Auteur List: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

[Rayon Vert]

Re: Lili Marleen. For French-speaking (or rather: reading) members, it's available on a 3 DVD set with Whity and Pioneers in Ingolstadt. I ordered it because those three would have been missing for me. I doubt there'll be English subs but I'll let you know if they're there.

[Rayon Vert]

Re: Berlin Alexanderplatz. I've got an unopened DVD set from Second Sight (region 2) that I'd be willing to send to anyone who's going to participate in this project - all you'd have to do is pay for the shipping, whatever that amounts to (I'm in Canada). I've had it for several years but got the blu-ray upgrade a few weeks ago in anticipation of this project. PM me if that's the case.

[domino harvey]

Re: Lili Marleen. For French-speaking (or rather: reading) members, it's available on a 3 DVD set with Whity and Pioneers in Ingolstadt. I ordered it because those three would have been missing for me. I doubt there'll be English subs but I'll let you know if they're there.

Weren’t those last two released in the states on DVD by Fantomas?

[swo17]

Yes. Also Martha and In a Year with 13 Moons

[zedz]

A quick audit shows that there are six Fassbinder films I’ve never seen:
Die Kaffeehaus
Nora Helmer
Like a Bird on a Wire
Frauen in New York
Bolweiser (I’ve been holding out for the long promised restoration)
Theatre in Trance

Have any of these turned up on disc in recent years? I get the sense that Bolweiser is the only significant work among those, but would love to be corrected.

[Rayon Vert]

Bolweiser was released on a New Yorker DVD back in the day. This website page is very outdated but lists various DVD presentations for the available titles.

[zedz]

I believe that New Yorker disc was the severely truncated version, so I never bothered with it.

[zedz]

Getting the show on the road, I figured out I have 35 Fassbinders on disc (surprisingly, more than half of those are on BluRay), so I'll start working through them by tackling the ones I don't remember well or haven't seen in a long time. First up:

Rio das Mortes - This is rather standard early Fassbinder fare: a claustrophobic Brechtian / Marxist script (lots of attention paid to the weighted economics of a range of everyday transactions) adorned with quasi-Kuchar dramatics and spiced up with touches of 'perversity' (Hanna's lecherous uncle; the barely veiled love story between the two male leads) and some cool diegetic needle-drops (Pearls Before Swine, Elvis). It's enjoyable, but kind of rote, so it was probably a good idea watching this first so I could get the enjoyment of seeing all the stock company taking their turns before the camera. Key Fassbinder moment: Gunther splitting his pants in the initial fight with Michael Koenig. The title is a nod to Glauber Rocha, and the film immediately preceded (in terms of shooting: they were released in reverse order) The Niklashausen Journey, which is a feature-length Rocha tribute.

[Rayon Vert]

That's one I really enjoyed for the comedy of some scenes, despite its flaws (Christian Thomsen sees it as a failure of sorts and says the comedy doesn't work - my smiles said otherwise).

[Cash Flagg]

Be sure to pick up your matching t-shirts on Etsy

Yellow sold out in medium

[therewillbeblus]

zedz, you've seen Jail Bait (aka Wildwechsel)? That's one I've been meaning to catch for roughly a decade and have struggled to find well-subbed versions even on backchannels, though I think I've found a way to finally watch it recently and am very much looking forward to changing that.

I went through a pretty exhaustive Fassbinder phase long before joining this forum, and while he's hit or miss for me, I really appreciate his multifaceted approach to various sociological conditions within his social context. Fox and His Friends is genius for many reasons, but its particular examination of how classism and intellectual condescension exists as an identically ruthless universal dominant pattern even within marginalized subcultures has always strongly resonated with me. Fassbinder's subjective-experiential comprehension of social psychology is fascinating, even more than his unapologetically perverse applications of these ideas into the medium. I've seen almost all of his work, but hardly recall half of it, so we'll see how many revisits I can manage for this project to drum up a 'fair' list.

