Rainer Werner Fassbinder

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NABOB OF NOWHERE
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#276 Post by NABOB OF NOWHERE » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:05 am

denti alligator wrote:Just for fun: "catfucker" would be "Katzenficker" and "cockmaster" would be "Schwanzmeister."
Just for fun? Just for Fun????
Have you ever tried to fuck a cat? It's the hardest thing in the world,believe me! To quote Tom Waits. It's harder than Chinese algebra.

And if it's not a word already, I 'd like to claim' Pimmelherrscher' as a contender for Cockmaster. I like to think it has the right S&M undertones

accatone
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#277 Post by accatone » Thu Jan 24, 2008 8:55 am

denti alligator wrote:
zedz wrote:Catfucker

I don't think any English-language distributor has ever bothered to translate the title of Fassbinder's second feature
zedz wrote:
sidehacker wrote:Katzelmacher is actually cockmaster as in many people would like Hanna Schygulla to master their cocks.
Ah, I was misinformed by the MoMA catalogue. This title would have sold many more tickets than the other two combined.
I think you're both wrong.
"Macher" is simply "he who does/makes" (from "machen"= to do/make, etc.)

"Katzel" is not cat (that's "Katze"), and it's not (so far I know) cock either.

I did some looking and found that "Katzel" is not really a German word, though "Katzelmacher" is, and it means:

an Italian

Basically: it's an abusive slang word for any foreign worker.

I quote the German Wahrig dictionary:
"(abwertend) Italiener [zu ital. cazza, Pl. cazze "Tiegel", da die eingewanderten ital. Handwerker frueher haeufig Geschirrhersteller waren]"

"Katzel" thus comes from the Italian for pot or pan (cazza; plural=cazze), so that "Katzelmacher" is "he who makes pots and pans," since, according to Wahrig, Italian immigrants in Germany had often been makers of dishes/crockery.

Maybe some native speakers can chime in and confirm/elaborate.

Just for fun: "catfucker" would be "Katzenficker" and "cockmaster" would be "Schwanzmeister."
A good friend of mine wrote his examina about KATZELMACHER - and yes i can confirm what Denti said - as far as it was not too easy to find out the origin of this slang and we often talked about it…i am German native speaker too … however you can't literally translate the word Katzel / Denti said it all…i am out.

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zedz
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#278 Post by zedz » Thu Jan 24, 2008 7:30 pm

1974

Fontane Effi Briest


A very great film, in my opinion, both classical and radical – one of Fassbinder’s greatest achievements. Here he develops his own unique approach to adaptation, starting with the title, which puts the author’s name first and runs on for a paragraph: Fontane - Effi Briest oder: Viele, die eine Ahnung haben von ihren Möglichkeiten und Bedürfnissen und dennoch das herrschende System in ihrem Kopf akzeptieren durch ihre Taten und es somit festigen und durchaus bestätigen / Fontane Effi Briest, or: Many People Who Are Aware of Their Own Capabilities and Needs Just Acquiesce to the Prevailing System in Their Thoughts and Deeds, Thereby Confirm and Reinforce It. The film is full of narration adapted from Fontane’s novel, sometimes at odds with the scenes it accompanies, so we cannot just consider the text as an adjunct to the image. Sometimes the narration anticipates a scene that follows, sometimes it describes a scene that isn’t depicted in the film, sometimes it provides layers of information beneath the film’s surface (e.g. Gieshubler’s love for Effi).

Everything in the film is delicately held in quotation marks, but not in the modern-day sense of cheap irony, rather in a distanced and objective manner. The foregrounded ‘literariness’, cool performances and formalised visuals create an emotional distance from the material, which is inherently tragic and potentially tear-jerking, and Fassbinder plays against the material with consistent brilliance, undercutting every potential emotional high point in different ways.

