to the emotions. In English, I wouldn't detect as much nuance.

In general, in all my films, I choose to create a certain mistrust, rather than claiming that what I'm showing onscreen is an accurate reproduction of reality. I want people to question what they are seeing onscreen. In the same way as I used the narrator, I also used black and white, because it creates a distance toward what's being seen. I see the film as an artifact rather than a reliable reconstruction of a reality that we cannot know.

In my film "Benny's Video," I depicted violence but I failed to say all that I had to say, so I wanted to continue the dialog and that's why I did "Funny Games." The irony is that after I shot "Funny Games," but it hadn't been released at all anywhere.

In terms of cinema and filmmaking, there are certainly the unexpected gifts that the actors bestow on you. Film is always a question of compromises with respect to what you originally intended.

It became a gamble to myself whether I was able to do the exact same film ["Funny Games"]under very different circumstances.

It could be Fascist, religious or political - it's always the same model that operates in these circumstances, and it's that which is the actuality of this film. Therefore, it's not specifically an explanation of German Fascism because that would be an impossible thing to do in any case.

I think that religion is an integral part of human needs, but the question also is how you understand religion.

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.

I think watching a movie that simply confirms my feelings is a waste of time. That applies not only to movies, but also to books and every form of art.

It is boring to have all the answers. Only political people have answers.

It's a disease of critics that once they've labeled someone, it's very hard to change their perspective. It's laziness.

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.

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.