Michael Haneke
Encyclopedia
Michael Haneke is a German born Austria
n filmmaker
and writer
best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television
‚ theatre
and cinema
. He is also known for raising social issues in his work. Besides working as filmmaker he also teaches directing at the Filmacademy Vienna
.
At the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
, his film The White Ribbon
won the Palme d'Or
for best film, and at the 67th Golden Globe Awards
the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
. He has made films in French, German and English.
, Germany, the son of the German actor and director Fritz Haneke and the Austrian actress Beatrix von Degenschild. Haneke was raised in the city Wiener Neustadt
. He attended the University of Vienna
to study philosophy
, psychology
and drama
after failing to achieve success in his early attempts in acting and music. After graduating, he became a film critic and from 1967 to 1970 he worked as editor and dramaturg at the southwestern German television station Südwestfunk. He made his debut as a television director in 1974.
Haneke's feature film debut was 1989's The Seventh Continent
, which served to trace out the violent and bold style that would bloom in later years. Three years later, the controversial Benny's Video
put Haneke's name on the map. Haneke's greatest success came in 2001 with his most critically successful film, the French The Piano Teacher
. It won the prestigious Grand Prize
at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
and also won its stars, Benoît Magimel
and Isabelle Huppert
, the Best Actor and Actress awards. He has worked with Juliette Binoche
(Code Unknown
in 2000 and Caché
in 2005), after she expressed interest in working with him. Haneke frequently worked with real-life couple Ulrich Mühe
and Susanne Lothar
- thrice each.
His latest film, The White Ribbon
, premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The movie is set in 1913 and deals with strange incidents in a small town in Northern Germany, depicting an authoritarian, fascist-like atmosphere, where children are subjected to rigid rules and suffer harsh punishments, and where strange deaths occur. The Cannes jury presided by Isabelle Huppert and including Asia Argento
, Hanif Kureishi
and Robin Wright Penn awarded Haneke's film the Palme d'Or for the best feature film.
Worthy of mention is the fact that most of his films feature a stereotypical bourgeois couple named Anna/Anne and Georg/Georges (The Seventh Continent
, Benny's Video
, Funny Games, Code Unknown
, Time of the Wolf, Caché
, Funny Games US). The identity of the couple, as well as that of the actors portraying them, always changes from one film to another. Their surname is sometimes given as Laurent. His other movies will feature characters with the same names, albeit unmarried and unrelated (such as The White Ribbon
).
, Goethe, and Heinrich von Kleist
in Berlin, Munich
and Vienna
. In 2006 he gave his debut as an opera director, staging Mozart's
Don Giovanni
for the Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier
, when the theater's general manager was Gérard Mortier
. In 2012, he was to direct Così fan tutte
for the New York City Opera
. This production had originally been commissioned by Jürgen Flimm
for the Salzburg Festival
2009, but Haneke had to resign due to an illness preventing him from preparing the work. Haneke is now scheduled to realize the production at Madrid
's Teatro Real
in 2012, which then will be managed by Mortier.
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
n filmmaker
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
and writer
Screenwriter
Screenwriters or scriptwriters or scenario writers are people who write/create the short or feature-length screenplays from which mass media such as films, television programs, Comics or video games are based.-Profession:...
best known for his bleak and disturbing style. His films often document problems and failures in modern society. Haneke has worked in television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
‚ theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
and cinema
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
. He is also known for raising social issues in his work. Besides working as filmmaker he also teaches directing at the Filmacademy Vienna
Filmacademy Vienna
The Filmacademy Vienna is the Institute for Film and Television at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna.- Curriculum :The offered programs are:*Directing*Screenwriting*Cinematography*Editing...
.
At the 2009 Cannes Film Festival
2009 Cannes Film Festival
The 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
, his film The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I...
won the Palme d'Or
Palme d'Or
The Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
for best film, and at the 67th Golden Globe Awards
67th Golden Globe Awards
The 67th Golden Globe Awards was telecasted live from the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on Sunday, January 17, 2010 by NBC, from 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM and 8:00PM – 11:00 PM . The ceremonies were hosted by Ricky Gervais, and were broadcast live for the first time.Nominations were...
the film won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the awards presented at the Golden Globes, an American film awards ceremony.Until 1986, it was known as the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film, meaning that any non-American film could be honoured...
