The Piano Teacher
The Piano Teacher is a 2001 erotic psychological drama film written and directed by Michael Haneke, based on the 1983 novel of the same name by Elfriede Jelinek. It tells the story of an unmarried piano teacher (Isabelle Huppert) at a Vienna conservatory, living with her mother (Annie Girardot) in a state of emotional and sexual disequilibrium, who enters into a sadomasochistic relationship with her student (Benoît Magimel). A co-production of Austria and France, Haneke was given the opportunity to direct after previous attempts to adapt the novel by filmmakers Valie Export and Paulus Manker collapsed for financial reasons.
Plot
Erika Kohut is a piano professor in her early 50s at a Vienna music conservatory who resides in an apartment with her domineering elderly mother. Her late father had been a longstanding resident in a psychiatric asylum. Despite Erika's aloof and assured façade, she is a woman whose sexual repression and loneliness are manifested in her paraphilia, including voyeurism, sadomasochistic fetishes, and self-mutilation.
Awards
Cast
- Anna Sigalevitch
- Annie Girardot
- Benoît Magimel
- Cornelia Köndgen
- Dieter Berner
- Eva Green
- Gabriele Schuchter
- Georg Friedrich
- Gerti Drassl
- Isabelle Huppert
- Karoline Zeisler
- Klaus Händl
- Liliana Nelska
- Lisa Oláh
- Luz Leskowitz
- Michael Schottenberg
- Noam Morgensztern
- Rudolf Melichar
- Susanne Lothar
- Thomas Weinhappel
- Udo Samel
- Vitus Wieser
- Vivian Bartsch
- William Mang