Michael Haneke Page 2

Michael Haneke’s Amour was something of an outsider’s choice until this year’s Oscars nominations were announced. The movie has been nominated for Best Picture, Directing (Haneke), Foreign Language Film, Writing (Original Screenplay) and Actress in a Leading Role, for Emmanuelle Riva, who – at the age of 85 – is the oldest woman to have been nominated in the category and faces competition from Quvenzhané Wallis, the youngest, at the age of nine.

The movie tells the tale of an octogenarian couple – both retired music teachers and of Georges’ (Jean-Louis Trintignant) struggle to care for Anne as her body begins to falter and shut down after a series of strokes. The trailer only gives a glimpse into the story; a sense of a family troubled, but no questions are answered. There is as much silence as there is speech in the trailer; a poignant moment as Anne sits at the piano, a beautiful piece of music plays in the background, yet, as the camera pans over to Georges, he reaches behind him and switches the music off; Anne is no longer capable of playing the piano as she once could. The role of the couple’s exasperated daughter, Eva, is played by Isabelle Huppert.

Amour, in addition to its clutch of Oscar nominations (many are hailing Amour as this year’s The Artist), the movie also won the highly coveted Palme D’Or prize at last year’s Cannes film festival. 

Continue reading: New Trailer For Five Times Oscar-Nominated Amour (Video)

He was the bookies favorite coming in to today, but Argo's Ben Affleck didn't even make the shortlist for the Best Director category as the Oscars nomination were revealed. 

Just yesterday the Mirror had reported that it was to be a two horse race between Affleck and Zero Dark Thirty director Kathryn Bigelow this year to take the much-coveted award. In the event though neither of them managed to make the final cut, the Academy panel of judges looking over them both in order to give a chance to the lesser favored Benh Zeitlin and Michael Hanneke for Beasts Of The Southern Wild and Amour respectively. Those two join the much more fancied Steven Spielberg, David O Russell and Ang Lee, the trio nominated for Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and The Life Of Pi respectively. 

Continue reading: Ben Affleck Misses Out On Best Director Oscar Nod; Will It Affect Argo's Chances In Best Picture?

A movie being good doesn't automatically make it enjoyable, and few films prove this to be more true than Michael Haneke's Amour.

Starring two French greats, Emmanuelle Riva and Jean-Louis Trintignant as a wealthy Parisian couple, Anne and Georges, in the final few chapters of their life together, Amour explores the inelegant and painful aspects of love in old age. As Anne suffers multiple strokes resulting in her degeneration of her physical and mental abilities, this begins the heart breaking journey for Georges, watching his life long partner slowly die. There are very few, if any, ways in which this could be an uplifting movie, and it's not, however with a 91% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it's undoubtedly very good. 

Rolling Stone says that Riva and Trinignant "give performances of breathtaking power and beauty", but advise to "prepare for an emotional wipeout." The Hollywood Reporter describes it as "Magnificent" but also that it's 'a deliberately torturous watch" because the audience is forced to come "face to face with the nature of love in its most unromantic and weighty moments." 

Continue reading: Michael Haneke's 'Amour' Is An 'Emotional Wipeout'

Amour, the French-language drama directed by Michael Haneke, hits theaters in the U.S. this weekend on the back of critical acclaim and the coveted Palme d’Or. The movie, about an elderly man who cares for his wife after she suffers a stroke, is nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the 85^th Academy Awards.

Though the film is almost certain to win the Oscar, it’s likely that Haneke’s movie will get a nod in the Best Picture category too. Traditionally, Palme d’Or winners do not achieve huge success at the Academy Awards, though Armour represents one of the best reviewed pieces of work for 2012 and Haneke is popular with the voters. It holds a 91% rating on the Rotten Tomatoes review aggregating website, with Deborah Young of the Hollywood Reporter gushing, “Consummate acting helps ease a painful watch, as Michael Haneke describes the ultimate test of love in a profoundly honest study of sickness and dying.” Peter Travers of Rolling Stone said, “The title is French for love. The movie itself, indisputably the year's best foreign-language film and an Oscar front-runner, defines what love is. And it does it the hard way.” Though Lincoln, Zero Dark Thirty, Argo and Les Miserables appear to be ahead in the race for the Best Picture Oscar, critics refrained from throwing the word ‘masterpiece’ about in reaction to any of the films. Numerous writers called Amour just that.

It currently sits at 25/1 to win the biggest prize of them all. It’s certainly not beyond the realms of possibility. 

David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook - a stunning dark comedy starring Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper - appears to have hijacked the Oscars race. Russell was tipped for a golden statuette with The Fighter, though missed out on the directing prize to Tom Hooper (The Kings Speech). His latest movie has certainly thrown a spanner into the works for the greatest film prize of them all, so we've compiled an Oscars cheat sheet for Best Picture in 2013. So read on, before cleverly dropping the information into conversations with your friends.

Who's the frontrunner?

There's still a handful of likely Oscar contenders to be released, though the eight or ten movies most strongly tipped to get nominated for Best Picture are now in place. The list is headed by two movies: Ben Affleck's thriller Argo and Steven Spielberg's historical drama Lincoln. The bookmakers cannot choose between the two, but most give the former's movie the edge as recent history suggests this type of film is likely to please the younger looking Academy. The Hurt Locker famously usurped Avatar in 2009, and Affleck's slick movie has much in common with Kathryn Bigelow's classic Iraq War film. As mentioned, both films are pretty much neck-and-neck in the betting, though Argo is generally available at 3/1 while Spielberg's epic is around 4/1.

Continue reading: Silver Linings Playbook? Argo? Lincoln? Your Oscars Cheat Sheet For Best Picture!

"Il ya quelqu'un?", 'Is anyone there?' are the first words spoken on the trailer for Michael Haneke's Palme D'Or winning film, 'Amour'. These are the words that haunt the entire film, in which an ageing musician, Anne, has a series of catastrophic strokes which render her incapable of playing the piano, and is swiftly followed by the onset of dementia. Her husband, Georges, in fear and faith, does his best to care for her, as their love and their lives are tested. 

Haneke is best known for brutal films, ones where women slice their genetalia (The Piano Teacher), or the murder of an entire family. While these films are physically violent, and haunting, Amour is both violent and haunting in an entirely different way, the Telegraph even described it as a 'horror' which in many ways it truly is. 'Amour' is an exploration of old age, love and the inevitability of mortality. Due to the strokes and dementia, Georges loses Anne, the woman he has devoted his life to, we see him experience grief, bereavement and bewilderment while she's still alive- hence the question that hangs over the whole film: 'Is anyone there?'. We see Anne struggle to come to terms with her own illness. The breathtaking performances from Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva are human in all ways that we are human. Both bodily and emotionally they both, with Haneke, force the audience into seeing ourselves and our futures as immensely fallible and terrifying, but with such tenderness as to make us fall in love with the film itself. 

The Telegraph praised Riva and Trintignant particularly, "At the close of their long careers, stretched and tested, these actors are heroically brave, subtle - and heartbreaking." And, the Guardian gave it a rare full five star review and described it as "a moving, terrifying and uncompromising drama of extraordinary intimacy and intelligence." Amour is released in the UK on November 16th.