Original subtitles

Thanks for coming to this Master Class with Michael Haneke, everyone.

First, I'll fill you in on what's going to happen.

We plan to hold a conversation that will last a good hour.

It will be illustrated by three film clips which I have selected

and which I would like him to react to.

Then you will have about 20 minutes

in which to ask Michael Haneke your questions.

That way you will get a moment to exchange your views with him.

I should point out that we are not going to talk about Happy End

because there is a screening of the film tonight

and it's a film that Michael doesn't want to talk about

until people have had a chance to see it.

It would only result in us foolishly giving away spoilers.

So it might come up in conversation

as a film which is about to be released

but at no point will we speak in depth about Happy End.

But later tonight, after the preview of Happy End,

Michael will be back here for a discussion on Happy End.

Having laid out the ground rules,

I won't do you the insult of introducing Michael Haneke.

However, I will say a few words to remind you

that he started out as a TV director and then became a theatre director.

He made his first feature film in 1989.

That was The Seventh Continent which was discovered in Cannes

at the Directors' Fortnight

and released in France in 1992

at the same time as his second film Benny's Video

which is the film that introduced him to French cinemagoers.

And since then we have seen all of his films in France.

They have nearly all been shown in Cannes.

71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance

and then Funny Games, his fourth feature,

since when he has always been in the official selection.

As you know, he has won two Palmes d'or,

his first with 7he White Ribbon in 2009

and his second, although I prefer to say his next,

because we hope there will be others,

but anyway his second was with Amourin 2012.

And Michael was in Cannes this year with Happy End

which is due to be released on 4 October in France

and which is being previewed here tonight.

So, my first question would be...

Before we start I'd like to introduce my friend Bernard Mangiante

who has translated all my screenplays

and who will be my interpreter today

for when I don't understand what I'm being asked

or when I can't find the words in French.

And as you will see tonight, all the youth speak,

thanks to Bernard and his team,

is pertinently translated.

So, my first question is this.

Unlike other directors who went to film school

and started out by making short films or working as assistant directors

your training, Michael,

was as a theatre director

and a director of films for television,

which, for the most part,

were adaptations of literary texts.

What led you to make feature films?

It was almost the reverse.

I had always wanted to make feature films

but I had never had the opportunity to do so.

I come from a family of actors.

My father was an actor and director. My mother was an actress.

That was my way in when I was 16 or 17.

Obviously, I wanted to be an actor.

Luckily no one hired me.

I auditioned but they didn't hire me.

I was extremely frustrated.

I said, "In that case I'm turning my back on the theatre."

And finally, after my studies,

I went to work in German television as a "dramatist".

I don't know what the French word is.

They are like editors who oversee films.

They are like producers.

There isn't the exact equivalent in French television

but essentially it's a case of overseeing a project from start to finish.

And there I met a young actress.

We fell in love. She was on stage in the local theatre.

The town was Baden Baden.

And she would come to me to complain about the directors.

I gave her advice and she said to me, "You should do this for a living."

So I tried and I went to see the theatre director

to ask him whether I could put on a play.

He said, "I have no money." So I said, "I'll do it for free."

I had an idea for a play but I had no money for a set

so I went to this TV channel

which had recently shown a play by Marguerite Duras.

And I said, "I want to put on a play by Marguerite Duras

because I've got the set."

He accepted and it was the start of my career as a director.

After goodness knows how many years in the theatre,

I staged a play for the television for the first time.

And after about ten TV films

I got the opportunity to make my first feature film.

Because Austria is not France.

They don't invest much money in the cinema.

That's why it takes a while to get started.

When I was young I never went to film school.

I don't even know if such a thing existed.

Yes, there was such a thing

but I came from the countryside so I didn't know.

So, finally, I managed to find the funding to make my first feature film.

But this first feature film, which was The Seventh Continent

you wrote it for a television channel which rejected it.

Yes. It was to be my tenth or eleventh film for television,

for another television channel, a German channel,

which had asked me to write a film for them.

And I wrote it on a Greek island. You wouldn't think it to see the film.

And they were shocked.

They said, "We can't make that film. It will make people suicidal."

Perhaps we should briefly remind people what The Seventh Continent is about.

Yes, it was based on a true story

that I found in a newspaper.

It was the story of a family who committed suicide together

after destroying their apartment, their home.

All their material wealth.

Yes, they flushed their money down the toilet.

It was a true story and I found it very powerful

as a way of showing

how alienated we become in life,

how attached we are to objects,

to our belongings.

And this act of destroying everything which prevents us from living

but which is the meaning of our life

seemed to me to be a good metaphor

to show in a film.

What's striking when you watch The Seventh Continent today

is that nothing was explained, you just got the facts.

You see these people methodically destroying their possessions

before killing themselves and their children.

And you don't say that it was because they were depressed.

There's no mention of that. It's up to the audience to...

That's exactly right.

In the article I read which inspired me,

naturally the journalist had written that.

They had researched it and written that the man had debts

and couldn't satisfy his wife sexually and all sorts of nonsense.

That was obviously supposed to be the reason behind this act.

I found that completely stupid.

Because that may well have been the case

but it wasn't enough to explain why they did it.

In general, that's what bothers me about the cinema.

The world gets explained.

But the world is too complex and contradictory to be explained

in a two-hour film or a 200-page book.

In this film there was also already the idea

that you can't recreate a world in a film,

and in a way you put forward the idea

that what we are watching isn't the world but a representation.

What I mean is, the writing is extremely stylised,

as is the storyboarding.

Yes, it's the biggest lie of commercial cinema

which claims to explain the world from start to finish,

to make life completely explicable.

I find the world completely inexplicable.

It's so contradictory. In our daily lives we know nothing.

We meet someone one day and we form an opinion of that person.

A few days later we find out that this person has killed someone.

We think, "That's impossible." But it's possible for all of us.

I think everyone is capable of doing it.

We just need to find ourselves in a situation that lends itself to that.

