On The Set I Make Jokes I

It's Difficult Because You Can't Generalise About These Things. But In Essence, You Deal With Children As Simply As You Deal With Actors - You Have To Show A Certain Sort Of Respect. You Deal With Them Lovingly And Protect Them, But If You Protect Them Enough Then They're Open To Engage With What You Want To Do With Them.

My Feeling, However, Is That Films That Are Open Are More Productive For The Audience. The Films That, If I'm In A Cinema, And I'm Watching A Movie That Answers All The Questions That It Raises, It's A Film That Bores Me. In The Same Way, If I'm Reading A Book That Doesn't Leave Me With Questions, Moving Questions, That I Feel Confronted With, Then For Me It's A Waste Of Time. I Don't Want To Read A Book That Simply Confirms What I Already Know.

The Trouble Is That When You Read Criticisms About The Other Films That I've Made You Get The Impression That They're All About Themes, Or Problems, Or Ideas. But Those Are Actually Things That Develop Out Of Characters, Out Of Images And Out Of Other Things. These More Abstract Things Develop While Working On The Material, And Out Of It. It's Not A Theoretical Exercise From The Outset.

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.

You Cannot Hurt Animals, So What Do I Do? I Kill The Dog First. Then I Do It With The Boy. You're Not Supposed To Break The Illusion Of This Being A Film, So I Make The Actor Talk To The Audience. Provocation Is The Principle Of The Whole Film [ Funny Games]. It Is Very Ironic.