I highly doubt anything will overcome Chinese Roulette, World on a Wire, and Berlin Alexanderplatz from the Top Three spots. Like swo, Berlin Alexanderplatz did little for me the first go-around but I loved it on a revisit. I've already written up both Chinese Roulette and World on a Wire so won't repost them here, but those longer Fassbinders are very highly recommended and don't feel like chores to sit through, for me anyways.

Also, great writeup on Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, RV! I also really liked it and thought it was a refreshingly optimistic change of pace for Fassbinder. I recorded those thoughts here.

[knives]

That kind of gets to something that made me a little surprised in my naïveté about the sense of relief when this was first pushed off. Obviously Fassbinder is working with emotions and the depths of darkness, but I find his clear eyed honesty to cause his films to be a cathartic relief. It’s almost identical to my reaction to von Trier’s Melancholia where truth can’t allow for something to depress, but instead comfort.

[Rayon Vert]

That's crazy 'cause World on a Wire is not doing much for me after the first half. I'll read your thoughts before watching the second!

[therewillbeblus]

That kind of gets to something that made me a little surprised in my naïveté about the sense of relief when this was first pushed off. Obviously Fassbinder is working with emotions and the depths of darkness, but I find his clear eyed honesty to cause his films to be a cathartic relief. It’s almost identical to my reaction to von Trier’s Melancholia where truth can’t allow for something to depress, but instead comfort.

That's a good point of comparison, and one I believe we've agreed on before. I suppose my hesitancy was around the sheer volume of his work and how a chunk of it can be draining to view condensed together, which is really the only way I've consumed most of his work, on one long compressed binge. Not the way to go. Having more time for this project in particular is wonderful, because it's just not healthy (for me) to consume so much Fassbinder stacked together. There is definitely catharsis in validation of those underlying truths that are pervasive between all sects of society, unearthing them for us and allowing us to recognize that experience of pain, but it can be depressing too depending on how you go into it. Kinda like how the realization that we have no control over most aspects of our life can either be terrifying or liberating.

[knives]

The time for sure is helpful. Berlin Alexanderplatz, probably my number one, I’ve never finished in less than a month.

[therewillbeblus]

I really want to revisit it for a third time, and probably will, since it could come in as #1 for me as well. However, I have a pretty strict rule with these kinds of 'long-movie' miniseries - especially upon rewatches - where I want to consume it as quickly as possible to get that cumulative effect. Obviously that's hard to do with a full life, but if I've spaced something out in the past, watching it within 1-2 days can be an entirely new experience, which is what I want when ingesting such a beast again. Pretty sure that played no small part in me loving Berlin Alexanderplatz as much as I did on a second go compared to the first, and certainly played a role in my affection skyrocketing for La flor and The Young Pope each the second time.

[zedz]

That kind of gets to something that made me a little surprised in my naïveté about the sense of relief when this was first pushed off. Obviously Fassbinder is working with emotions and the depths of darkness, but I find his clear eyed honesty to cause his films to be a cathartic relief. It’s almost identical to my reaction to von Trier’s Melancholia where truth can’t allow for something to depress, but instead comfort.

I think the counterweight to Fassbinder’s brutal cynicism is his immense empathy for characters that would normally be marginalised (or presented unsympathetically).There’s an ebb and flow in his films between those two poles, but I think his richest ones have both, pulling hard against one another.

[therewillbeblus]

Also, I feel like Lola gets a bad rap compared to the other BRD films, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it when revisiting the upgraded Criterion set. It might be a dark horse to outrank the other two on my list, or at least place in the middle. I don't have much interest in rewatching his early work, but I recall enjoying Love is Colder Than Death (perhaps primarily due to one great standout sequence). I don't remember Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? too well either, but I think people like it (and maybe I did too)?

[senseabove]

I kicked things off by starting from the top: The City Tramp and The Little Chaos are both uncharacteristic black comedy in very different ways, which is an unusual look on Fassbinder. I quite liked the former, if it's nothing especially wonderful, and blasphemously enjoyed the latter more than the movie it's obviously aping, but probably only because it's under ten minutes and not an hour and a half.