The initial proposal by von Innstetten is depicted, but rather than being enacted, its dialogue is narrated. Effi’s wedding and Annie's birth and infancy are elided entirely. Von Innstetten’s decision to challenge Crampas to a duel is evocatively interspersed with dissolves to the train that carries him to the site, thus taking us out of the dramatic moment, underlining the inevitability of the decision, and removing the conventional dramatic tension of the duel scene (the moment von Innstetten makes his decision, we see the duel, in long shot, and it’s over in a flash). The most potentially emotional scene in the film – Effi’s near encounter with Annie on a streetcar – is sublimated, on two levels, into a painting. And Fassbinder deals with the story’s most sentimental detail in a wonderfully ingenious manner which only he could have come up with.
SpoilerShow
The detail is Effi’s dog Rollo pining away on her grave at the end, and Fassbinder dodges the sentimentality of this by making Rollo invisible: he’s a significant narrative presence, but he never appears in the film
Visually, the film is ravishing, one of Fassbinder’s most beautiful and elegant works, shot, not by Ballhaus (who you'd expect to associate with this lavishness), but by two different cinematographers, at different times, in perfect sync with one another: Lohmann (never better) and Jurgen Jurges (who ended up with Haneke). Every shot is exquisitely and precisely composed, in a Gertrud / Chronicle of Anna Magdalena Bach way, where the mise en scene is more expressive than the text, and remains exquisite and precise even when the camera moves, as it does constantly, if subtly. Mirrors are used throughout to create frames within frames and to complicate spatial relationships between characters (there’s a wonderful long shot of Effi addressing her husband in a doorway of their house, with a side-view of her face perfectly framed in mirrored miniature on the far right of the frame). Many of the film’s cuts are replaced by dissolves or – Fassbinder’s signature move for this film – fades to white. The Wellspring transfer is very good, but on the big screen in a good print this film has a dazzling luminosity.

Fontane Effi Briest was, a title announces, Tango Film Number Three (i.e. the intended follow-up to Petra von Kant), but it was not completed for another two years. In the meantime, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Martha, at least, seem to have grown out of key ideas explored in the film: society as a sinister mechanism that mobilises to exclude transgressors, and bourgeois marriage as sado-masochistic playground, respectively.

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HelenLawson
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#279 Post by HelenLawson » Mon Mar 31, 2008 4:11 pm

zedz wrote:The foregrounded ‘literariness’, cool performances and formalised visuals create an emotional distance from the material, which is inherently tragic and potentially tear-jerking, and Fassbinder plays against the material with consistent brilliance, undercutting every potential emotional high point in different ways.
Hence, why I found this film so dull and unengaging. I respect Fassbinder's technique and find just about everything he does gripping and brilliant, but Effi Briest just leaves me cold.

bollibasher
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#280 Post by bollibasher » Tue May 20, 2008 10:47 am

I know general consensus here is that Querelle is dreadful, but as a rebel fan of it I'd like to point out to anyone interested that the London BFI Southbank is screening it as part of their Jeanne Moreau season :-)

Sun 29 Jun 18:30 NFT1
Mon 30 Jun 18:30 NFT2

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#281 Post by David Ehrenstein » Tue May 20, 2008 12:00 pm

Nothing dreadful about it.

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blindside8zao
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#282 Post by blindside8zao » Wed Jun 11, 2008 11:51 pm

james wrote:So is it the fact that I'm trying to watch every Criterion rather dumb, or how I'm "racing" through them? I still want to watch all of them, and that's really all I mean with the project, as I never intended to watch too many, even though I wanted to try and watch as much as I could over summer break.
Fassbinder is a good film-maker to 'race through' as an introduction, imo. I didn't really become as awestruck by him until I watched some 6 or 7 of his films through the course of a week because of that Wellspring sale. His films all together present a striking universe of it's own unique style. Of course, revisiting all these films slowly and on their own terms is also a must.

I still have most of the films in that Ozu Eclipse set left and I need to pick up on them in the next few days while I have the time.

