Michael Haneke
Back to film blogging after holidays. Michael Haneke is the right one for a comeback. In the Paris Review winter 2014 issue there is a small excerpt from an interview with the director – if you want to read the whole interview, you can purchase the issue, 20€. Interviewer Luisa Zielinski.
I take a clip from the text from the director, who has said ” “A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.”:
“I’ve never seen good results from people trying to speak about things they don’t know firsthand. They will talk about Afghanistan, about children in Africa, but in the end they only know what they’ve seen on TV or read in the newspaper. And yet they pretend—even to themselves—that they know what they’re saying. But that’s bullshit. I’m quite convinced that I don’t know anything except for what is going on around me, what I can see and perceive every day, and what I have experienced in my life so far. These are the only things I can rely on. Anything else is merely the pretense of knowledge with no depth. Of course, I don’t just write about things precisely as they have happened to me—some have and some haven’t. But at least I try to invent stories with which I can personally identify…”. Food for thought.
Photo by Polfoto – Haneke received the Danish Sonning Prize 2014.
http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/6354/the-art-of-screenwriting-no-5-michael-haneke