Love is Colder than Death dispenses with that black comedy for a stunningly shot, often tedious gangster story. I steadily lost patience with it as the exaggerated shot length became more of an affect with progressively less effect. The typically desaturated acting is already present, and there are some tour de force visual choices, but Fassbinder shows us the effects of the emotional screws being turned while mostly omitting the screw-turning itself, so it mostly just feels bland, save one striking sequence, when Franz

SpoilerShow

slaps Joanna for insulting Bruno, because Bruno is his friend, and explains to her that she doesn't need his defense because she already loves him

. That's the Fassbinder we know and love. Tony Rayns in the (original) Arrow box says the Le Samourai influence was Lommel's idea, not Fassbinder's, who hadn't even seen it, so as tempting as it is to fault him for misunderstanding how Melville's longeurs play with tension, it's apparently not exactly justifiable. But it's weird to see something from Fassbinder where the interpersonal is so downplayed, most all of the duplicitousness and casual cruelty of its characters left implicit until the curtain is pulled back in the last quarter. I could see enjoying this better on the second watch, but as it is, the delayed revelations fail to retroactively make much interesting; until then, it's buoyed by some gorgeous cinematography, though even what's good there is balanced by a few too many arty indulgences that don't earn their keep. If I didn't find it interesting for how some of its features will resurface, I don't know that I'd find it much more than visually accomplished. It's an enjoyable curiosity, but not exactly an auspicious start.

[knives]

I also watched the two shorts, brining my total to half his films, and enjoyed both as well. They suggest a few avenues not taken such as Godard that are fascinating to think about, but I’m also glad weren’t taken up long term.

Also, I feel like Lola gets a bad rap compared to the other BRD films, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it when revisiting the upgraded Criterion set. It might be a dark horse to outrank the other two on my list, or at least place in the middle. I don't have much interest in rewatching his early work, but I recall enjoying Love is Colder Than Death (perhaps primarily due to one great standout sequence). I don't remember Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? too well either, but I think people like it (and maybe I did too)?

TBH Lola might be my number two. It’s just so gorgeous aesthetically and emotionally. Plus I just like the Blue Angel story.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah I admit the beautiful restoration likely helped color my enthusiasm (definitely the most visually stunning Fassbinder I can think of offhand), plus, like you, the familiar story worked wonders for me this last go. It’s definitely sitting in the middle of my top ten as of now.

[Rayon Vert]

Love is Colder than Death dispenses with that black comedy for a stunningly shot, often tedious gangster story. I steadily lost patience with it as the exaggerated shot length became more of an affect with progressively less effect. The typically desaturated acting is already present, and there are some tour de force visual choices, but Fassbinder shows us the effects of the emotional screws being turned while mostly omitting the screw-turning itself, so it mostly just feels bland, save one striking sequence, when Franz

SpoilerShow

slaps Joanna for insulting Bruno, because Bruno is his friend, and explains to her that she doesn't need his defense because she already loves him

. That's the Fassbinder we know and love. Tony Rayns in the (original) Arrow box says the Le Samourai influence was Lommel's idea, not Fassbinder's, who hadn't even seen it, so as tempting as it is to fault him for misunderstanding how Melville's longeurs play with tension, it's apparently not exactly justifiable. But it's weird to see something from Fassbinder where the interpersonal is so downplayed, most all of the duplicitousness and casual cruelty of its characters left implicit until the curtain is pulled back in the last quarter. I could see enjoying this better on the second watch, but as it is, the delayed revelations fail to retroactively make much interesting; until then, it's buoyed by some gorgeous cinematography, though even what's good there is balanced by a few too many arty indulgences that don't earn their keep. If I didn't find it interesting for how some of its features will resurface, I don't know that I'd find it much more than visually accomplished. It's an enjoyable curiosity, but not exactly an auspicious start.

