165 Quotes by Michael Haneke

I've never let producers tell me what to do. Even when I was making television, I always did what I wanted to do, and if I couldn't, I didn't do it. It was a freedom that, these days, young directors starting out don't have.

It's difficult because you can't generalise about these things. But in essence, you deal with children as simply as you deal with actors - you have to show a certain sort of respect. You deal with them lovingly and protect them, but if you protect them enough then they're open to engage with what you want to do with them.

On the set I make jokes I can't get too involved, or it turns into sentimental soup. I try to keep it light.

Of course, we avoid death. To know something is inevitable is one thing. To accept, to truly feel it... that's different.

It's harder to write a story with just two people in a room than with 50 characters.

Because in the feudal system of that period at least 80% of people lived in villages, so it's very simple to get a cross-section of society in a single village. You get the microcosm of the social macrocosm.

As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody.

Awards are important for all directors because they improve your working conditions. You're only as good as your last film, so if you get prizes or large audiences, then you get more money for your next film.

Well, the first thing I had to do was to read a lot. First of all, about education... and looking at education from the Middle Ages right through to the 20th Century. The second major area was country life in the 19th Century, which I don't know much about these days.