Jack Phillips
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#283 Post by Jack Phillips » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:12 am

blindside8zao wrote:Fassbinder is a good film-maker to 'race through' as an introduction, imo.
If you can race through Berlin Alexanderplatz you're a better man than me. It took me several weeks, and then I needed a considerable period after which to decompress.

jojo
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#284 Post by jojo » Thu Jun 12, 2008 3:07 pm

blindside8zao wrote:Fassbinder is a good film-maker to 'race through' as an introduction, imo. I didn't really become as awestruck by him until I watched some 6 or 7 of his films through the course of a week because of that Wellspring sale. His films all together present a striking universe of it's own unique style. Of course, revisiting all these films slowly and on their own terms is also a must.

I still have most of the films in that Ozu Eclipse set left and I need to pick up on them in the next few days while I have the time.
I enjoy late Fassbinder more than early. I still think his early stuff is overly stagey for my tastes, but I will gladly sing the praises of his later work. And I will say there is also a fairly significant change in style and attitude halfway into his short (but prolific) career that informed his later work.

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blindside8zao
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#285 Post by blindside8zao » Thu Jun 12, 2008 6:21 pm

No, I can't race through Berlin Alexanderplatz. I was hoping to but it's so dark I can't make it through more than 1 episode after work. After seeing tons of his other films I was struck by how different BA was (without slipping out of his style).

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zedz
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#286 Post by zedz » Tue Jun 17, 2008 11:17 pm

Fox and His Friends

Well, my systematic trawl through Fassbinder’s oeuvre got derailed, but I’ll try to get back on track.

This is a key film from his middle ‘diagrammatic exploration of social issues’ period. It’s mysteriously number Tangofilm 5½ - an allusion to some unfulfilled or partial intervening project, or a nod to Fellini’s similarly self-referential 8½?

Fassbinder himself takes the title role of duped proletarian, but, notwithstanding the adoption of talismanic name Franz Biberkopf, I suspect that he sees more of himself in the roles of the manipulators who prey on Fox. Certainly what I know of his biography suggests this is the more appropriate identification, and I don’t think RWF had a particularly romanticised view of himself. He doesn’t have a particularly romanticised view of Fox either, for that matter. He’s no naïve victim, but opportunistic, arrogant and pushy. It’s simply that, in Fassbinder’s universe, the working class are hopelessly outclassed by the bourgeoisie when it comes to venality. It’s a powerful, queasy portrait of exploitation, and Fox earns our sympathy simply by being so pathetically overpowered and outmanoeuvred. This is a strategy that Lars von Trier would later pursue, though I don’t think he does so with anything like the same effectiveness.

The film is also Fassbinder’s first to be located firmly within the gay male world. It’s a drastically unflattering portrait of that milieu, but I don’t see it necessarily as a specific comment on it. It’s not ‘about’ gay relationships as much as it is about class relationships. Fox’s boyfriend is in league with his (straight, respectable) parents against Fox, and their disapproval of Fox is not directed as his, or their son’s, sexual orientation, but at his class origins and lack of refinement, and they see their immoral haul as fitting payment for the outrage of having to put up with such an indignity.

This is not to say that the depiction of a gay lifestyle is unimportant, particularly at a time when such depictions were rare as hen’s teeth. Can you name another relatively mainstream 1970s film that has a male / male kiss in its opening scene? Those details are absolutely intrinsic to the detail of the story, but they’re marginal to the main engine of the plot. The most important role the gay element plays in terms of that main plot is that the nature of the exploitative relationship leaves Fox with no social safety net: without trust, there’s no real basis to the relationship, and it’s the unofficial, outsider nature of that relationship that allows him to be so royally fucked over. Not that Fassbinder was dewy-eyed over the institution of marriage: look no further than Martha for corroboration. From this distance, it actually looks much more bold and forward-looking that at this time Fassbinder made a film that wasn’t about ‘gay issues’ but simply took its characters’ sexual orientation for granted.

