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Michael Haneke
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by Jason Buchanan

Cheerfully wishing his audience a "disturbing evening" at a London retrospective of his films, director Michael Haneke insists that he is an optimist at heart, despite all of the relentlessly bleak carnage and deeply disturbing imagery so vividly painted and seared into the mind of anyone who has had the uncomfortable experience of viewing his work. Practically born into show business, to an actress mother and director father, in Munich in March 1942, Haneke spent his early years in a working class suburb of Vienna before an early attempt at fame as an actor and pianist. Failing to achieve early success, Haneke attended the University of Vienna to study philosophy and psychology, and became a film critic and stage director before making his eventual debut as a television director with After Liverpool in 1973. Setting in motion a television career specializing in literary adaptations and small screen films, Haneke would work successfully in that medium until his feature debut with The Seventh Continent in 1989. Laced with the theme of muted emotions resulting in stark violence that would become his calling card, The Seventh Continent's bleak and austere portrayal of a family deadened and ultimately destroyed by modern convenience served as a deeply disturbing cautionary tale, made all the more effective by the final revelation that it was based in reality. The first of an agonizing trilogy on the same theme, including Benny's Video (1992) and 71 Fragments of a Chronology Chance (1994), it offered a telling contrast to the Hollywood-manufactured attempts at shock in the form of slimy aliens and supernatural chills. These films were horrific and they were all too real in their implications and actions, the distortion of reality so common among typical horror films was abandoned in Haneke's works in favor of the infinitely more terrifying affects of urban alienation. Haneke took the modern obsession with cinematic violence to a level rarely attempted in 1997, with the tale of a happy family relentlessly tortured in Funny Games. Violence is not fun in Haneke's world and this is where his optimism comes into play. Though shocking and repulsive on a number of levels, Haneke's goal to shatter the numbness instilled by countless depictions of inconsequential violence in modern media is something the director views as positive and uplifting, even if the means to that end induce shock and anger. Haneke took home the Grand Prize at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival for The Piano Teacher, a compelling tale of sexual repression that also won that film's stars, Benoit Magimel and Isabelle Huppert, the Best Actor and Actress awards at the festival.
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Drama Thriller 1976 - 2012 March 23, 1942 in Munich, Germany

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Title Year Editors' Rating User Rating

Three Paths to the Lake

Director

1976

NOT YET RATED

Lemmings, Part 1: Arcadia

Director

1979

NOT YET RATED

Lemmings, Part 2: Injuries

1979

NOT YET RATED

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Michael Haneke movies, photos, movie reviews, filmography, and biography - AllMovie

Director

Variation
Director

1983

NOT YET RATED

Who Was Edgar Allan?

Director

1984

NOT YET RATED

Der 7. Kontinent
Director, Screenwriter

1989

(9)

Benny's Video
Director, Screenwriter

1992

(12)

71 Fragmente Einer Chronologie des Zufalls

Director, Screenwriter

1994

(2)

Der Kopf Des Mohren

Screenwriter

1995

NOT YET RATED

Das Schlo
Director, Screenwriter

1997

(6)

Funny Games
Director, Screenwriter

1997

(62)

Code Unknown
Director, Screenwriter

2000

(10)

The Piano Teacher

Director, Screenwriter

2001

(59)

The Time of the Wolf

Director, Screenwriter

2003

(14)

Michael Haneke: 24 Realities per Second

Participant

2004

NOT YET RATED

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Michael Haneke movies, photos, movie reviews, filmography, and biography - AllMovie

Cach
Director, Screenwriter

2005

(80)

Funny Games
Director, Screenwriter

2007

(41)

40 x 15
Participant

2008

NOT YET RATED

The White Ribbon

Director, Screenwriter

2009

(56)

Amour
Director, Screenwriter

2012

(8)

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http://www.allmovie.com/artist/michael-haneke-p93329[15/1/2013 12:11:15 ]