. He has made films in French, German and English.
Life and career
Haneke was born in MunichMunich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
, Germany, the son of the German actor and director Fritz Haneke and the Austrian actress Beatrix von Degenschild. Haneke was raised in the city Wiener Neustadt
Wiener Neustadt
-Main sights:* The Late-Romanesque Dom, consecrated in 1279 and cathedral from 1469 to 1785. The choir and transept, in Gothic style, are from the 14th century. In the late 15th century 12 statues of the Apostles were added in the apse, while the bust of Cardinal Melchior Klesl is attributed to...
. He attended the University of Vienna
University of Vienna
The University of Vienna is a public university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world...
to study philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
after failing to achieve success in his early attempts in acting and music. After graduating, he became a film critic and from 1967 to 1970 he worked as editor and dramaturg at the southwestern German television station Südwestfunk. He made his debut as a television director in 1974.
Haneke's feature film debut was 1989's The Seventh Continent
The Seventh Continent
The Seventh Continent is a 1989 Austrian drama film directed by Michael Haneke. It is Haneke's debut feature film, reportedly inspired by a true story of an Austrian middle class family that committed suicide. The film chronicles the last years of the family, which consists of Georg, an engineer;...
, which served to trace out the violent and bold style that would bloom in later years. Three years later, the controversial Benny's Video
Benny's Video
Benny's Video is a 1992 horror-of-personality film directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke. The plot of the film centers on Benny , a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents Anna and Georg , who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and...
put Haneke's name on the map. Haneke's greatest success came in 2001 with his most critically successful film, the French The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher is a 2001 film directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert and Benoît Magimel. The film is based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.- Plot :...
. It won the prestigious Grand Prize
Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)
The Grand Prix is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or...
at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival
2001 Cannes Film Festival
The 2001 Cannes Film Festival started on May 14 and ran until May 25. The Palme d'Or went to the Italian film The Son's Room by Nanni Moretti.-Jury:* Liv Ullmann, President * Mimmo Calopresti * Charlotte Gainsbourg...
and also won its stars, Benoît Magimel
Benoît Magimel
Benoît Magimel is a French actor. A prolific actor who was 14 when he appeared in his first film, Magimel has starred in a variety of roles in French cinema....
and Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Huppert
Isabelle Anne Madeleine Huppert is a French actress who has appeared in over 90 film and television productions since 1971. She has had 14 films in official competition at the Cannes Film Festival, and won the Best Actress Award twice, for Violette Nozière and La pianiste . She is also the most...
, the Best Actor and Actress awards. He has worked with Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche
Juliette Binoche is a French actress, artist and dancer. She has appeared in more than 40 feature films, been recipient of numerous international accolades, is a published author and has appeared on stage across the world. Coming from an artistic background, she began taking acting lessons during...
(Code Unknown
Code Unknown
Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a 2000 film directed by Michael Haneke. Most of the story occurs in Paris, France, where the fates of several characters intersect and connect...
in 2000 and Caché
Caché (film)
Caché is a 2005 Austrian-French film written and directed by Michael Haneke. It stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges and Juliette Binoche as his wife Anne.-Plot:...
in 2005), after she expressed interest in working with him. Haneke frequently worked with real-life couple Ulrich Mühe
Ulrich Mühe
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
and Susanne Lothar
Susanne Lothar
Susanne Lothar is a German actress.Lothar studied at the Schauspiel an der Hochschule für Theater und Musik in Hamburg...
- thrice each.
His latest film, The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I...
, premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. The movie is set in 1913 and deals with strange incidents in a small town in Northern Germany, depicting an authoritarian, fascist-like atmosphere, where children are subjected to rigid rules and suffer harsh punishments, and where strange deaths occur. The Cannes jury presided by Isabelle Huppert and including Asia Argento
Asia Argento
Aria Asia Anna Maria Vittoria Rossa Argento is an Italian actress, singer, model and director.-Family and early life:...