And that's the point of drama, to construct situations

which deepen human understanding.

And in concrete terms the film showed three days.

Three days three years apart.

That's right.

With attention paid to the way the objects were filmed

and how people can almost become objects.

Yes, because in our daily lives we're stuck.

We get up in the morning because the alarm goes off.

We put on our slippers.

We brush our teeth.

And there is this series of gestures

which we do automatically.

After a while, we notice that we are ruled by those gestures.

And that can be dangerous.

So, with this first film did you enact

what I would call the Haneke method?

That is to say, did you spend a long time writing the screenplay

and then preparing the storyboard?

Yes, since my first film for television

I have always done storyboarding.

To start with it was because I was afraid of arriving on set

and feeling overwhelmed.

It's not hard to feel overwhelmed by the situation on set.

It was my safety net.

It made me feel more confident and helped me work faster.

Because if you arrive and you don't know what you're doing

that can be costly.

And with television you don't have much time

because there isn't much money.

That's why working in television was good training,

because you get less time than you get with cinema films.

Today television is practically impossible.

I can't imagine how anyone can make a TV film.

The day before yesterday I spoke to Mathieu Kassovitz

who made this very successful series which I am sure you know about.

And he told me he had to shoot eight minutes a day.

That's eight programme minutes, not eight minutes of rushes.

Sometimes with television you have to shoot 12 minutes.

That's inconceivable for me, but it's clearly doable.

How many minutes do you do on average?

Since my first film I've always shot three minutes a day.

That's pretty standard for cinema in Europe.

It's another matter if you're filming in America with an American film crew.

They might shoot a minute. It depends.

I made the film Funny Games in Austria

and then I remade the same film in America.

In Austria I finished the film in six weeks, comfortably.

In America we filmed for eight weeks

and I struggled to get it done in that time,

because you have such a huge crew

because of the unions.

For someone who is used to filming differently

it's almost unbearable because the whole thing drags on.

Perhaps I had a bad production team. I don't know.

In general, when the big studios make films over here too,

they film very, very little.

It's an incredible luxury.

You have made films in both Austria and France.

Are the conditions and the relationships with the crew similar?

Yes, they're pretty similar.

There is more money in France. That's the difference.

And there is a greater choice of technicians.

I am very happy to be working with French technicians,

for example, my sound crew on The White Ribbon.

That was a German film

but I used a French crew because they were so good.

But apart from that, everywhere in Europe

I think the conditions are pretty similar.

It rather depends on the status you're given.

When you make your first film

a producer isn't going to give you a budget of 10 million.

It's always very basic to start with and you have to adapt.

But I think that's a good thing. You shouldn't start out...

I teach filmmaking at the university

and I always say that you shouldn't...

When you're starting out you must learn to adapt without losing your integrity.

That's the hard thing:

to stick to what you want without compromising too much.

When I started out, I turned down something twice.

I was given this play to do.

And I said, "OK, I'll do it."

I said it would take six weeks and they agreed.

After a few weeks, the producer,

the guy in charge at the TV channel said, "We have two weeks less."

I said, "In that case I can't do it."

He thought I was trying to negotiate.

But I didn't want to negotiate. I knew I couldn't do it and I didn't do it.

To start with you have to be hard on yourself.

Once you've had a bit of success, you have more opportunities.

I was wondering whether your experience in the theatre and on TV

had given you, compared with other filmmakers

when they make their first feature film,

an advantage when it came to directing actors.

Because working in the theatre,

even though the way of working with actors is different,

must have got you used to dealing with them.

You teach filmmaking to young people.

I get the impression that young people find it easier

to handle cameras and take good shots

than to direct actors.

Absolutely.

In schools there is also the problem...

Am I too loud?

In film schools they mainly teach technique

and that's not a bad thing to learn

if you're going into the profession.

But most young directors

are terrified of actors.

They are terrified of the unknown.

They don't know how to manage them.

And the trouble is, it's not something you can teach.

You just have to do it.

You only learn how to direct actors by directing actors.

Because they're all different so there's no one method.

You can read all the books you like on acting

but that won't help you if you have no experience.

That's just the way it is.

That's why you make SO many mistakes at the start.

Some people are more talented than others.

I made a lot of mistakes. As time goes on, you learn from them.

It's as simple as that.

As I said earlier, I've brought some clips.

We're going to watch one now.

This is a clip from your second film, Benny's Video.

It is one of the most famous scenes in the film

because it is also one of the most shocking.

Benny, who is the star of the film, has a video camera set up in his room.

The film was made in '92 or '93

so he was ahead of his time with this state-of-the-art technology.

Not all teenagers had that at home.

He is really fascinated by images.

He has a camera filming the street and another filming his own house, etc.

He has invited a friend round who he met at the video club.

They've been eating pizza

and here he has just shown a film he shot in the countryside with his family

of a pig being slaughtered.

He has shown this girl footage of a pig being killed.

These were farmers killing a pig in order to cook it,

but what interested him was showing her how the pig was killed.

He brought back the gun they used and he shows her.

That's the scene we're going to see now.

I haven't seen it for ages.

Now's your chance.

I didn't say which clips I was going to show.

I'm not sure we're best placed to see it here.

What?

LOOK.

This is it

Is it the thing from...

Where did you get it?

Nicked it Here's the ammo.

Super.

The farmer noticed it had gone.

The weekend after the slaughtering he said to my dad

we were lucky he did it the week before

or we wouldn't have had any bacon for quite some time.

Pull the trigger.

- Coward. - You're the coward.

You pull the trigger.

Coward.

What's the matter?

What's the matter with you?

Stay there.

I'll help you. Come.

Stay there.

Come, I'll help you.

Be quiet.

Be quiet.

Be quiet.

Stop it Please!

Be quiet, please!

You could say that was a sort of concentration

of early Haneke.

So you've only selected clips

of the worst scenes from my films?

Great.

- No, because... - I don't know what to say.

There is a lot to say because it is all there.

