This is a snippet from the Paris Review, there book of interviews with writers are INCREDIBLE and well worth getting your hands on this Christmas......
Michael Haneke, The Art of Screenwriting No. 5
Interviewed by Luisa Zielinski
INTERVIEWER
Would you say that drawing from one’s own experience and background is always good—or even necessary?
HANEKE
I’ve never seen good results from people trying to speak about things they don’t know firsthand. They will talk about Afghanistan, about children in Africa, but in the end they only know what they’ve seen on TV or read in the newspaper. And yet they pretend—even to themselves—that they know what they’re saying. But that’s bullshit. I’m quite convinced that I don’t know anything except for what is going on around me, what I can see and perceive every day, and what I have experienced in my life so far. These are the only things I can rely on. Anything else is merely the pretense of knowledge with no depth. Of course, I don’t just write about things precisely as they have happened to me—some have and some haven’t. But at least I try to invent stories with which I can personally identify.
My students, meanwhile, pitch only the gravest of topics. For them it’s always got to be the Holocaust. I usually tell them, Back off. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You can only reproduce what you read or heard elsewhere. Others who actually lived through it have said it much better than you ever could. Try to create something that springs organically from your own experience. For only then does it stand the slightest chance of being genuinely interesting. Incidentally, this is also why in our day and age the movies coming out of the developing countries are much more interesting than our own. These films portray an authentic experience, and they do so with real passion, while we, the viewers, only know of these things second- or thirdhand. And yet, we can feel when something is real—as a viewer, you can feel the pleasure or despair of a certain scene. We, in our protected little worlds, are much more numb because we are in luck not to experience danger on a daily basis. But that’s precisely why the film industry in the so-called first world is in such a rut. There is just so much recycling. We don’t have the capability to represent authentic experiences because there is so little we do experience. At the most basic level, all we’re concerned about here are our material possessions and sexual urges. There really isn’t much more to our lives.
INTERVIEWER
Wouldn’t you say that it can be valuable—and not so easy—to write about your material possessions and sexual urges in a way that brings the world of our experience to life? Maybe that’s our challenge, in New York or Vienna or Berlin.
HANEKE
I would agree with that wholeheartedly.
INTERVIEWER
It seems to me that in the context of your oeuvre, Amour marks a slight shift of focus. If previously your films dealt with problems of communication and cruelty, then Amour is surprisingly tender in comparison, displaying some- thing that’s akin even to genuine understanding and love.
HANEKE
And even so, we’ve got problems of communication—between father and daughter. But in the married couple I did set out to construct an ideal case. They truly love each other and have respected each other and remained close for over fifty years. That, of course, isn’t very common, but I needed that to raise the stakes in the plot. It was important that this be a couple that has you say, Wow, I would love to have that, too. That was simply necessary from a dramaturgic standpoint. Had I set the film in a social context lacking such financial security, it would’ve been an altogether different film. Amour’s protagonists still take part and pleasure in high culture. They are comfortable, they go to concerts with their friends. I wanted this film to speak about the end of life without being a social drama. Because no matter how rich and cultured you are, if you are sick and nearing death, you’re not going to be having such an amazing time—that was my point of departure. I wanted to ask, How do you deal with the suffering of the person you love? That is an unbearable situation.
