Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it… thats different. – Michael Haneke
People expect me to be dark and gloomy, then write that Im a jolly chap, and after all, that is what I am. I think its a case of an absolute romantic naivety that there should be a parallel between the work and the artist. – Michael Haneke
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
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