Formally, Fox and His Friends builds on the lavish, arch style of foregoing films such as Petra von Kant and Martha, with overwhelming, overdetermined décor (mirrors galore, including a devilishly difficult negotiation of multiple reflections in a mud spa), careful colour coding (blue being of particular significance), and elegant camera movement (particularly tracking away behind objects) impeccably executed by Michael Ballhaus.

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#287 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed Jun 18, 2008 8:42 am

Properly translated, the film's orginal title Faustrecht dei Freiheit is Might Makes Right. I do wish it had been released under that title in English-speaking countries.

You're quite right that Fassbinder was far more like Peter Chatel's character in real life and he knew it. Fox is in fact based on his long-tome lover Amin Meir -- who can be seen playing himself alongside Fassbidner as himself in the opening episode of Germany in Autumn.

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shirobamba
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#288 Post by shirobamba » Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:39 am

David Ehrenstein wrote:Properly translated, the film's orginal title Faustrecht dei Freiheit is Might Makes Right. I do wish it had been released under that title in English-speaking countries.
With all due respect: "Faustrecht der Freiheit" translates literally as "The Rule of Force of Freedom".

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GringoTex
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#289 Post by GringoTex » Wed Jun 18, 2008 10:56 am

shirobamba wrote:
David Ehrenstein wrote:Properly translated, the film's orginal title Faustrecht dei Freiheit is Might Makes Right. I do wish it had been released under that title in English-speaking countries.
With all due respect: "Faustrecht der Freiheit" translates literally as "The Rule of Force of Freedom".
And that's not a proper translation because "The Rule of Force of Freedom" means nothing in English.

accatone
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#290 Post by accatone » Wed Jun 18, 2008 11:19 am

"Das Faustrecht" is an outdated rights/law rule that can be translated as the "right of the strong" - kind of "surival of the fittest". (Faust is german for FIST - so FIST-RIGHT - a "powerfull right"). DAS FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT says that freedom has (or better IS) an immanent (a priori if you want) power/right! (damn. at first i thought translating this would be super easy because in German its clear… but now i think no one will understand my explanation…uurgh)

edit: actually i think Davids MIGHT IS RIGHT is quite good because it matches the powerful meaning of FAUSTRECHT.

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#291 Post by David Ehrenstein » Wed Jun 18, 2008 12:49 pm

My point precisely.

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colinr0380
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#292 Post by colinr0380 » Mon Aug 25, 2008 7:02 pm

I recently got a chance to see part of World On A Wire, the first 90 minute episode of the series. Even though it was only a section of the larger work I'm glad I saw the Hollywood version of the same material in The Thirteenth Floor first to prepare myself!

I particularly liked the way that the first part of Fassbinder's film plays a lot like a murder mystery set in a hi-tech computer firm, as the creator of a simulated world, Henry Vollmer, dies in suspicious circumstances, with the science-fiction premise only revealed as the cliffhanger for this part. There are a few electronic whines to underscore significant moments and a blackout the main character Fred Stiller suffers that begin to set up for the reveal that the real world is just as much of a simulation as the world within his own computer. I was rather surprised at how explicitly they spelled everything out in the final scene, considering that according to the running time listed on the imdb there were still two hours to come! Compared to the later film World On A Wire sort of deemphasises the period settings of the simulated world (it sort of looks thirties-ish but at the same time the first entry into the world is a sequence of driving a contemporary truck along bland, blank streets filled with grey tower blocks) while making the 'real' world feel extremely disjointed and bizarre. The bar/lounge/swimming pool and the nightclub with a dancefloor full of buff muscle men and topless women particularly stand out!

World On A Wire also adds a beautiful and busty secretary for our lead character who simply turns up out of nowhere to replace his usual secretary at the beginning of the film. There is the suggestion that Gloria has been placed there to spy on by the head of his company now that Stiller has taken responsibility for the computer simulaton project, partly because she used to have an intimate relationship with the boss! However, the constant observation she keeps of Stiller would perhaps be developed in the next part when it becomes more apparent that there is a further world beyond this and Gloria could perhaps be later revealed to be an overseer from there.

