Michael Haneke

The Piano Teacher

The Piano Teacher

In this riveting study of the dynamics of control, Academy Award–winning director Michael Haneke takes on Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek’s controversial 1983 novel about perverse female sexuality and the world of classical music. Haneke finds his match in Isabelle Huppert, who delivers an icy but quietly seething performance as Erika, a piano professor at a Viennese conservatory who lives with her mother in a claustrophobically codepen­dent relation­ship. Severely repressed, she satisfies her mas­ochistic urges only voyeuristically until she meets Walter (Benoît Magimel), a student whose desire for Erika leads to a destructive infatuation that upsets the careful equilibrium of her life. A critical breakthrough for Haneke, The Piano Teacher—which won the Grand Prix as well as dual acting awards for its stars at Cannes—is a formalist masterwork that remains a shocking sensation.

Film Info

  • France
  • 2001
  • 130 minutes
  • Color
  • 1.85:1
  • French
  • Spine #894

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Haneke
  • New interview with actor Isabelle Huppert
  • Selected-scene commentary from 2001 featuring Huppert
  • Behind-the-scenes footage featuring Haneke and Huppert
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar Moira Weigel

New cover by F. Ron Miller

Purchase Options

Director-Approved Special Edition Features

  • New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised by director Michael Haneke, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray
  • New interview with Haneke
  • New interview with actor Isabelle Huppert
  • Selected-scene commentary from 2001 featuring Huppert
  • Behind-the-scenes footage featuring Haneke and Huppert
  • Trailer
  • New English subtitle translation
  • PLUS: An essay by scholar Moira Weigel

New cover by F. Ron Miller

The Piano Teacher
Cast
Isabelle Huppert
Erika Kohut
Annie Girardot
The mother
Benoît Magimel
Walter Klemmer
Susanne Lothar
Mrs. Schober
Udo Samel
Dr. George Blonskij
Anna Sigalevitch
Anna Schober
Cornelia Köndgen
Gerda Blonskij
Thomas Weinhappel
Baritone
Georg Friedrich
Man in drive-in
Philipp Heiss
Naprawnik
William Mang
Teacher
Rudolf Melichar
Director
Michael Schottenberg
Teacher
Gabriele Schuchter
Margot
Dieter Berner
Singing teacher
Credits
Director
Michael Haneke
Executive producers
Yvon Crenn
Executive producers
Michael Katz
Executive producers
Christine Gozlan
Produced by
Veit Heiduschka
Produced by
Marin Karmitz
Produced by
Alain Sarde
Adapted from the novel by
Elfriede Jelinek
Director of photography
Christian Berger
Edited by
Nadine Muse
Edited by
Mona Willi
Sound by
Jean-Pierre Laforce
Sound by
Guillaume Sciama
Costume design by
Annette Beaufaÿs
Set design by
Christoph Kanter

Current

Michael Haneke on the Art of the Erotic Long Take
Michael Haneke on the Art of the Erotic Long Take

In this excerpt from an interview on our edition of The Piano Teacher, the Austrian director discusses the mechanics of one of the film’s most shocking sequences.

The Piano Teacher: Bad Romances
The Piano Teacher: Bad Romances

The sexual pedagogy of a masochistic music instructor takes center stage in this shocking study of art, control, and repression.

By Moira Weigel

Hlynur Pálmason’s Top 10
Hlynur Pálmason’s Top 10

The director of Godland pays tribute to Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovsky, Stanley Kubrick, and other filmmakers with an awe-inspiring command of their craft.

Sebastian Meise’s Top 10
Sebastian Meise’s Top 10

The writer-director of Great Freedom shares a list of provocative and stylistically daring films that have long lingered in his mind.

Karim Aïnouz’s Top 10
Karim Aïnouz’s Top 10

The director of Invisible Life shares a list of movies that illuminate the possibilities of cinema, including masterpieces he discovered through New York’s art-house scene.

Breaking the Ice: The Beginning of Desire in The Piano Teacher

One Scene

Breaking the Ice: The Beginning of Desire in The Piano Teacher

One of the quietest, most unassuming moments in Michael Haneke’s disturbing drama serves as a microcosm of his themes of control and sexuality.

By Garth Greenwell

Ari Aster’s Top 10
Ari Aster’s Top 10

The director of Hereditary writes on the filmmakers who get him excited about making movies.