The Piano Teacher (film)
| The Piano Teacher | |
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| Directed by | Michael Haneke |
| Produced by |
Veit Heiduschka Executive: Yvon Crenn Christine Gozlan Michael Katz |
| Screenplay by | Michael Haneke |
| Based on |
The Piano Teacher by Elfriede Jelinek |
| Starring |
Isabelle Huppert Benoît Magimel |
| Music by | Martin Achenbach |
| Cinematography | Christian Berger |
| Edited by | Monika Willi Nadine Muse |
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Production
company |
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| Distributed by |
France: MK2 Diffusion Germany: Concorde Filmverleih United States: Kino International |
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Release date
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Running time
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131 minutes |
| Country | France Austria Germany |
| Language | French German |
| Budget | €3 million |
| Box office | $9.8 million |
The Piano Teacher (French: La Pianiste) is a 2001 French-Austrian film, written and directed by Michael Haneke, that is based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Elfriede Jelinek, winner of the 2004 Nobel Prize for Literature. It tells the story of an unmarried piano teacher at a Vienna conservatory, living with her mother in a state of emotional and sexual disequilibrium, who is attracted to a pupil but in the end repels him by her need for humiliation and self-harm. At the 2001 Cannes Film Festival it won the Grand Prix, with the two leads, Isabelle Huppert and Benoît Magimel, winning Best Actress and Best Actor.
Erika Kohut is a piano professor at a Vienna music conservatory. Although already in her forties, she still lives in an apartment with her domineering mother. Her father is a long-standing resident in a psychiatric asylum.
The audience is gradually shown truths about Erika's private life. Behind her assured façade, she is a woman whose sexual repression is manifested in a long list of paraphilia, including (but by no means limited to) voyeurism and sadomasochistic fetishes such as sexual self-mutilation.
When Erika meets Walter Klemmer, a charming 25-year-old engineering student from a middle class background, a mutual obsession develops. 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 interpreter of Schumann and Schubert.
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