I vacillated in my appreciation of the film too, but maybe this critical framing can help. Christian Thomsen lauds the film's new sparse language - wordless and actionless sequences against purified backdrops - as more "honest" and creating a strong poetic effect. The "plot" (the murders, the failed bank robbery) is de-emphasized so that we're left focusing on, in Fassbinder's words, are "that there were poor souls here, who didn't know what to do with themselves, who were simply set down, as they are, and who aren't given a chance". The laconic communication expresses their alienation and isolation from each other and from society. Thomsen says this sets out the major theme of Fassbinder's work, that these people are victims of bourgeois society, they can't live by its norms, but they're also defenceless against them and so it's impossible to create alternatives.

The other gangster films kind of riff on the same things, but in terms of "tediousness" for me Gods of the Plague is the one that went over the line.

[senseabove]

I don't think that's too difficult to read in the film, but still, affect loses effect at 90 minutes. And coming from the later films especially, I think Fassbinder's strength is less socio-economic reality expressed through formalism and more the way its power dynamics surface in people's personal cruelty and devotion to others. I see why he'd try to approach it the way he does in Love is Colder..., especially given the Straub and Huillet association (or at least I think so, from my limited experience with S&H), but it seems ill-fitting as of yet. And desperation disguised as recklessness isn't exactly groundbreaking for a gangster plot. Which is perfectly fine for a first feature, but the real preview of Fassbinder in his wheelhouse is Franz's queasy-making calm as he clearly explains the ruthless emotional logic of his violence to Joanna, even despite our uncertainty of his motivation. In other words, it makes sense why Sirk would be such a revelation for him as a way of tying the formal and emotional together, and here's hoping he gropes his way toward a nascent awareness of that sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it'll be a long a road to Beware..., which I loved, but is the earliest I've seen.

That Thomsen book does sound fascinating for providing context, though, so thanks for sharing that. With the longer timeline, I may actually be able to do some topical reading. Any other essential Fassbinder books? I saw Elsaessar has one, and Rayns edited a collection?

[Rayon Vert]

Yeah you might find it a long road! I appreciated several of the early films more as intellectual exercises, and the effect does pale in comparison for me with what starts coming afterwards. Though out of those early ones, I did find it was easier to relate to the ones set in a more realistic setting rather than the cinematic reference-heavy gangster genre pieces (Thomsen divides the early output into "cinema films" for the latter, and "bourgeois films", i.e. taking place in a bourgeois setting - which includes petit bourgeois I guess- for the former.)

[zedz]

I Only Want You To Love Me (1976) - This film is prime example of the push and pull between cynicism and empathy that I remarked upon earlier. It's yet another film in which the protagonist finds himself in an economic and psychological death trap, and his hapless, irresponsible behaviour only sinks him deeper. Normally, that's the kind of character that would causes me to roll my eyes right out of the picture (see any number of Ken Loach films where you can feel the director's thumb on the scale of social injustice), but here it works for me, because the character is both a genuine, plausible character and an element in a lucid Marxist algorithm. Or maybe I was just taken in by Vitus Zeplechal's puppy dog eyes. The economics are brutal, but I think the film works because they're not cartoonishly demonised, and the real forces of exploitation and oppression in the film are personal and parental. It's a realist social drama, but it has a strong edge of noir fatalism.

In many respects, the film is classic Fassbinder, but it's unusual in leaning heavily on a cast of non-regulars. Zeplechal appeared in half a dozen Fassbinder films (and I bet you can't name them all), but only two of his regular stock company are there, and only making fleeting appearances: Lilo Pempeit as a bank customer and Ingrid Caven as a knitting machine saleswoman. (Fassbinder's lover at the time, Armin Meier, has a slightly larger role.) It gives the film a weird, parallel universe vibe, while also reinforcing how much of the Fassbinder look and feel was independent of his regular actors.

This one will definitely make my top twenty.

The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) - I watched this mainly because I wanted to revisit Lola after the recent discussion and I figured I ought to do the BRD Trilogy in order (something I've never done before). It's a pretty flawless film, Schygulla and her wardrobe are superb, but it's a film I've never felt especially passionate about. This time around, I'm even more impressed by its craft and even less engaged in its drama. Maybe I'd be better disposed if the (let's face it, extremely pulpy) storyline was dealt with in poorer taste. Watching this I long for the melodramatic juiciness of Martha.