DGA audiences took a look at the nature of love through the lens of an octogenarian husband and wife facing their mortality when the Special Projects Committee's Global Cinema Series screened Director Michael Haneke's latest feature Amour in the Los Angeles DGA theater on October 3.
In the French-language drama, Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and his wife, Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), are retired music teachers happily living in Paris. This happiness is shattered when Anne suffers a series of strokes accompanied by progressive dementia. Under the increasing strain and having promised Anne that he would never put her in a home, Georges is forced to seek assistance from his musician daughter Eva (Isabelle Huppert) and her new British husband Geoff (William Shimell), with whom they have a difficult relationship. Amour is a co-production between companies in Austria, France, and Germany and won the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. It has also been selected as the Austrian entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards.
Haneke’s other work includes the feature films The Seventh Continent, Funny Games, Caché, the 2001 Cannes Jury's Grand Prize-winning The Piano Teacher, and the 2009 Cannes Palme d'Or-winner The White Ribbon. After the screening, Haneke discussed the making of Amour with Global Cinema Chair Victoria Hochberg (Dawg).