It's that idea, that early idea

of images controlling us.

This teenager who lives surrounded by images

becomes part of the picture.

There's a scene before that one which we didn't see.

There is a scene where he shows the slaughter...

Is that the word? The slaughter of this pig.

And they discuss it as if it's something

that isn't real.

They find it....

There is a point where the pig has been killed

and it's still moving

and it suddenly starts snowing in the video.

And the only thing the girl says is, "Oh, it's snowing."

In other words, the violence shown in the videos

is so artificial to them that they don't understand it.

And then you get this outburst in the scene we saw.

It's "derealised".

In other words, we see violence all the time in the media

but it's completely outside our own experience of reality.

It's the same thing with the news.

I often say

that if I was to take the images on the news seriously,

I would kill myself, because you see nothing but pure horror.

It's got nothing to do with my life.

I know that in Syria and in Afghanistan

some terrible things are occurring

but I only know it intellectually.

I don't feel it.

Back in the day...

I always quote this example.

Someone living in a small village 50 years ago

would have known their village and the mountains surrounding it.

Once or twice in their life they would travel to a larger town nearby

and that's all they knew.

Nowadays villagers have a television

and the internet in their houses

and they think they know about the world

but all they really know is the same as villagers in the past,

the things they've experienced and felt.

The rest is an illusion of knowledge.

And the danger in all that

is that they have this illusion of knowing

and that leaves them open to manipulation

by the media or politicians

who paint a picture which has nothing to do with their life.

And most of my films revolve around or at least talk about this theme.

This one too.

There is that but another fascinating thing is

that you don't shy away in this sequence

from showing violence.

It would have been so easy to avoid that.

50 years ago

filmmakers would make sure the crime happened off-screen or in the distance.

Here we watch it unfolding in real time.

It lasts and it's on-screen

which has the effect of distancing it.

Yes, it's also a sort of reflection of the medium we're in.

We see a screen within a screen.

We see the cinema screen and the TV screen within it

and naturally the idea behind that is to make the point

that when you see violence you're not really seeing violence,

you're seeing an image or an interpretation of violence.

A film is never reality.

A film is an artefact which is trying to explain something

or conversely to hide something.

All politically manipulative films work with that.

They show a reality that suits the manipulator

but they presume that the audience is stupider than it is.

I think the reason we have the sort of American president we have

is because of the media,

because of the internet.

What's very interesting is the way you've shot it.

The scene starts with a shot-reverse-shot.

We are with the characters. We can see the television

showing the scene behind them

but we only see it in the reverse shot.

It sends shock waves round the room.

A violent interlude is always intense in the cinema

and the moment is captured.

We see these kids challenging one another

and it results in this attack.

The girl falls to the ground and as she falls, she reveals the image.

And the screen shows

the boy pushing her out of the picture within the picture.

But we still have the sound.

And what's so unbearable is that the scene lasts,

and it's a fixed sequence shot

so the camera doesn't move.

So you're not manipulating it.

You simply set up the shot.

But what's very hard for the audience to take

is listening to this girl screaming and on the point of death.

He rushes over to put her out of her misery

but it goes on and on until she finally dies and he sits down.

I remember reading one of the first Austrian reviews...

It was the first Austrian review of the film

and the journalist wrote in great detail

about how he killed the girl.

We don't see that but he described it in his article,

giving the impression that we saw exactly how he did it.

And I really enjoyed the mistake that man made

because it showed

that our imagination is nearly always more vivid than the image.

One of the secrets of making a good film

is to use the audience's imagination.

What is off screen is always more interesting that what is on screen.

You see that with any horror film.

It's much more unnerving and harrowing

to hear the footsteps of the monster on the staircase behind the door

than it is to see it enter the room, which is generally a bit ridiculous.

But that's a basic filmmaking technique.

I think it's fundamental to your films.

Those who see Happy End tonight should bear that in mind.

I mean, your films are based

on a game you play with the audience.

All films play games with the audience.

The question is...

How can I put this?

Filmmaking is the ultimate form of manipulation.

The moral question is:

why am I manipulating the audience?

I can manipulate it to guide it in a political direction

or I can try to make it think about something,

reflect on something.

Those are quite different things.

And there are numerous examples of both in the cinema.

Let me reassure you, I didn't bring a clip from Funny Games

so that we can say...

it's a horror festival.

But that film is very interesting

because it develops a principle...

...and sees it through to the bitter end.

Funny Games, if you remember, is about a quiet bourgeois family

who are preparing to spend a weekend in their country house

when two very polite, very smartly dressed youngsters,

who they had seen earlier in their neighbours' garden,

come and ask for some eggs.

And it turns into a nightmare from there

because these two youngsters don't leave

and they say, "We're going to play a game with you

and by dawn you'll be dead."

And it's not possible to say, "We're not playing,"

because they start breaking the husband's foot

and they have weapons and they force the family to play.

And the film is terrifying.

It's one of the most terrifying films

ever made in the history of cinema.

And yet it's full of jokes.

The two boys never stop telling jokes.

That was the point of the film.

It's not a realistic film compared to my other films.

It's a very sarcastic model

of the role of the audience in a violent film.

It was meant to be a slap in the face

for lovers of horror movies and violent films.

And it was all the more powerful for the fact that we see nothing.

Apart from one moment when a knee gets broken

we see no violent act.

But the idea is that these two boys are putting on an act.

They mistreat this family in a terrible way

but for them it's pure entertainment.

And I said to the actors, the two boys,

"You're acting in a comedy,"

and to the family, "You're acting in a tragedy."

That's what made the film so terrifying,

because the worst thing is, when you're face to face with someone

and you're injured or you're suffering,

you automatically expect a humane reaction

and if the other person doesn't give you that, you're distraught.

You feel as if there's no hope and that's terrifying.

And it works because of this split...

- How do you say "Teilung"? - Division.

...this division into two ways of acting.

Because the boys are very funny together.

