There are really two types of laughter on the part of the spectator. There is the laughter of recognition – which means seeing things you’re familiar with and laughing at yourself. But there’s also hysterical laughter – a way of dealing with the things we see that upset us.
Personally, I can’t stand violence. In any standard American mainstream movie, there’s 20 times more violence than in any one of my films, so I don’t know why those directors aren’t asked why they’re such specialists for violence.
I learned my business in the theater and in television, particularly working with the actors. You can learn much more in the theater than directing a movie, because then you have no time when you are shooting a movie to really work with the actors. You have to learn this craft somewhere else.
A strict form such as mine cannot be achieved through improvisation.
It’s the duty of art to ask questions, not to provide answers. And if you want a clearer answer, I’ll have to pass.
It’s unbearable when someone changes around you. Just imagine that your life partner changes, then it is difficult to cope with. Or your mother. Or your father. They were strong and now they’re like a baby – it’s not so funny.
As a European filmmaker, you can not make a genre film seriously. You can only make a parody.
As a private person, professionally I am invisible.
Unfortunately, you’re helpless when people interpret your work wrongly. There are simply people who can’t or won’t understand or accept what you’re trying to do. When you take the risk of expressing yourself in public, you have to open yourself to that possibility.
I consider all my films experiments.
I’m far more relaxed with German. I’m a control freak. I like to know exactly who’s saying and doing what.
It’s a disease of critics that once they’ve labeled someone, it’s very hard to change their perspective. It’s laziness.
It’s harder to write a story with just two people in a room than with 50 characters.
Because I’m the author of my screenplays I know what I’m looking for. It’s true that I can be stubborn in demanding that I get what I want, but it’s also a question of working with patience and love.
To be perfectly honest, I think that as I’m growing older, I’m just growing more impatient. I’ll be very happy if at some point people say, ‘Michael’s grown wiser and softer in his old age.’ But we’ll have to wait and see what my next project is.
Pornography, it seems to me, is no different from war films or propaganda films in that it tries to make the visceral, horrific, or transgressive elements of life consumable.
I’m not someone who enjoys long talks, long rehearsals. I’m very technical: I tell my actors, you come in, you sit down, you pick up a coffee, you look here, you say the line. We try it with the cameras rolling, and if it doesn’t work, we adjust it until it does. It’s very simple.
I never suffered from the absence of a father. On the contrary, as a child I was more inclined to see men as a disturbing factor. It made things difficult for me when I started working as a director.
At its best, film should be like a ski jump. It should give the viewer the option of taking flight, while the act of jumping is left up to him.
A feature film is twenty-four lies per second.