The Piano Teacher (2001)

Plot: A young man romantically pursues his masochistic piano teacher.

Original Title: La pianiste

Director: Michael Haneke

Writer: Michael Haneke , Elfriede Jelinek

Producer: Yvon Crenn , Christine Gozlan , Veit Heiduschka , Michael Katz

Type: movie

Year: 2001

Genres: Drama, Music

Cast: Luz Leskowitz , Annemarie Schleinzer , Gabriele Schuchter , Viktor Teuflmayr , Volker Waldegg , Thomas Weinhappel , Karoline Zeisler , Thomas Auner , Philipp Heiss , Florian Koban , Gerti Drassl , Vitus Wieser , Eva Green , Nick Stellate , Lisa Olah , Erika Kollmann-Till , Esther Pils , Nina Kripas , Andreas Donat , Arbesi Sufi , Marcus Zeuner , Petra Reichel , Hans-Christian Haas , Isabelle Huppert , Annie Girardot , Benoît Magimel , Susanne Lothar , Udo Samel , Anna Sigalevitch , Cornelia Köndgen , Georg Friedrich , William Mang , Rudolf Melichar , Michael Schottenberg , Dieter Berner , Martina Resetarits , Liliana Nelska , Viviane Bartsch , Klaus Händl , Noam Morgensztern

Runtimes: 131

Countries: France , Austria , Germany

Languages: French , German

Color Info: Color

Aspect Ratio: 1.85 : 1

Sound Mix: Dolby Digital

Original Air Date: 29 Nov 2001 (India)

Rating: 7.5

Votes: 68955

Year: 2001

Akas: La Pianiste (France) , Die Klavierspielerin (Austria) , Die Klavierspielerin (Germany) , The Piano Teacher (Singapore, English title) , The Piano Teacher (Egypt, English title)

Production Companies: Wega Film , MK2 Productions , Les Films Alain Sarde , ARTE , Arte France Cinéma , Bavaria Film International , Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR) , Canal+ , Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée (CNC) , Eurimages , Filmfonds Wien , Österreichischer Rundfunk , Österreichisches Filminstitut

Distributors: MK2 Diffusion , Kino International , Alliance Atlantis Motion Picture Distribution , Alta Classics S.L. Unipersonal , ArtCam , Artificial Eye , CinemaFilm , Cinemien , Concorde Filmverleih , Europafilm AS , Eye Film Instituut , Intercinema Art Agency , Kamras Film Group , New Star , Odeon , Rosebud , EuroVideo , Future Film , Homescreen , Madman Entertainment , Nelonen , The Criterion Channel , The Criterion Collection

Synopsis: Erika Kohut (Isabelle Huppert) is a piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although already in her forties, she still lives in an apartment with her domineering mother (Annie Girardot); her father is a long-standing resident in a lunatic asylum. Throughout the film, the audience is gradually shown truths about Erika's private life. Behind her assured façade, she is a woman whose sexual repression verges into full-fledged desperation and is manifested in a long list of paraphilias, including (but by no means limited to) voyeurism and sadomasochistic fetishes such as sexual self-mutilation.Upon meeting Walter Klemmer (Benoît Magimel), a charming 17-year-old engineering student from a bourgeois background, they begin to obsess one another. Even though she initially attempts to prevent consistent contact and even tries to undermine his application to the conservatory, he eventually becomes her pupil. Like her, he appreciates and is a gifted (if distinct) interpreter of Schumann and Schubert.She destroys the musical prospects of an insecure but talented girl, Anna Schober, driven by her jealousy of the girl's contact with Walter -- and also, perhaps, by her fears that Anna's life will mirror her own. She does so by hiding shards of glass inside one of her coat pockets, permanently damaging Anna's hands and ruining her aspirations to play at the forthcoming jubilee concert. Erika is then wholly sympathetic when the girl's mother (Susanne Lothar) asks for advice on her daughter's recuperation. (The sub-plot of the pupil and her mother, mirroring the main relationship in the film, is absent in Jelinek's novel.) In what clearly qualifies, at that point of the film, as dramatic irony, the girl's mother rhetorically asks Erika who could do something so evil.Walter is increasingly insistent in his desire to start a relationship with her. But when she finally acquiesces, Walter is unwilling to indulge her violent fantasies, which repulse him. The film climaxes, however, when he finally does. He attacks her in her apartment in the fashion she let him know she desired, violently raping her as she lies prostrate after receiving a beating from him. She discovers, finally, that the reality of her desires does not match her conception of them.Shortly thereafter, minutes before the concert in which she is supposed to fill in for Anna, Erika tries to enact some speculable form of revenge or call of attention on Walter, and when confronted with his hypocritical, smug indifference she puts a knife into herself and promptly leaves the auditorium. Her onscreen injury is not severe, but the implications of the whole ending scene leave it clear to the audience that more serious self-inflicted harm is a matter of course.