They tell one joke after another

but it's horrendous

because meanwhile the others are dying.

Yes, they are suffering horribly and that discrepancy makes the film...

This is something you said in the book we wrote together.

Anyone who watches it through to the end deserves all they get.

- What? - Anyone who stays to the end

deserves all they get.

It serves them right

Yes, I did say that.

Because let's not forget that in the film

the torturer addresses the audience on several occasions

and says, "Have you had enough or do you want more?"

And the other guy says, "It would take too long.

"It would take the duration of a film."

In other words, there's always a point where you can get out.

But what I wanted to show is

that despite this illusory get-out...

this break...

...If I'm doing my job

after a few minutes

I've got the audience back

because they want to know how it will end.

They are curious, and that's what I wanted to show.

That's what I meant.

You can't watch the film to the end

and then get annoyed about the sadism in the film,

because on several occasions I gave you a chance,

I even suggested that you left, but you stayed.

And people didn't always like that.

Not many filmmakers suggest their audience leave the room!

When I say...

Yes, as I was saying, you deserve it if you stay to the end.

So this film was made in 1997 and shown at the Cannes Film Festival

where it was a huge... where it caused quite a stir.

It really divided people and there were those who loved the film

and those who hated it and said it should never have been shown.

And that was the climax of your Austrian period.

From then on

it seems to me that you wanted to broaden your palette

and that's when you started working in France.

Yes, but not because I wanted to broaden my palette.

I'm still trying to do that. Who knows if I'm succeeding?

No, it was pure chance.

I had already tried to work here.

I had approached Marin Karmitz with a screenplay.

He's a producer with MK2. You might know him.

Anyway, this was the script for Time of the Wolf

And he said, "Yes, I like it, but it's too expensive.

"You're an unknown so the film's too expensive to make

"but if you come back one day with a cheaper screenplay

"I'll gladly read it."

And then, by chance,

while I was working on Funny Games,

my publicity agent, Matilde Incerti, showed my Austrian films

to Juliette Binoche.

She was very impressed and she phoned me.

I remember, I was at a festival in Spain

and I got a call on my mobile: "This is Juliette Binoche."

And I went, "Ha, ha," which wasn't very nice.

"I've seen your films and I'd like to make a film with you."

So I said, "I'd love that.

"I have no ideas but I'll think of something."

I had already had the idea for Code Unknown in Austria

because it's a film about immigration.

I hadn't written the screenplay but I had ideas

and I thought,

"France has a lot of immigration. I'll go and see."

And I spent three months in Paris researching it.

I was lucky enough to experience different communities,

both African and Romanian.

After that I went home

and I wrote the screenplay and then I came back

with the package of a screenplay and Juliette Binoche,

and then it was possible.

That's how I made my début in French cinema.

It's very interesting because although it features a French film star

it still has an ensemble cast and the story is fragmented.

Yes, because that's how I view life.

I'm convinced that we only perceive fragments of life.

That's what I was saying earlier.

I mean,

you can't give a false entirety...

Does that word exist? A whole.

So I just try to show my way of seeing life.

I think it's dishonest to pretend that you understand life.

I don't understand anything.

I understand very little and I can show that

and hope that the audience feels...

How do you say "angesprochen"?

...affected because they've had a similar experience.

The film was important In terms of construction too,

because it showed another side to your aesthetic: sequence shots.

- The film was in sequence shots. - Yes, that's why...

Do you all know what a sequence shot is?

We're in Utopia.

For that reason it was definitely my most ambitious film

because it's not all that easy to make a whole film in sequence shots.

You have to write it that way.

You can't say, "I've written a script. Now I'll make a film in sequence shots."

It was written with that in mind.

I'm not unhappy with it.

It's one of my favourite films because it was so hard to make.

It's not necessarily a time-saving device.

It's another way of managing time

and it's a new experience for the audience.

The audience feels imprisoned in this time capsule.

Yes, but above all, as I was saying earlier,

the film is a manipulation

and with a sequence shot at least the time isn't manipulated.

At least at that point you get the chance to be authentic.

It's an event which takes place in real time.

It's something that happened.

That's one way of looking at it.

The other way of looking at it relates to what you said.

And it's much better for the actors,

because in a sequence shot

the audience has time to develop its own feelings.

During filming, like in the theatre,

directors are always shouting "Cut".

You deliver one line and then the next. It's much harder.

That's why over-edited films,

as far as the actors are concerned, aren't very impressive.

You can't generalise.

Some heavily edited films are beautifully acted.

But in general any actor will tell you

that they'd far rather act in a sequence shot

than in a scene cut into goodness knows how many pieces.

It just so happens that the next clip is a sequence shot,

but it's not from Code Unknown.

It's from your next film which also featured Juliette Binoche.

It's the start of Hidden.

So, in Hidden

there is also the film within a film, the framing device.

Some of you might have watched Hidden again here this afternoon.

Others of you will remember it.

For those who have forgotten,

it's a film from 2005 with Daniel Auteuil playing a television journalist

who hosts a show like Bernard Pivot's or La Grande Librairie.

At any rate, it's a very popular TV programme about books.

He's married to Juliette Binoche

and at the start of the film the couple, who have a child,

receive a delivery of video tapes to their home.

In 2005 there were still video tapes rather than DVDs.

Don't give the game away if you're going to show the start.

It won't work.

I'm not going to show the whole of the beginning.

All right, let's watch it.

It's the start of the film and I've given the game away a bit

but it's only a clip and it carries on...

Let's watch it.

I started it...

To begin with we think it's the feature but then there's some fast-forwarding

and we hear the two actors commenting on it.

This is the first image in the film under the opening credits.

This is three, four or five minutes in.

Three minutes.

This is the film,

but we realise they're watching a tape and we hear them off-screen.

How could I have missed the guy? It's a mystery.

Perhaps the camera was in a car.

No, it seems to have been filmed through a window.

Or somewhere overlooking the house.

It's ridiculous but I don't know what to say.

