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Last month Mr. Haneke, 70, came to the New York Film Festival for the exhibition of “Amour,” the story of a Parisian couple in their 80s, played by Jean-Louis Trintignant and Emmanuelle Riva, whose long, happy marriage is thrown into turmoil when the wife’s health abruptly begins to fade. But when Mr. Haneke was asked in an interview if “Amour” indeed augured a new approach for him, he immediately scoffed at the notion.

“I’m always trying to deal with each theme I’m touching on as seriously and efficiently as possible,” he said. “That means, for example, if I’m making a film about love, then necessarily it’s going to be more tender than if I’m making a film with a representation of violence in the media, like ‘Funny Games,’ ” one of his most controversial works, made first in German in 1997 and then again in English in 2008.

“To be perfectly honest, I think that as I’m growing older, I’m just growing more impatient,” he added, occasionally stroking a carefully trimmed white beard and sipping a cup of tea. “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.

Source: New York Times