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Michael Haneke: I like all my characters. (laughter) No, no, but I portray people who are deformed, as they are in The Piano Teacher. They are victims and the victim is perhaps not sympathetic in the way I want to identify myself with a character. It’s a sort of compassion. This is the human condition, not to be attracted to someone who is attractive and nice. That’s too easy. One must have compassion for human beings. As an artist, without compassion, you are dead.Lawrence Chua: Earlier, at the beginning of the interview, you said that you weren’t interested in sadism and masochism. And yet in The Piano Teacher there seems to be a battle going on about the nature of love and power. Toward the end, Erika tells Klemmer, “I want what you want.” What is this quality that he wants? Is this something you might describe as love?MH: It’s very simple. That’s the tragedy of all couples. They each want something different. They don’t want the same thing which is why “love” doesn’t work. In general, everyone has an expectation of love—I have an expectation of love, you have an expectation of love. But most of the time, I don’t care about your expectation, I just care about my own expectation. This is the tragedy of love. It’s very difficult because it’s a philosophical question, what is the definition of love? It would be too dangerous for me to try to give a definition. —BOMB 80, 2002

Michael Haneke: I like all my characters. (laughter) No, no, but I portray people who are deformed, as they are in The Piano Teacher. They are victims and the victim is perhaps not sympathetic in the way I want to identify myself with a character. It’s a sort of compassion. This is the human condition, not to be attracted to someone who is attractive and nice. That’s too easy. One must have compassion for human beings. As an artist, without compassion, you are dead.

Lawrence Chua: Earlier, at the beginning of the interview, you said that you weren’t interested in sadism and masochism. And yet in The Piano Teacher there seems to be a battle going on about the nature of love and power. Toward the end, Erika tells Klemmer, “I want what you want.” What is this quality that he wants? Is this something you might describe as love?

MH: It’s very simple. That’s the tragedy of all couples. They each want something different. They don’t want the same thing which is why “love” doesn’t work. In general, everyone has an expectation of love—I have an expectation of love, you have an expectation of love. But most of the time, I don’t care about your expectation, I just care about my own expectation. This is the tragedy of love. It’s very difficult because it’s a philosophical question, what is the definition of love? It would be too dangerous for me to try to give a definition.

—BOMB 80, 2002

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