There were quite a few interesting touches such as Gloria's reflective 'crystal ball' on her desk which frames Stiller a number of times while she looks on with her observational/blank look underscored by an electronic hum! Another great (and funny!) staging is a discussion between Stiller and his boss where they are both casually spinning around in their swivel chairs in opposite directions. As the doors to the office are opened they both stop their spins perfectly composed in front of them to greet the new arrival!

It was also a pleasant surprise to discover that the nicely put together end credit sequence was set to Albatross by the Shadows!

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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#293 Post by colinr0380 » Wed Nov 19, 2008 10:50 pm

zedz wrote:Pioneers in Ingolstadt

I see this adaptation, the last film Fassbinder made before the post-Sirk Merchant of Four Seasons, as the last Antiteater film. Although his early work is far more diverse than it's normally given credit for, this film does see the end of some common elements, such as static, frontal, 'theatrical' staging (the way Fassbinder blocks the climactic beating in this film seems rather weak after the more 'filmic' showdown that concluded The American Soldier, and the scene in which Pioneers pace around the car in which Karl and Berta are having a conversation seems straight from the stage), Gunther-croaked theme songs, and impassive or 'Brechtian' performance.

Performances are a real issue with the film for me, as there's an unproductive rift that has by this time developed between the 'old-Fassbinder' distanced, uninflected (or else declamatory) stiffness of several of the actors (such as Carla Aulaulu and Rudolf Brem) and the equally stylised but more slyly modulated 'new-Fassbinder' emotional irony that Hanna Schygulla, Harry Baer and Irm Herrmann have developed with their director. Klaus Lowitsch, in his first Fassbinder film, manages to slip into that latter mode beautifully. Hanna needs all the irony she can get for the role of Alma, who's supposed to be sexually naive. This arch but nuanced performance mode would dominate future films, with rare exceptions like Brigitte Mira, who seems to me boldly without irony in Ali.

The film employs some of the simple, rigorously formalised camera movements Fassbinder would soon abandon (in favour of much more elaborate, rigorously formalised movements, it's true), as in the back-and-forth tracking during a conversation, but even in a largely familiar mode, he's still moving tentatively into new territory. The scenes set in and around the bridge, which are shot on location and are montage- rather than dialogue-driven, aren't really like anything else in his cinema up to this point, capturing real activity rather than dramatic action.

Overall, the self-selected constraints of Fassbinder's early style seem like real limitations for the first time, and the film itself is a stylistic step back from the likes of Beware of a Holy Whore. At the end of his second year of feature filmmaking, Fassbinder had had what many other filmmakers would count as a full career: time for some reinvention.
Having still not begun my in depth exploration into Fassbinder yet I thought I would add some thoughts on the film I have seen! I thought it was interesting that Pioneers In Ingolstadt began in a seemingly conventional way, sympathetic to house maid Berta's relationship with a lowly soldier, or 'pioneer' in Karl. Their union seems almost a parody of courtship rituals, especially with Karl's almost drugged recitation of "Ber....ta", also seeming as if he is trying to remember her name as much as savouring the sound of it. It initially seems a touching portrayal of star crossed lovers but soon the line between naivite and full blown delusion becomes apparent as Karl's history of women in every town and his part in multiple pregnancies sours the dream.

I liked the way that the film shifted the audience sympathies from that pair in order to present a more positive perspective towards Alma, who sleeps with any man and eventually moves to bluntly but charmingly requesting money in return for her services. She however is not under any illusions about her liaisons but seems much more practical in her relationships. I was left weighing up the contrast of Alma up front attitude, and expectation of nothing more from her partners than sex with any longer lasting memento of the act (a 'piccolo recordo' in the words of Gloria Perkins from L'Avventura perhaps!) being a cash payment against Berta's nervous and withdrawn performance which eventually is touched by Karl almost in spite of him as she falls in love and begins to rebel against her employer and the expectations that she will be sexually available for her master's son, Fabian. She is seduced by the seeming security of romantic love into finding the courage to rebel and yet also seemingly at the same time to willingly ignore the knowledge right in front of her, and even spelt out to her in no uncertain terms by Karl at the beginning of their relationship, of the short term nature of their affair.