Do you have any idea who might have done it?

We should eat before it's completely ruined.

Maybe it was one of Pierrot's friends,

some moron taking the mick out of his mate's middle-class parents.

No?

I find that hard to believe. It's not very funny.

You're right.

- Where is he, anyway? - Who?

Pierrot

No idea. He should be here any minute.

- Was it in there? - What?

The tape.

No, it was in a plastic bag.

Where is it?

No idea. On the table in the living room, probably.

Or in the hall. I don't know. What does it matter?

Was there nothing else? No note or bit of paper?

No, but feel free to check.

Can you bring the salad?

[t's nothing special tonight.

Here.

Thanks.

Was it in here?

Yes.

Don't you trust me?

You might have missed something.

You forgot to take the tape out. There might be something on it.

Yes, all right. [ll get it ito try fo...

Ah. Here's our boy now.

Better late than never.

Hi.

Hello.

Sit down, Pierrot. I'll bring you your plate.

- Where have you been? - At Yves' house.

- Why? - Because.

Do I need to give a reason?

Uh-oh.

- Hello, Pierrot - Hi, Mum.

- Are you OK? - Yes.

Well?

I go to Yves' house every Tuesday.

On Wednesdays we have geometry. He helps me with my homework.

Maybe it's one of your fans?

What fascinates me about that passage

is that we start with this master stroke under the opening credits.

We think, "We've been had."

We thought it was a shot of the street

but it turns out to be a tape.

And as we leave this long shot

we embark on this sequence shot.

But the whole film is not in sequence shots.

There was no ulterior motive.

It just seemed more elegant.

It meant that the pace stayed the same.

We found this house

which enabled us to do that

but it wasn't the aim like it was in Code Unknown

which I actually decided to film in sequence shots.

Here it was possible. I did it for the actors' sake too.

But the long shot is the most interesting.

It's the first long shot

because we came in right at the end of the shot, or almost.

The audience gets irritated by how long it is.

They think they're looking at a house.

Juliette leaves. Passers-by come and go.

And suddenly it stops after the title.

We've seen all the opening credits.

And after I forget how many minutes of credits...

You said three minutes...

...you realise it's a video.

That was the idea behind this opening scene,

which I liked a lot.

I think the idea is that to begin with you watch

and then after a while you get sick of watching a fixed shot

and you think, "I'm ready for the next shot."

And when the next shot doesn't come, you start watching it again.

Yes, if you're impatient.

There is this element of manipulating the audience

to be more attentive.

What amused me just now

was that the camera is on Auteuil

and it becomes apparent who is controlling this sequence.

The camera moves when he moves.

When he gets up from the table to see the plastic bag

the camera follows him.

It's also a way in the storyboarding

of inferring a power struggle.

Yes, there's always this interplay between the on and the off.

That's the main thing.

When there is dialogue

and there is a line in the dialogue that I think is important

I always put it off-screen

because it has a much stronger impact on the audience's perception.

We hear more than we see.

That's what I was saying earlier about the impact of horror.

The ear, or at least my ear, is more alert.

I'm more easily affected by sound than by images.

We are bombarded with images.

There is also sound pollution today

but we are so bombarded with images that we no longer see things.

The ear is more sensitive than the eyes.

I'm talking about myself. I can't speak for everyone.

But that's behind the way I shoot.

Indeed, I get the impression, or at least it's my understanding

that you film a lot by ear.

You listen to the actors more than you look at them.

Yes, when I worked in the theatre

the actors would shout at me because I'd be sitting like this.

"You're not even watching."

And I'd say, "I can see you better like this!"

Because with my ears I can hear the slightest flaw.

When I watch, I'm not certain of seeing it as quickly as I can hear it.

That might just be me

but it has shaped the language of my films.

Is there a difference between directing Austrian actors and French actors?

Not really, no.

If I wanted to be mean, I'd say German actors are more punctual.

Because certain people like to turn up late

and I don't really like that.

But that's the privilege of French actors.

- So, with this film... - Not always.

I don't want to be unfair.

...you were reunited with Juliette Binoche

who was also in Code Unknown

and her partner is played by Daniel Auteuil.

And this film, Hidden, is an exception

because it's one of the films you wrote for someone.

- You wrote the film for Daniel Auteuil. - Yes.

Whenever I have an idea

my first thought is, "Who can I do it with?"

So this was about being able to work with him.

The same applies to Amour which I wrote for Jean-Louis Trintignant

because I really wanted to work with him.

There were other reasons for this film

but that was the primary reason.

In my German-speaking films

I often went back to work with the same actors

and when I wrote a screenplay

I had them in mind for the roles.

Because if you know an actor, you're not starting from scratch.

You know their strengths and their weaknesses

and you can write them in.

Moreover, it's much more enjoyable working with someone you know.

They're more relaxed and soam I.

I always get good results.

When you meet someone for the first time, it's always a risk,

for the actor as well as for the director.

But why did you want to work with Daniel Auteuil?

- Why didn't I go back to him? - No, why did you want to work with him?

I didn't have an idea.

Because you need an idea.

I had wanted for a long time...

...to work with Jean-Louis but until AmourI didn't have any ideas.

You need an idea for someone of that age.

Lots of American actors approach me about working with them.

I'm always very flattered.

I say, "Yes, I'd love to, but I don't have any ideas just now."

But was there something in particular about Auteuil that interested you?

Yes, I thought he was the most interesting actor of that age in France.

I've always loved him.

Because both of them, Jean Louis and him,

have something in common:

they always hold something back, something secret.

They give a very discreet performance. They never exaggerate.

That's always more intriguing in a film.

Great film stars always do less than mediocre actors.

I remember when we saw Hidden in Cannes

we were all really impressed and we said,

"Wouldn't it be great if Michael Haneke won the Palme d'Or?"

You didn't win it but you did win a great prize.

- I can't remember... - It was the director's prize.

Oh, yes. Great.

