Michael Haneke: Film

“All of my films constitute a reaction against mainstream cinema. Every serious form of art sees the receiver as a partner in the undertaking. In fact, that's one of the preconditions of humanistic thought. In cinema, this fact, which should be self-evident, has been overlooked and replaced by an emphasis on the commercial aspects of the medium.”

Michael Haneke

In response to the question, "You're well known for not wanting to impose interpretations on your films. Is this because you believe that audiences have become accustomed to being spoon-fed and told what to think?"
as interviewed by Richard Porton, "Collective Guilt and Individual Responsibility: An Interview with Michael Haneke," Cineaste, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 50-51

Art

“Film is an artificial construct. It pretends to reconstruct reality. But it doesn't do that—it's a manipulative form. It's a lie that can reveal the truth. But if a film isn't a work of art, it's just complicit with the process of manipulation.”

Michael Haneke

as interviewed by Richard Porton, "Collective Guilt and Individual Responsibility: An Interview with Michael Haneke," Cineaste, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 50-51

Truth , Lie , Art , Reality

“I do think that our perception of reality is fragmentary, and in 20th-century literature, it's totally normal to not describe reality as something whole and completely transportable and explicable. That's been accepted in novels. But genre films always pretend that reality is transportable, which means that it is explicable.”

Michael Haneke

Lawrence, Chua. "Michael Haneke" http://bombsite.com/issues/80/articles/2489, BOMB Magazine, Summer, 2002. Retrieved 29 July 2011.

Reality , Thinking , Literature

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

Michael Haneke

[Ignoramous, Lamos, Watch "24 Realities Per Second" Michael Haneke Documentary, http://filmslie.com/24-realities-per-second-michael-haneke-documentary/, FilmsLie.com, 10 August 2016]

Truth

“Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable. Propaganda is far more pornographic than a home video of two people fucking.”

Michael Haneke

[Christopher Sharrett, http://www.kinoeye.org/04/01/interview01.php, Austrian film: Michael Haneke interviewed, Kinoeye, 20 September 2011]

Home , War , People , Life

“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

From "Film as catharsis". Haneke, Michael – "Film als Katharsis": in Austria (in)felix: zum österreichischem Film der 80er Jahre – Bono, Francesco (ed.), 1992. ISBN 3-901272-00-3

Falseness , Question