, Hanif Kureishi
Hanif Kureishi
Hanif Kureishi CBE is an English playwright, screenwriter and filmmaker, novelist and short story writer. The themes of his work have touched on topics of race, nationalism, immigration, and sexuality...
and Robin Wright Penn awarded Haneke's film the Palme d'Or for the best feature film.
Worthy of mention is the fact that most of his films feature a stereotypical bourgeois couple named Anna/Anne and Georg/Georges (The Seventh Continent
The Seventh Continent
The Seventh Continent is a 1989 Austrian drama film directed by Michael Haneke. It is Haneke's debut feature film, reportedly inspired by a true story of an Austrian middle class family that committed suicide. The film chronicles the last years of the family, which consists of Georg, an engineer;...
, Benny's Video
Benny's Video
Benny's Video is a 1992 horror-of-personality film directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke. The plot of the film centers on Benny , a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents Anna and Georg , who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and...
, Funny Games, Code Unknown
Code Unknown
Code Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a 2000 film directed by Michael Haneke. Most of the story occurs in Paris, France, where the fates of several characters intersect and connect...
, Time of the Wolf, Caché
Caché (film)
Caché is a 2005 Austrian-French film written and directed by Michael Haneke. It stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges and Juliette Binoche as his wife Anne.-Plot:...
, Funny Games US). The identity of the couple, as well as that of the actors portraying them, always changes from one film to another. Their surname is sometimes given as Laurent. His other movies will feature characters with the same names, albeit unmarried and unrelated (such as The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon
The White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I...
).
Stage work
Haneke has directed a number of stage productions in German, which include works by StrindbergStrindberg
Strindberg may refer to:People* August Strindberg , Swedish dramatist and painter* Nils Strindberg , Swedish photographer* Anita Strindberg , Swedish actor* Henrik Strindberg , Swedish composerOther...
, Goethe, and Heinrich von Kleist
Heinrich von Kleist
Bernd Heinrich Wilhelm von Kleist was a poet, dramatist, novelist and short story writer. The Kleist Prize, a prestigious prize for German literature, is named after him.- Life :...
in Berlin, Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
and Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. In 2006 he gave his debut as an opera director, staging Mozart's
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni
Don Giovanni is an opera in two acts with music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and with an Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It was premiered by the Prague Italian opera at the Teatro di Praga on October 29, 1787...
for the Opéra National de Paris at Palais Garnier
Palais Garnier
The Palais Garnier, , is an elegant 1,979-seat opera house, which was built from 1861 to 1875 for the Paris Opera. It was originally called the Salle des Capucines because of its location on the Boulevard des Capucines in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, but soon became known as the Palais Garnier...
, when the theater's general manager was Gérard Mortier
Gérard Mortier
Gerard Alfons August, Baron Mortier is a Belgian opera director and administrator of Flemish origin.Mortier has served as general director of La Monnaie and of the Salzburg Festival...
. In 2012, he was to direct Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte
Così fan tutte, ossia La scuola degli amanti K. 588, is an opera buffa by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart first performed in 1790. The libretto was written by Lorenzo Da Ponte....
for the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
. This production had originally been commissioned by Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm
Jürgen Flimm is a German theater and opera director, and theater manager. After establishing himself as one of the exponents of Regietheater, Flimm was called to manage renowned theaters and festivals...
for the Salzburg Festival
Salzburg Festival
The Salzburg Festival is a prominent festival of music and drama established in 1920. It is held each summer within the Austrian town of Salzburg, the birthplace of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart...
2009, but Haneke had to resign due to an illness preventing him from preparing the work. Haneke is now scheduled to realize the production at Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
's Teatro Real
Teatro Real
The Teatro Real or simply El Real , is a major opera house located in Madrid, Spain.-History:...
in 2012, which then will be managed by Mortier.
Quotes
- "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."
- -- From "Film as catharsis".
- "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."
- "Film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth."
- "My favourite film-maker of the decade is Abbas KiarostamiAbbas KiarostamiAbbas Kiarostami is an internationally acclaimed Iranian film director, screenwriter, photographer and film producer. An active filmmaker since 1970, Kiarostami has been involved in over forty films, including shorts and documentaries...
. He achieves a simplicity that’s so difficult to attain."
- "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."