She isn't a slut as Alma is seen as (I love the long circular tracking shot around the inn that comes after some of Alma's former friends have said that Alma is 'ruining the good reputation of the girls of the town', which in no uncertain terms shows that there is a lot of other raunchy behaviour going on, just couched in more acceptable, or less obviously monetised forms!) but Berta's virginity counts against her. It is telling that the final sequence culminates in her desperate attempts to keep the relationship with Karl going by giving up her virginity to him in some bushes in the park.

She is then immediately abandoned by Karl, yet I do not exactly feel anger towards him for this as he always told her he was not sticking around. I feel more annoyed at Berta for deluding herself into thinking this act would change anything - that her virginity would be seen by another as an important sacrifice that would cement a bond. Instead she is left another girl in another town (maybe destined to be another pregnancy left in Karl's wake), and with her virginity gone she has lost the one thing that set her apart from all the other women. She's just another girl who had a fling with a soldier, seen as nothing more romantic than that to other people's eyes, and it is telling that in the final shot of her lying there on the ground sobbing she is casually approached by another soldier as if to suggest that she will be destined for a series of similar liaisons with men now. Though Karl in a crude way was the 'pioneer' in a way no other man will be for her.

Alma by contrast manages to shape the beginnings of a real relationship by the end of the film through sleeping with Fabian after his continued rejections from Berta (ironically intercut with Berta's loss of virginity and taking place in the same park!), acknowledging that it is not romance but that security provides its own consolations. I thought the film beautifully managed to shift our sympathies in favour of these characters and away from ideas pursued by Berta of romantic love, which only leads to delusion and devastation.

While Karl doesn't encourage Berta's romantic outlook he is part of the other strand of the film that undermines the glamour of soldiering. From the rather mundane tasks of building a bridge and finding a girl to spend time with that can be seen as boring and not exactly the true idea of what a soldier does, but still allowing a certain honour and charm (not to mention cache among the ladies!), the film exposes the soldiers more and more to being not worthy of the uniform. From drunken sex to The Sergeant putting his men through punishment exercises there seems to be a demystification of the soldier, an image which the men themselves are well aware of not being able to match up to, as shown by Karl and fellow pioneer Max's conversation during their walk:
Max: The uniform attracts them..and the experience. God knows what they think we can do for them [...] That's the only thing you have as a soldier: the women. Otherwise we'd be the dumb ones and the civilians the smart-asses. We're still the dumb ones, but we make up for it with the women
Then comes the interesting scene where Fabian drives Berta to the front of the barracks to show off his ownership of his new car, and of Berta, to the soldiers she is infatuated with. This results in the wonderful shot of Berta and Karl talking next to the car while Max and his mates circle the car sizing it up almost mockingly in one direction while Fabian circles in the opposite direction against them, pushing them away from the car when they get too close or start fiddling around too much! The soldiers may be young and virile while Fabian still under his father's roof and childishly wanting to show off to the other guys but Fabian seems to be the one assured a future while the soldiers are not guaranteed any security.

The degrading of the soldierly image reaches its climax with the prolonged beating of Fabian by Max and his friends, as if they are taking their anger out on a representative of the town that they are stationed in and not really a part of for any length of time - anger that they've not been able to release through fighting an enemy.

Interestingly this brutal punishment of Fabian results in him being discovered lying in the road by Alma and the beginning of their relationship. This perhaps underlines Alma's separatness from the rest of the town and also her level-headedness in matters of sex and finding a partner: while all the other women are trying to find a soldier to love, or at most trying to net The Sergeant, Alma has moved on by that stage to finding a man destined for some stature in the town and who will provide her with that security that a soldier never could given their rootless nature and potentially dangerous occupation.