You were at the Cannes Film Festival

and you won the prize for the best directed film.

And the Palme d'Or came later.

It came four years later with The White Ribbon.

This film was a departure in your filmography.

I've brought a clip. Let's watch it. Then we'll discuss The White Ribbon.

This is the start of the film.

I don't know whether the story I'm about to fell you

Is entirely true.

I know it partly through hearsay.

Even after all these years it remains a mystery

and many questions remain unanswered.

But I feel I need to tell you about the strange events

that unfolded in our village.

They might explain

some of the things that have gone on here.

I believe it all started with the doctor's accident

After his riding session on the baron's estate

he returned home

in case a patient was waiting for him.

As he entered the garden

his horse tripped over a cable

strung between the frees.

His daughter witnessed the accident

and alerted the neighbour

who informed the estate manager.

The injured man, who was suffering terribly,

was driven to a hospital in a town 30km away.

The neighbour, a spinster aged about 40,

was a midwife.

When the doctors wife died in childbirth,

she became indispensable to him,

acting as governess and medical assistant

After seeing to the doctor's children,

she went to fetch her own son, Karl, from school.

- Have you seen Anni? - A hello would be nice.

Hello, Mrs Wagner. Please excuse him.

Hello, Klara.

We are all so worried that Martin has forgotten his manners.

Never mind.

How is the doctor?

Not great.

- Will he be staying in hospital? - / don't know.

We're going to see Anna, to help her.

Good.

- Was choir practice good? - Yes.

Show your mother how well you sang.

Goodbye, sir.

I'll race you.

If my memory serves me right,

it seemed strange to me that the children surrounding Klara

didn't disperse as usual

but walked as a group towards the outskirts of the village.

So that was the very start of the film

but already that voiceover gives a lot of clues about...

- A lot of? - Information, clues.

Yes, of course.

That's a dramaturgical tactic.

I made it sound like a sort of classic novel,

recounting everything in detail.

To start with the details are the same.

The images match the words.

But gradually, as the film goes on,

things happen which aren't explained.

And this lack of explanation is more intense for the audience

than it would have been without this reassuring opening.

That was the idea behind it.

And I enjoyed telling a classical story.

Yes, for a filmmaker

it must be hugely enjoyable to do a reconstruction like that.

- It's set in the early 20th century. - Yes, itis.

For the set and costume designers it's obviously more gratifying.

Everyone thinks, "I've done a good job." They can research it.

To be honest with you, it was a lot of work.

For this film, I worked...

or rather I spent years and years researching

the 19th century, on education back in the day

and life in the countryside.

And a lot of things in the film

were not invented by me.

I took them from books on education,

from education manuals from that era, which...

For example, the title

came from the notion of giving a child who has done something wrong

a white ribbon,

the idea being that the white will make him think pure thoughts

whilst at the same time denouncing him to others

because of this mark on his arm.

That came from an education manual from the 19th century.

What's fascinating about this film is how it came about.

As you said, you did a lot of research

and yet the film had several guises.

To start with you envisaged a film in three parts.

This was at a time when nobody made trilogies like The Lord of the Rings.

It wasn't possible to film it like that, especially in black and white,

and so you had to edit the material,

otherwise the film would not have been made.

So the director, or rather the author is thinking,

"Is there a way of editing it

"and changing the project to get it made?

"Otherwise I'll have to abandon it."

Yes, it was Jean-Claude Carriére who helped me because...

the screenplay I wrote was an hour longer than the film.

The film is two hours and a bit long.

Yes, so...

- What was that? - It was in two parts.

Yes, on TV it would have been two films.

Eventually my producer said,

"It's not possible. I can't get the funding.

"Moreover, I can't sell the film

"because it will mean cinemas having one less screening a day.

"They won't show the film so you'll have to cut it."

So I cut out about 20 minutes and then I said I could do no more.

And in the end we called on Jean-Claude Carriére.

He read the screenplay and studied it

and then he came and advised me.

What he said was quite simple.

The 20 minutes I had cut out were little bits in various scenes

which weren't strictly necessary.

But there was a thread through the film and that was the children's games,

the almost paramilitary games this group of children played

which were very time-consuming.

And he said, "Why don't you remove that block?"

It wasn't a block of scenes but a whole theme.

There were all these games which had their own scene.

And I immediately...

The penny suddenly dropped and I thought, "Why didn't I think of that?"

And it's much better because with the games

it was a bit more...

...more explained than in this version.

That's why I am so grateful for his help,

which led me to spot that flaw.

In the end it was a good thing.

I really like that story because it shows the modesty of the author

when faced with imperatives.

Here the imperatives were budget and time constraints.

Sometimes they come from the weather or some other impediment.

And instead of persisting,

you find a solution and the solution makes the whole better

than it would have been had there been enough money for another half an hour.

That can happen, but it doesn't always happen.

It's always a risk.

I'd rather make the film I wrote.

But I had a real flop, so to speak,

with my film 7/ime of the Wolf which didn't work at all.

I made mistakes with the casting

and I was forced to cut out about 20 minutes

which had been shot and edited

because it didn't work.

And it rather destroyed...

the whole story.

It works as a film but it doesn't really work as a whole.

Forgive me. I'm a bit tired.

And naturally that was frustrating

because 7/ime of the Wolf should have been a much longer film.

It started out as a four-hour film

which began in the city.

I had already cut out half of the film

to meet the time constraints

and from that I was forced to cut another 20 minutes

which I think rather destroyed the film.

That happens too. Not all changes are positive.

On the other hand, Amour was made exactly as you envisaged it would be.

Yes, in general I make films...

This man from the Austrian federation said,

"When I read a screenplay by Haneke, I know what the film will be like.

"I can picture it because he describes exactly what we're going to see."

The actors might provide a surprise element

but as a rule, if you know my language and you read my screenplay,

you won't have much difficulty imagining how the film will pan out.

The writing is much more important than the storyboarding for me.

The screenwriters are the real authors, to my mind,

not the directors,

except in certain cases in the history of cinema.

