Michael Haneke on #MeToo: 'The malignancy that hits you on the internet often stifles you'

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Understanding that he would probably be referred to as "Haneke, the male chauvinist pig" because of it, director Michael Haneke has nonetheless criticised the #MeToo movement and the culture of "blind rage" on the internet.

In an interview with Kurier, the Austrian filmmaker said (via Deadline) there is no question that "any form of rape or coercion is punishable… But this hysterical pre-judgment which is spreading now, I find absolutely disgusting. And I don’t want to know how many of these accusations related to incidents 20 or 30 years ago are primarily statements that have little to do with sexual assault."

The director of films like Funny Games, Amour and Happy End sees in the recent narrative in Hollywood "blind rage that’s not based on facts and the prejudices that destroy the lives of people whose crime has not been proved in numerous cases. People are simply assassinated in the media, ruining lives and careers."

Asked whether this purging would have a positive effect on the industry and society, Haneke suggested that the vitriol involved has left people too terrified to engage in meaningful debate.

“Any shitstorm that even comes out on the forums of serious online news outlets after such ‘revelations’ poisons the social climate. And this makes every argument on this very important subject even more difficult. The malignancy that hits you on the internet often stifles you.

"This new puritanism imbued with a hatred of men that comes in the wake of the #MeToo movement worries me.”

The filmmaker believes film itself has been affected too, noting that "one of the deepest and most profound [films] on the subject of sexuality," Nagisa Ôshima’s film In The Realm Of The Senses, would not get made today "because the funding institutions would not allow this, anticipating obedience to this terror. Suspected actors are cut out of movies and TV series in order not to lose (audiences). Where are we living? In the new Middle Ages?"

Last week, it was revealed that Haneke is working on his first TV series, a 10-part dystopian drama called Kelvin's Book.