Michael Haneke: 'The World Would Be Much Poorer Without Art'

Can art be entertaining?

Of course, it must be entertaining. But the question is, what is entertainment? Because in German, there are two words for entertaining. Unterhaltend can mean entertaining even if it's high art. The other word means "entertainment to kill time." Bach can be entertaining. But entertainment to destroy time -- that's nothing. It's business.

Is that what you associate with television, where you got your start?

Unfortunately, television today. Twenty years ago there was more responsibility on the set by television makers. In Europe, television is not very good, but here, it's worse. It's unbelievable! I was switching the channels -- it's incredible.

I won't attempt to defend it. Though there is some good TV -- you just have to find it. You might have to pay for it. I'd like to talk now about the children in The White Ribbon. I read you looked at 7,000 non-actor children.

Yes.

What were you looking for?

You have to have a nose. We started with ads in radio and newspapers. So people came, and there were photographs and a little interview. I had about twenty assistants who were looking in the whole area.

Were you looking in the countryside or the city?

Both. So finally we'd give them a little scene to try, and in the end, I saw maybe 200, and worked with 30 or 40 directly. It was step by step, and took about half a year, this process. It was a lot of work, but it was biggest fear that the film starts, and I haven't got the children. So we started very early.

What do you say to them before the camera turns on?

First of all you have to win the trust of these people to give them the confidence. The moment you jeopardize this confidence, perhaps by saying something stupid to your actor, then you destroy this confidence. Because they smell it; they know it. It's a question of relation.

Do you take on a father role?

I don't know. I can't say in a general way. Every person is singular, so you have to feel where he is. My students ask me how to do it -- the biggest fear with students are the actors. They have no fear with the cameras, but when they confront an actor, they have no idea what to do or say. You have to have a good ear, in my opinion. When I worked in theater, I had a lot of little discussions with actors who complained, "You don't look at me!" Because I was sitting turned away and listening. And I said, "It's because I see you better that way." You just feel immediately if it's wrong. The most important thing for a director is a good ear.

How did you write and cast the role of the school teacher narrator, the old voice taking us through the story?

I didn't want to pretend that he exactly knew how the world was at that time. It's just a memory. The film starts with him saying, "I don't know if what I'm saying is true. I can't remember exactly, etc." I hate how historical films pretend we know exactly how it was. This alienates me. So I needed to find a voice as believable compared with the actor who played him as a young man. So I needed a high voice, and a very old voice. It wasn't easy to find. This actor is Ernst Jacobi, a very famous theater actor in Germany.

And Christian Friedel, the boy who played him as a young man. Is he a known actor, or your discovery?

It's his first role in cinema. He is a very young theater actor, and he's amazing. He never during the whole shooting got a single phrase wrong. The tone was always exactly right.

I read your next project is something about the Internet.

That's the one after the next one. The next project is a film about very old age people, and the humiliation from outside society when your body begins to fall apart. Our future.

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