Michael Haneke

Michael Haneke (born 23 March 1942) is an Austrian film director and screenwriter. His work often examines social issues and depicts the feelings of estrangement experienced by individuals in modern society. Haneke has made films in French, German, and English and has worked in television and theatre, as well as cinema. He also teaches film direction at the Film Academy Vienna.

Haneke is known for his “glaciation” trilogy, consisting of The Seventh Continent (1989), Benny’s Video (1992), and 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance (1994), each of which depict a “coldly bureaucratic society in which genuine human relationships have been supplanted by a deep-seated collective malaise” and explore “the relationship among consumerism, violence, mass media, and contemporary alienation”. He has since won the Cannes Film Festival’s Grand Prix for The Piano Teacher (2001) as well as its Palme d’Or twice for The White Ribbon (2009), and Amour (2012), the latter of which received five Academy Award nominations and won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He is also known for directing Funny Games (1997), Code Unknown (2000), Caché (2005), and Happy End (2017).

Haneke is known for directing films which are often unsentimental and uses disturbing imagery to explore social critiques on issues such as class, race, gender, and violence. The Museum of Modern Art showcased his films in 2007 adding that they feature themes “of alienation and social collapse; the exploitation and consumption of violence; the bourgeois family as the incubator of fascistic impulse; individual responsibility and collective guilt; and the ethics of the photographic image”. He is also known for his use of the long take rather than relying on quick edits or fast paced editing. Haneke prefers to let his scenes unfold slowly, allowing the audience to fully experience the tension and emotion of each moment. This creates a sense of intimacy for the audience to draw them into a scene. He also uses static shots, ambiguous endings, meta-narratives, and silence. Haneke also has collaborated with Isabelle Huppert and Juliette Binoche on numerous films.

Wikipedia

Michael Haneke’s Top Ten Favourite Films: Au hasard Balthazar (Robert Bresson, 1966), Lancelot du Lac (Robert Bresson, 1974), Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1975), Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975), The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel, 1962), The Gold Rush (Charles Chaplin, 1925), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960), A Woman under the Influence (John Cassavetes, 1974), Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948), L’eclisse (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1962)