Feature films
- The Seventh ContinentThe Seventh ContinentThe Seventh Continent is a 1989 Austrian drama film directed by Michael Haneke. It is Haneke's debut feature film, reportedly inspired by a true story of an Austrian middle class family that committed suicide. The film chronicles the last years of the family, which consists of Georg, an engineer;...
(1989) - Benny's VideoBenny's VideoBenny's Video is a 1992 horror-of-personality film directed by the Austrian Michael Haneke. The plot of the film centers on Benny , a teenager who views much of his life as distilled through video images, and his well-to-do parents Anna and Georg , who enable Benny's focus on video cameras and...
(1992) - 71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance71 Fragments of a Chronology of Chance is a 1994 Austrian drama film directed by Michael Haneke. It has a fragmented storyline as the title suggests, and chronicles several unrelated stories in parallel. Separate narrative lines intersect in an incident at the last of the film: a mass killing at...
(1994) - Funny Games (1997)
- Code UnknownCode UnknownCode Unknown: Incomplete Tales of Several Journeys is a 2000 film directed by Michael Haneke. Most of the story occurs in Paris, France, where the fates of several characters intersect and connect...
(2000) - The Piano TeacherThe Piano TeacherThe Piano Teacher is a 2001 film directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert and Benoît Magimel. The film is based on the novel Die Klavierspielerin by Elfriede Jelinek who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2004.- Plot :...
(2002) Won the Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)Grand Prix (Cannes Film Festival)The Grand Prix is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. It is the second-most prestigious prize of the festival after the Palme d'Or... - Time of the Wolf (2003)
- CachéCaché (film)Caché is a 2005 Austrian-French film written and directed by Michael Haneke. It stars Daniel Auteuil as Georges and Juliette Binoche as his wife Anne.-Plot:...
(2005) (Hidden) was nominated for the Palme d'OrPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival2005 Cannes Film FestivalThe 2005 Cannes Film Festival started on May 11 and ran until May 22. Twenty movies from 13 countries were selected to compete. The awards were announced on May 21...
. - Funny Games (US remake) (2008)
- The White RibbonThe White RibbonThe White Ribbon is a 2009 Austrian-German film, released in black and white, written and directed by Michael Haneke. The drama darkly depicts society and family in a northern German village just before World War I...
(2009) Won the Palme d'OrPalme d'OrThe Palme d'Or is the highest prize awarded at the Cannes Film Festival and is presented to the director of the best feature film of the official competition. It was introduced in 1955 by the organising committee. From 1939 to 1954, the highest prize was the Grand Prix du Festival International du...
at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival2009 Cannes Film FestivalThe 62nd annual Cannes Film Festival was held from May 13 to May 24, 2009. French actress Isabelle Huppert was the President of the Jury. It was announced on March 19, 2009, that Pixar's film Up would open the festival...
and 2010 the Golden Globe in the category "Best Foreign Language Film". - LoveLove (2012 film)Love is an upcoming French-language film written and directed by Michael Haneke, starring Isabelle Huppert, Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva. The narrative will focus on an elderly couple, Anne and Georges, who are retired music teachers with a daughter who lives abroad. One day Anne...
(2012)
TV films
- ...Und was Kommt Danach? (1974) (After Liverpool)
- Drei Wege zum See (1976) (Three Paths to the Lake)
- Sperrmüll (1976) (Household Rubbish)
- Lemminge, Teil 1: Arkadien (1979) (Lemmings, Part 1: Arcadia)
- Lemminge, Teil 2: Verletzungen (1979) (Lemmings, Part 2: Injuries)
- Variation (1983)
- Wer war Edgar Allan? (1984) (Who Was Edgar Allen?)
- Fräulein (1985) (Miss)
- Nachruf für einen Mörder (1991) (Obituary for a Murderer)
- Die Rebellion (1992) (The Rebellion)
- Das SchloßDas Schloß (film)Das Schloß is a 1997 TV film by Austrian director Michael Haneke. It is an adaptation of Franz Kafka's absurdist novel and was first aired on Austrian television, but was also released in Germany, The Czech Republic, Japan, Canada, and the USA.-Synopsis:...
(1997) (The Castle)