In general, to my mind,

the greatest filmmakers are auteur filmmakers.

The ones who have influenced me and who I admire are all auteurs.

That's why you don't make American films.

You're always being offered projects and sent scripts.

It's a different system and it's very professional.

It produces very professional films

with a lot of intensity.

But I always find it a bit...

I'm not moved by them.

Because it's virtually impossible. I know that from the theatre.

If you give a Chekhov play to ten different directors

you'll see ten different plays

and none of them will measure up to the author.

When I direct my own material

I measure up to myself as the author.

And to my mind it works better and is more effective

than if I'm faced with a script

which might be great but which didn't come from me.

As a director, I'm forced to follow someone else's thoughts and feelings.

I can adapt to them but I can never really know precisely what they are.

Now is your chance to ask Michael Haneke your questions.

We could talk like this all night. That's what we did for the book.

We spent 60 hours talking, with Michel Cieutat

who works with me at Positif

You can read that but for now take this opportunity

to ask him whatever you like.

As long as it's not about my religion or my sex life.

They can ask. You don't have to answer!

At the back of the room?

A lot has been said tonight and also written

about the tension which always pervades your films.

I would like to ask you a question which might seem indiscreet.

I would like to know what sort of childhood you had

and what role your childhood played in your approach to filmmaking?

That is a question I am often asked.

I think... because...

Personally, when I....

When you read a book or watch a film

that shakes you up in some way,

you look for an escape

and the easiest way to escape from the work

is to turn to the biography of the person who wrote it

so that you can say, "Ah, yes.

"Poor Michael Haneke had a terrible childhood.

"No wonder he makes such perverse films."

I'm going to have to disappoint you.

I was, and still am

a joyful person

and I had a privileged upbringing.

I was brought up by my grandmother, my mother and my aunt

and they all spoiled me.

Perhaps that's why some people find me so unbearable.

No, I'm going to have to disappoint you.

I had a happy childhood,

despite my first three years coinciding with the war.

But I didn't see much of the war.

I was too young.

On the contrary, I think

that in my youth I was happier than a lot of young people today,

because after the war

there was a sense that things would get better.

Everyone was optimistic, because things had been so terrible.

So everyone was optimistic for the future, and things did improve.

Now I often feel that there is a sense of life deteriorating

and very often the desperation that I witness among young people

is far greater than it was in my youth.

I want to ask you something as a fellow Austrian.

You spoke earlier

of how you went from making German films to French films

quite by chance.

Someone phoned you and you started a new career with a new approach.

I must admit, I find it admirable that you switched languages too.

How difficult was it to switch

from German, which is your native tongue,

to another system

and another way of thinking?

I understand what you're saying.

It's something I come up against every day.

When I'm directing a German film

I say, "I can hear the grass grow."

It's easy for me to detect the slightest flaw.

But here, as you can see, my French is somewhat limited

so I am more...

Yes, yes, yes.

I am inevitably tenser.

Not so much about expressing myself,

because the actors and technicians are forced to listen to me.

Even if I'm expressing myself badly, they wait until they've understood.

But for me it's the opposite.

On a film set

you need to know everything as a director.

You need to be aware of any rumours going around.

That's important when you're filming.

And my ability to do that is very limited.

It's like when you're in a restaurant

and people are speaking French at the next table.

You know more or less what they're talking about.

But if you are abroad,

even if you speak a bit of the language,

it's difficult.

You have to really listen to understand.

And that's a situation you either accept or not.

But it's not easy for me.

And my English is much worse than my French,

so when I directed Funny Games in America it was even worse.

For that reason and not because I can't express myself.

It's more a question of being up to speed with what's going on around me.

As for the language in the screenplays,

that's thanks to Bernard,

because he translates it into good French.

He translates it and then we discuss it.

We talk about the differences

if I feel that it's not exactly what I wanted

until we end up with the French for what I wanted to say in German.

I have a question about the narrative.

You once said that every story has its own narrative.

It can't be modelled on anything.

There is no model for telling a story.

Each story has its own narrative.

Earlier we saw Hidden

and it seems to me

that while most directors aim for a resolution,

you do the opposite.

You complicate things

for the characters and for the audience.

The narrative gets more complicated. It isn't resolved.

And then I have another question.

That one is about the unconventional structure.

Let him translate that one first, perhaps.

So, that's a question about the unconventional structure.

It seems to me that you play with that.

With the structure and with the language.

And then I have another question.

What is the significance for you

of interrupting the story?

At the end of 7he White Ribbon the story is interrupted.

There is no ending.

The answer to both questions is the same.

It's because I find everyday life...

My experience of everyday life is that it is always fragmentary.

I try to recreate a world that people will recognise.

Films made for entertainment do the opposite.

They give you all the answers.

They don't show you the complexity.

On the contrary, every attempt is made to simplify them

to reassure us that everything is fine.

And I am utterly convinced that nothing is fine.

Yes, I have a question, please.

I would like to know whether you are happy

with what the critics say about your work

or whether you think there is an aspect of your films

that no one has understood yet?

I hope there are aspects that haven't yet been written about.

I hope so, because I believe that what I'm trying to do...

...my intentions, are the least interesting part.

In my view, for any artist

it's the things that happen to them that are interesting.

If I read something that I have thought, I'm glad I haven't been misunderstood.

But people often understand something quite different

to what I was trying to say.

That's the fate of any author.

That's my answer.

Good evening. You can have your pick of actors.

Everyone wants to be in a Michael Haneke film.

Perhaps there is an actor or actress

that you would like to cast in one of your films?

And my other question: you write your own material

but everyone has a book that inspires them.

Is there a novel or a play

that you would like to write your own version of one day?

There are...

There are lots of actors or actresses I'd like to work with.

I don't think it would be fair to name individuals

because there are so many.

I get a lot of offers from American film stars

who want to make a film with me

but it's virtually impossible for me to make an American film

because I don't know about life in America.