Cinematographer: Christian Berger

Producer: Yvon Crenn , Christine Gozlan , Veit Heiduschka , Michael Katz

Production Manager: Nathalie Kreuther , Roman Haschberger , Michael Katz , Gebhard Zupan

Box Office: ATS70,000,000 (estimated) , $1,236,319, 07 Sep 2001

Certificates: Argentina:18 , Australia:R , Brazil:18 , Canada:R::(Alberta) , Canada:R::(Ontario) , Canada:18+::(Quebec) , Czechia:15 , Egypt:R , Finland:K-15 , France:16 , Germany:16 , Hong Kong:III , Hungary:18 , Iceland:16 , India:A , Ireland:18 , Italy:VM14 , Japan:R-18 , Japan:R18+ , Malaysia:(Banned) , Mexico:C , Netherlands:16 , New Zealand:R18 , Nigeria:18 , Norway:15::(cinema rating) , Peru:18 , Philippines:R-18::(MTRCB) , Poland:16 , Portugal:M/18 , Russia:18+ , Saudi Arabia:R18 , Singapore:R21 , South Korea:18 , Spain:18 , Sweden:15 , Switzerland:18::(canton of Geneva) , Switzerland:18::(canton of Vaud) , Taiwan:R-18 , United Kingdom:18 , United States:R , United States:Unrated::(video rating) , United Arab Emirates:Not Rated::(DVD rating)

Editor: Nadine Muse , Monika Willi

Editorial Department: Yannick Coutheron , Alarich Lenz , Monica Parisini , Alexander Gruber , Franz Rabl , Gabriele Sikuta

Sound Crew: Pedro Marques , Othmar Eichinger , René Kornfeld , Pascal Chauvin , Pascal Dedeye , Dominique Eyraud , Jean-Pierre Laforce , Nadine Muse , Guillaume Sciama

Visual Effects: Geoffrey Kleindorfer

Miscellaneous Crew: Eva Jürgens , Andreas Kispert , Ulrike Lässer

Other Companies: Cannes Film Festival , LISTO MediaServices Cine + TV Postproduction , Les Audis de Boulogne , Moviecam , Toronto International Film Festival

Costume Designer: Annette Beaufays

Make Up: Françoise Andrejka , Fabienne Bressan , Ellen Just-Hofmann , Thi-Loan Nguyen , Michaela Payer , Waldemar Pokromski

Assistant Director: Katharina Biró , Fritz Noltmann , Hanus Polak Jr.

Art Department: Gerhard Dohr , Peter Dörflinger , Peter Ecker , Katrin Huber , Fritz Martan , Hannes Salat , Peter Wenhardt

Camera and Electrical Department: Gerald Helf , Rainer Barta , Reinhard Vince , Wolfgang Vince , Katharina Frank , Stefan Biebl , Petro Domenigg , Peter Drittenpreis , Regina Höllbacher , Bernhard Pötscher , Harald Staudach , Jörg Widmer , Oliver Schneider

Set Decoration: Hans Wagner

Costume Department: Brigitta Fink , Tongi Liu

Production Design: Christoph Kanter

Special Effects: László Kovács , Hans Wagner

Videos: Video 1 , Video 2

Location Management: Roman Haschberger

Number of Seasons: Thomas Messer

Seasons: Kris Portier de Bellair , Markus Schleinzer

Casting Department: Carmen Loley

Special Effects Companies: LISTO MediaServices Cine + TV Postproduction