Michael Haneke Quotes

In film, you have to let go sometimes.

I like making movies. I like the process. I like trying out new ideas, and if they don't work, they don't work. That's the reason I generated the money in the first place, to be able to try things. That's where I spend my money.

I didn't really know how to make a film when I made 'Control'. I had to create my own language, just as I did when I started taking photographs. I never studied either one.

I want to change things with everything I do, not for the sake of changing things, but for the sake of taking greater and greater risks, or how minimalist I might be able to be, or how I can involve elements or ingredients in music videos that are not musical, for instance.

The best films come about through experimentation.

I always wanted to be really experimental.

With Fincher, you can take chances and try things. And what happens is that any pretension and preparation you've done, all the square, intellectual work, you can't keep that up for 40 takes. It breaks down, and new things start popping up. This, for me, is the most exciting thing about film-making.

As an artist, you reflect the world around you. To do that, you must dive in, take risks, fall on your face, win, and sometimes lose a great deal.

I have always believed that when a film is being made, it has to be the director's vision.

Signature film-making seems rather dull to me; it's about finding something you can do something with and running with the ball.

I am definitely going to continue directing, but I am always going to try to explore new ways of making films. It really is possible to make films in different ways.

For me, as an artist, I think you have to experiment.

I'm not someone who has to make a film at any cost. I have to find the right way to make it or not at all.

On the ridge where the great artist moves forward, every step is an adventure, an extreme risk. In that risk, however, and only there, lays the freedom of Art.

The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.

An artist should be taking risks. That's the whole idea of being an artist.

The thing is, as a film director, you're essentially alone: You have to tell a story primarily through pictures, and only you know the film you see in your head.

To make great movies, there is an element of risk. You have to say, 'Well, I am going to make this film, and it is not really a sure thing.'

I've always been somebody who, when I started a picture, never knew what the next picture would be.

I think the most experimental way to a film is to tell the story the traditional way, because everyone is doing the other thing.

Photography is still a very new medium and everything must be tried and dare.

From the very first movie I ever made to the current time, there have been times between action and cut when I've sensed some kind of new dimension that I haven't been familiar with before.

You become the movie you are making.

And I may often question choices I make as a producer. But I've never questioned the choices I make as a director.

I'm proud that with 'Bright Eyes' we've always experimented and tried to make a different record every time out.