Michael Haneke: ‘I use the internet, but I don’t… | Little White Lies

Interviews

Michael Haneke: I use the inter­net, but I don’t have time to waste on social media’

28 Nov 2017

Words by David Jenkins

A bearded man wearing red-framed glasses holds a tablet computer against a bright pink background.
A bearded man wearing red-framed glasses holds a tablet computer against a bright pink background.
The Aus­tri­an auteur explains why he had to cre­ate a Face­book account for his new film, Hap­py End.

The vaunt­ed writer/​director of such mono­lith­i­cal­ly bleak films as Amour, The White Rib­bon and Fun­ny Games explains how, in his new one, Hap­py End, Haneke com­bines the dig­i­tal world with an abid­ing inter­est in suicide.

LWLies: You start­ed writ­ing a film called Flash­mob which you aban­doned – did any of that film evolve into what became Hap­py End?

Haneke: There is one thread in the film that does come from Flash­mob, and that is about the girl who poi­sons her own moth­er. It’s based on a sto­ry I read a cou­ple of years ago in the news­pa­per – a girl who did just that, tried to poi­son her moth­er over a long peri­od of time and pub­lished it, wrote about it on the inter­net. It’s some­thing that I want­ed to put into a film for many years, but that was the only thread that I took from Flashmob.

Do you engage with the inter­net a lot?

For this film I opened up a Face­book account myself. I explored a lit­tle bit, had some expe­ri­ence, to do basic research. It would be the same thing if I were mak­ing a film about a musi­cian, for exam­ple. I would want to learn more about their world. I’m per­son­al­ly not a stu­dent of social media. I use email. I use the inter­net. When I want to research things quick­ly, of course, I have an iPhone, and use it to talk to peo­ple. But social media? Trust me, I don’t have time in my life to waste sit­ting in front of the com­put­er and surfing.

Regard­ing your Face­book page – was that under your own iden­ti­ty or under the iden­ti­ty of a child?

No, I didn’t use an account using my own name, as I would have been flood­ed by fans. I want­ed to remain anonymous.

But it wasn’t a child?

No, it wasn’t.

Where does your inter­est in sui­cide come from?

I couldn’t very well imag­ine that, at a cer­tain point, giv­en cir­cum­stances, you’d want to end your life. I grew up and was raised by my aunt, and at the end of her life, when she was 92, she reached a stage where she didn’t want to go on liv­ing. She asked for my help. She want­ed to take some pills that would allow her to end her life. At that time I was sim­ply too cow­ard­ly to want to help her out. She attempt­ed sui­cide and I found her at home and saved her. When she woke up in the hos­pi­tal room and she saw me sit­ting there, she looked at me and said, Why did you do that to me?’ Then she wait­ed, and at a point when I was away at a film fes­ti­val she did it, and this time she suc­ceed­ed. But I think she was right to do it. I think it should be a person’s right to be able to end their life.

Did you have any dis­cus­sions with her about her impulse?

Yes, we spoke about it and it’s a deci­sion or a desire that I approved of entire­ly. She told me that all of her friends were dead, she had no one else she could talk to, that she was bored so she spent all of her days in front of the tele­vi­sion. The first thing in the morn­ing, she would be wor­ried whether she’d be able to get to the bath­room in time because she wasn’t able to stand. Life’, she said, was a con­tin­u­al series of indig­ni­ties and humil­i­a­tions’, and she asked for my help. But I was too cow­ard­ly. I said, No. You know in your will you’ve named me as your inher­i­tor, your heir, and if it came out that I’d helped you to com­mit sui­cide, then I would be legal­ly pros­e­cut­ed. They’d think that I’d done it to get your mon­ey.’ But it was a deci­sion that I entire­ly approved of and I wish that I hadn’t been this cow­ard­ly and had been able to help her.

That’s an incred­i­ble story.

It’s a very com­mon too. I think it’s wrong that soci­ety impos­es the oblig­a­tion to remain alive on such peo­ple. I want to be clear and more spe­cif­ic on that because I’m afraid of being mis­in­ter­pret­ed, so let me come back to that and say that I under­stand, at the same time, that its impos­si­ble – or at least dif­fi­cult – for the state to make assist­ed dying legal. That would open the door to mur­der, for exam­ple, and it’s very dif­fi­cult to reg­u­late. All the more so in Ger­man speak­ing coun­tries, giv­en our past and with the role that euthana­sia played in the Third Reich. So that would be very dan­ger­ous. But at the same time I am sym­pa­thet­ic to the sense of humil­i­a­tion that comes from forc­ing peo­ple to go on liv­ing such an unwor­thy existence.

Hap­py End is released 1 Decem­ber. Read our review.

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