And I am not a director.

I am an author and I can only describe the things I know.

I have adapted books before. Not often but still...

Most of the films I made for TV were adaptations of great works

by Kafka, Joseph Roth, Ingmar Bergman...

I think that works on television

because television has an obligation to cultivate the public.

So, with the films I made for TV,

the author was at the forefront of my thinking

and I was there to serve the author.

In the cinema it's the opposite.

- What about 7he Piano Teacher? - There was one...

What's the word for "Ausnahme"?

There was one exception and that was The Piano Teacher.

But it was unintentional

because I was asked to write the screenplay by a friend

who had asked Jelinek for the rights.

He couldn't write and so I wrote it for him

but in the end he didn't manage to make the film

and the producer who was funding it came and asked me if I'd do it.

I didn't really want to do it.

I said, "If it's not for the cinema I'm not really interested

"put I'll do it if you can get Isabelle Huppert to play the part."

I had already suggested to my friend that she play the part

but he wanted an American actress who he didn't manage to get.

Anyway, we asked Isabelle and she agreed

so I was more or less forced to do it.

In the end I was glad to have done it.

But I don't have any desire to do any more adaptations

because they so rarely work.

I should say that 7he Piano Teacher is very different to the novel.

The structure of the film is quite different to the novel,

because there are different rules in literature and in cinema.

I know of very few successful adaptations,

even by great directors.

The most famous example is Tarkovsky's film Solaris

which was a total failure,

for Tarkovsky and for Stanislaw Lem.

It doesn't work. They are different things.

It's hard.

It rarely works.

One example where it does work is East of Eden,

the film with James Dean by...

- Elia Kazan. - Elia Kazan.

A great director and a great actor.

But the film only covers the last quarter of the novel.

It's an epic novel about America and we only see the final story.

It's a great film but it's nothing compared to the novel.

I was offered lots of adaptations for TV.

I was even offered The Man Without Qualities

but I said, "I don't want to kill myself."

I love the book but it's impossible to adapt.

Right, one last question.

- I'd like to know... - All right, two more.

Thank you for showing us Annie Girardot.

I have just seen Hidden and she was a revelation to me.

I wanted to ask you if any of the actors

who have been lucky enough to work with you have commented

on the fact that their bodies come across differently in your films

compared to any other experiences they might have had.

What is the significance of the body for you?

There is a way of showing the body

which is truthful and honest

but which might not be all that easy to accept for your actors.

You don't flatter. You don't flatter the body.

There are no pretty postures.

And we are left with the feeling that we have touched another body.

I don't pay special attention to that.

I always try, in any scene,

to find the best way of filming it to suit the situation.

For me what matters is the situation I'm trying to convey.

I'm not looking for a particular image.

There are films with some wonderful images in them

but it feels as if the primary concern is the images,

the beauty of the images.

That doesn't interest me at all.

I don't want to make bad images

but for me the quality of an image lies

in how it ties in with the overall picture.

It's the same for the actor. How does it work in the scene?

Does the body have a role to play?

In some scenes the body is not necessary.

We don't want to be aware of it.

It always depends on the situation.

I'm always looking and trying to find that.

That's why...

the aesthetic is something

that can't be separated from the situation.

On the contrary, I often see films

which have this really beautiful composition of images

which have nothing to do with the story being told.

I hate that. It bores me.

Beautiful images are great for exhibitions.

A photograph displayed on the wall is wonderful.

But a good image in the cinema

is an image that works with the one before and the one after.

Good evening.

I wanted to ask you

whether it was hard to go from the language of theatre

to the more pared-back language of cinema,

as described by Bresson in Motes on the Cinematographer.

I think that in the way that you treat the image

you have a lot in common with him.

And I wanted to know, in terms of the violence,

whether it was hard to come up with the sort of language

needed for your pared-back style of cinematography

having come from the theatre.

It's quite different.

It's not a transition from the theatre. They are different things.

The acting is different in the theatre.

In general there are very few actors

who are good in both the theatre and the cinema.

There are lots of great stage actors

who are great in the theatre and then we see them on screen

and we think, "Not bad but nothing special."

And the converse is true too, worse even.

There are lots of actors who lack the artistic flair for theatre.

They don't have trained voices and all that.

They're fantastic in the cinema

and as soon as they go on stage

they can't function, they cease to exist.

So they are two different things.

As you can see from my first film, The Seventh Continent

Bresson has been a strong influence on me.

As far as I'm concerned, Bresson was God,

but I find his notion of models...

It was ideal for him because he didn't make realist films.

He made films that were all about the "performance".

They were completely stylised.

Straub's films, for example, were the same.

It's even more marked in Straub's films.

He did away with the natural language

and replaced it with an artificial one to create more distance.

But in my films I've always tried to grasp reality.

Of course it's fake because it's not...

Acting is not reality. It's a performance.

But I know it's as close as it can be to reality.

Sometimes it's possible with non-professionals

if they have a role which is...

For example, a check-out assistant in a supermarket

who is very quick at her job.

It would be stupid to use an actress because she'd never manage it.

But when it comes to conveying feelings,

generally... not always but generally we need

people who can express themselves

and so I have always worked with professional actors.

The only exception, of course, is with children

because very few children are professional actors.

Most of the children I cast in my films have never acted before.

If a child is talented,

which is maybe one in every hundred,

that's a gift.

I always say, if I ask an actor to play the part of a lion,

they'll act like a lion.

If I ask a child to play the part of a lion,

they'll be that lion,

because they can access their subconscious

and that sensibility.

It's always a gift. That's why I like working with children.

But working with adults who are not actors

and asking them to play a scene where they have to burst into tears

gets complicated.

It can happen but it's not advisable.

If you like watching children in films, particularly in Michael Haneke's films,

go and see Happy End later, because you'll see...

- The girl is extraordinary. - She really is extraordinary.

It has to be said.

Thank you, Michael.

And thank you for your questions.

Thank you.