| |
 |
Links
|
Official
Site in France
Official
Site in USA |
| Budget |
-------- |
Filmming
Location |
2000.09-11
Vienna, Austria |
Date
Released
|
2001.05.14
Cannes Film Festival
2001.09.05
France |
|
|
768, 464 in
France
$980,000 in USA |
| DVD
& Video |
0000.00.00
in France |
|
La
Pianiste (2001)
aka: The Piano Teacher
DIRECTOR: Michael Haneke
CAST: Annie Girardot; Benoît Magimel
SYNOPSIS
Erika
Kohut teaches piano at the Conservatory in Vienna. In her early forties, she lives
at home, cooped up with her mother, whose influence Erika escapes only on her
regular visits to porn cinemas and peepshows. Her sexuality is an affair of morbid
voyeurism and masochistic self-mutilation. Erika and life travel separate paths.
Until one day, one of her students gets it into his head to seduce her......
NOTE
Piano
Teacher is really a difficult movie to watch. It took a long time to get released
in USA, despite of its three major awards at last year's Cannes Film Festival
(The Jury Award, Best Actress and Best Actor). I
would doubt Michael Haneke's abilities to handle those romantic scenes, because
some shots in the first half of the film appearred very weird physically - such
as: the way Erika and Walter talking while looking at each other at a family-hold
recital. However, the film is nevertheless full of the most powerful moments.
It is from the second half of the film that I start to fall in love with it. Without
question, Isabelle has given one of her best performances in this film.
There're shots that particually focus on her back which recall me a lot of her
lacemaker - there're so many things undergoing that you can tell even without
looking at her face. Then when she faces on you, it's so unbearable to see her
kneeling down saying to Magimel, or rather saying to you, the audience, "If
you want to hit me, then hit me." Is there anything better than seeing Isabelle
"begging for love"? - Weiyan,
April 14, 2002
"Marketing consultants
vetoed the original title. 'Let It Bleed.' As well as promoting it as a version
of 'Pandora's Box.' My God, where does Huppert go after the last shot?"-
from "Real
Left Rock Top 10" @salon.com - Arts and entertainment. - FORUM
QUOTE
Michael Haneke
In my opinion she's the best actress I know in Europe, if not the entire world. On the one hand, she has the sensitivity and ability to show suffering. On the other, she can show the character's cold-bloodedness and looks good at the same time.
Michael Haneke
"The
Bearded Prophet of "Code Unknown" and "The Piano Teacher"
IndieWire,
December 4, 2001
My main attraction towards Isabelle was that, on the
one hand she can be very vulnerable and on the other she can be very icy and intellectual.
She's the victim in the same moment that she is the perpetrator, and there are
not many actresses that have that range. Isabelle
Huppert
at News Conference after
the Closing Ceremony
Cannes, May 20, 2001
I
am very moved to receive this prize. I believed in film and to me the cinema is
the business of belief... I knew that it was an innovative film (...). This film
met certain obstacles, it was not done easily. I immediately saw it could be a
film alarming as well as simple and moving. For the hard scenes, one saw that
Michael Haneke raised ethical questions to know what was put or not. What
appeared necessary to me was to leave my cultural space, of my identity, to understand
the attitude compared to the music, the direction of the effort, attraction towards
saint and obscene".
AWARD
- Grand
Jury, Best Actress and Actor Awards, Cannes International Film Festival, from
May 9 to 20, 2001.
- Best 2001 European Actress,
European Film Academy Awards, Nov. 1, 2001 in Berlin
- Cesar
Best Supporting Actress for Annie Giradot, Cescar Nuit, March 6, 2001
- Cesar
Best Actress nomination
TRIVIA
| |
 |
| |
March in thre
red carpet
Cannes Film Festival
May 14, 2001 |
At the night of the film premier at Cannes
(May 14, 2002), Isabelle had an ode written on her bare back and arm:"DIEU
PEUT REMERCIER BACH CAR BACH EST LA PREUVE DE L'EXISTENCE DE DIEU".
("God
can thank Bach because Bach is the proof of the existence of God.")
For a while, right after her receiving the Prix of Interpretation at Cannes, Isabelle
was driven by an emotion and seemed lost. "What am I supposed to do now?
Where am I?", she said in semi-panic. (from
Paris Match, May 31, 2001)
The highly acclaimed long shot - in which Erika is listening to Walter's playing piano
in the audition, was taken fairly easy and quick, because Isabelle had to catch
the flight back home to see her children...
After the last shot of the film, Isabelle went to a café at Vienne, listening to the piano music for
two hours.... She was physically a little tired but felt good. (from
Studio, September, N° 181, 2002)
Liv Ullmann is the president of the jury, rewarding La Pianiste with three prizes at Cannes. She was also one of the Jury memebers rewarded Isabelle an Intepretation Prix for Violette Noziere at Cannes in 1978. Isabelle recalled "as soon as I knew that she would be the president of the jury, I re-examined the photographs of her...I do not say that one resembles oneself, but in her films, Ingmar Bergman went so far in certain types of relations, certain wounds, that I hoped well she would be sensitive to the film." (from "I like to be more close to the objective", Zurban Paris, August 31, 2001)
Isabelle Huppert s'ennuie loin de ses enfants, surtout quand il faut tourner a Vienne, pour 'La pianiste'. Son contrat prevoit qu'une suite lui sera reservee a l'hotel Marriott et qu' 'une chambre supplementaire attenante' sera mise a sa disposition lors de la venue de ses enfants. - (Le salaire des stars; Des clauses en or - le point, le 6 mai, 2004)
REVIEW
"I'd like to be more close to the objective", Aug. 31, 2001, Zurbad Paris
Isabelle Huppert Interview at BBC, October 30, 2001
Michael Haneke Interview at BBC, October 30, 2001
Interview at London National Film Theater, November 11, 2001
Michael Hanke: The Bearded Prophet of "Code Inconnu" and "The Piano Teacher", Indiewire, Dec. 4, 2001
Powerful Lesson in Sexual Obsession, Toronto Start, February 22, 2002
A Different Kind of Shock Treatment, New York Times, March 24, 2002
Prisoner's Songs, Village Voice, March 27, 2002
Isabelle Huppert's Pressure Points: Story of a Woman, Village Voice, March 27-April 2, 2002
Her Silences are Golden, Newsweek, March 31, 2002
Kinky and Cruel Goings-On in the Conservatory, New York Times, March 29, 2002
Undoing Oedipus: Feminism and Michael Haneke's The Piano Teacher, April, 2002
Porn to Lose, New Times Los Angeles, April 11, 2002
Play it Again, New Yorker, April 1, 2002
Hits a Risky Emotional Key, Los Angeles Times, April 12, 2002
Musice Drill, Los Angeles Weekly, April 12, 2002
Plays in the Key of Kink, San Francisco Weekly, May 1, 2002
Vienna Roust,
Metroactive, May 2, 2002
Woman on the Edge, San Francisco Chronicle May 3, 2002
Our
Priveate Places, by David Thomson@Salon.com, Oct. 3, 2002
Isabelle
in the Bath, by David Thomson@Salosn.com, Oct. 10, 2002
Beyond
the Multiplex, byJeff Stark @Salon.co, Oct, 2002
......More Reviews on
Movie
Reviews Query Engine and IMDB and On-Line Film Critics Society
|