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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#294 Post by Adam » Sun Feb 15, 2009 5:40 pm

Just saw 'the Third Generation" at LACMA last night. What a hoot of a film - easy targets but still amusing as farce. New Yorker Films print. I wish the title cards quoting graffiti were translated, and not just the source information at the bottom of those screens. I also wish some of the incessant radio & TV sound were translated, to see what specific references were in play, as opposed to just the overall sense of media saturation, and that even our revolutionaries are limited to mass media for their sources of information, and so forth. Not that that isn't significant enough.

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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#295 Post by j99 » Sat Aug 29, 2009 10:43 am

What about Despair? Has it ever been released on DVD? I've got a rather old and worn second hand VHS, and would dearly like to replace it with a new remastered version.

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HelenLawson
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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#296 Post by HelenLawson » Thu Nov 05, 2009 3:24 pm

stereo wrote:There's only boots of most of them out there and even many of those don't have Eng. subs.
Speaking of which, Nora Helmer has just been posted on YouTube - with English subs!

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HistoryProf
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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#297 Post by HistoryProf » Sat Feb 13, 2010 4:38 pm

This may be the best thread on this entire forum. I've read through it over the last couple of days and am increasingly sad that I had to sell my Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and BRD Trilogy discs (along with the majority of my dvd collection...the IRS can still kiss my ass) 4 or 5 years ago. I only had a chance to see Lola in the latter too, so it and Ali remain the only two Fassbinder's i've seen. I have to say, though, I have remained fascinated by his work and his life, and am jonesing hard to see Berlin Alexanderplatz. I'm thinking the next B&N sale might have to be dedicated to acquiring that (and reacquiring the others). Does anyone have an opinion on whether one should have a better foundation in Fassbinder before tackling BA?

A serious side interest of mine that I've been ruminating on more and more is 20th century Germany, and what it must be like for modern Germans to have to reconcile their horrific past and try to make sense of it all - knowing that there must be a tremendous level of collective denial in many. This is what intrigues me most about BA and Fassbinder in general - he wasn't just unafraid to confront that past, but actively tried to force others to do so as well. Add in the sexual politics of the era and his work is just one time bomb after another. I don't think there's ever been a more fearless director. It's sad he died so soon.

With the Wellsprings having all gone away, are we to expect more from Criterion in the near future? maybe even an eclipse set or something? All these years later, Ali remains one of the single most affecting film experiences in my life, i remember an uncommon amount of the film - numerous images and scenes haunt my imagination and I just sincerely LOVE that film.

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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#298 Post by triodelover » Sat Feb 13, 2010 5:25 pm

HistoryProf wrote:Does anyone have an opinion on whether one should have a better foundation in Fassbinder before tackling BA?
My only Fassbinder prior to BA was the Criterion releases. I found BA eminently accessible, so much so the it's one of my "desert island discs", if one can consider a 15-hour miniseries a "disc".
HistoryProf wrote:A serious side interest of mine that I've been ruminating on more and more is 20th century Germany, and what it must be like for modern Germans to have to reconcile their horrific past and try to make sense of it all - knowing that there must be a tremendous level of collective denial in many. This is what intrigues me most about BA and Fassbinder in general - he wasn't just unafraid to confront that past, but actively tried to force others to do so as well. Add in the sexual politics of the era and his work is just one time bomb after another. I don't think there's ever been a more fearless director. It's sad he died so soon.
I'm not sure that you can say BA confronts "their horrific past". It's set at the end of Weimar and the Nazis are only tangentially addressed in a couple of episodes (IIRC). It's not Veronika Voss. I think it does make it clear the reasons the average German did not resist, and in many cases embraced, National Socialism. Fassbinder said if you know the Twenties, it's fairly easy to recognize the signs. But given that, it's personal focus makes it seem remarkably apolitical for a Fassbinder work. IMO, at least.

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tajmahal
Joined: Mon May 11, 2009 11:10 pm

Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#299 Post by tajmahal » Sat Feb 13, 2010 6:42 pm

'Does anyone have an opinion on whether one should have a better foundation in Fassbinder before tackling BA?'

Excellent post, historyprof. I experienced Fassbinder for the first time over the last year. I jumped in the deep end and purchased the two UK sets:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection Volume 1 - 1969-1972

The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection - 1973-1982

From all that I had read, I was convinced I wouldn't like Fassbinder's films, but the boxsets were cheap, and you just don't know until you try.

Fassbinder's films have been a revelation, to the extent that I can't think of cinema without Fassbinder. From the opening moments of Love is colder Than Death, I fell completely under his spell. Katzelmacher is his first great ensemble film. The Merchant of four Seasons is his first masterpiece. Not all of the films work, but what an impression he made. I have since bought all his available films. I stopped after the first set, as I wanted to watch some of the Sirk films that influenced Fassbinder, before diving into, what many consider, his most fertile period.

I have Berlin Alexanderplatz, but I plan to work my way through his films chronologically. It seems Whity and Pioneers in Ingolstadt may be out of print.

From reviews I've read, this is probably the best book on Fassbinder and his work.

http://www.amazon.com/Fassbinder-Life-W ... 519&sr=1-1

To sum up, I'm glad I watched his early film first, and look forward to diving into his Sirk-influenced 70's films.

To illustrate his loss to filmmaking, fassbinder would only be 64 today.

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HistoryProf
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Re: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

#300 Post by HistoryProf » Sat Feb 13, 2010 9:28 pm

triodelover wrote:
HistoryProf wrote:Does anyone have an opinion on whether one should have a better foundation in Fassbinder before tackling BA?
My only Fassbinder prior to BA was the Criterion releases. I found BA eminently accessible, so much so the it's one of my "desert island discs", if one can consider a 15-hour miniseries a "disc".
HistoryProf wrote:A serious side interest of mine that I've been ruminating on more and more is 20th century Germany, and what it must be like for modern Germans to have to reconcile their horrific past and try to make sense of it all - knowing that there must be a tremendous level of collective denial in many. This is what intrigues me most about BA and Fassbinder in general - he wasn't just unafraid to confront that past, but actively tried to force others to do so as well. Add in the sexual politics of the era and his work is just one time bomb after another. I don't think there's ever been a more fearless director. It's sad he died so soon.
I'm not sure that you can say BA confronts "their horrific past". It's set at the end of Weimar and the Nazis are only tangentially addressed in a couple of episodes (IIRC). It's not Veronika Voss. I think it does make it clear the reasons the average German did not resist, and in many cases embraced, National Socialism. Fassbinder said if you know the Twenties, it's fairly easy to recognize the signs. But given that, it's personal focus makes it seem remarkably apolitical for a Fassbinder work. IMO, at least.
I realize BA explores the 1920s and the transition from Weimar excess into Nazi fascism....I just meant that it fascinates me as - from what i've read - as an honest look at the period that laid the foundation for the horrors of the Third Reich. It's easy to sit back and coolly understand that resentment of the Treaty of Versailles started it all and then crashed headlong into the despair of the Great Depression, giving a power mad dictator like Hitler his opening...but it's a much different thing to try and understand the average joe in those crucial years - and it seems to me that Fassbinder went farther than most in trying to uncover that peculiarly "German" mentality.

Recovering from World War II obviously shaped everyone's lives one way or another in Europe...and it even more obviously shaped cinema there - but while many people sought escapes by the 1970s, Fassbinder was going in the opposite direction. I am thus more and more intrigued by BA and how he chose to explore the fall of Weimar Berlin. This thread has been a great help in encouraging my interest.

As for books Taj, I think it was mentioned pages back, but i've had Thomas Elsaesser's Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject on my wishlist at Amazon for years now. It seems the obvious choice for someone like me - i.e. interested in the historicity of his films and explorations of German identity as shaped by that past. It appears to go film by film, which is exactly what I would love to have...seems like an invaluable resource.

So many things to buy!

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