RW Fassbinder: C/D, S/D, Y/DA-Y/DA

I think the early films box and World on a Wire are the only Criterion Fassbinder releases I don't own.

If it hasn't been mentioned, Eight Hours has the Janus logo on it, so look for a CC by year's end I guess.

Eclipse box is Love is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher, Gods of the Plague, The American Soldier, and Beware a Holy Whore.

― flappy bird, Monday, March 26, 2018 12:09 PM

Right! I'd rank them:

BAHW
GOTP
Love
TAS
Katzelmacher

somehow Mother Fassbinder's short role in 8HDMaD sailed right by me! one of the grocery gossipers, i think.

ugh I rematched The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant, which I bought on Blu-ray a couple years ago – I found it tedious as hell.

I expect my relationships with movies to change.

I'm off tomorrow, gonna watch Eight Hours.... See you next week!

they played the whole thing at a theater here last week but i missed it. but im not spending 8 hours in a theater. they're also spreading it out over three non consecutive nights but i can't make the first night so i guess i'll just wait for the Criterion/Janus/whatever reissue.

Halfway through Eight Hours. I don't know who I like better, Grandma or Gregor--they're like the funniest movie old-people since Aunt Lotte in Stranger Than Paradise. (I know--TV, and they came first.) I wonder if Fassbinder considered shooting it in Cinemascope, just to accommodate Gottfried John's eyebrows.

I was a little apprehensive about seeing this. There was the length, obviously, but more in relation to my own sleep deprivation and whether I'd hold up. But more than that, I saw a dozen-plus Fassbinder films before I was 25--he was the guy whose every new film you rushed off to see if you were studying film in the early '80s, his and Scorsese's--but, except for Berlin Alexanderplatz a couple of more times--I never went back to anything after that. I just didn't know how his idiosyncrasies would hold up; some of those films I remember positively, some I doubt I'd have much use for today.

Really glad I followed through--liked pretty much the whole eight hours. The wedding party, in particular, was masterful, and there was so much humour. Of all that I could single out, I'd put Gottfried John's unwavering affection for his grandmother at the top of the list. Great soundtrack, too--I'm off in search of the Spooky Tooth song he used.

I've been on a Fassbinder binge recently. I liked the Berlin Alexanderplatz miniseries, but it was very very hard going, it was so depressing (not that many of his movies aren't, just that there was 14 HOURS of this). At this point I think I would say my favorite Fassbinder films, of those I've recently seen, are

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (maybe his best film?)
In a Year with 13 Moons
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
Veronika Voss
Love is Colder than Death

there are some I haven't seen in many years so can't remember that well (Querelle, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven, Effi Briest). I still haven't seen Eight Hours Don't Make a Day

also liked Beware of a Holy Whore, The Merchant of Four Seasons, Fox and His Friends, Lola

check out The Third Generation, it is awesome and hilarious. one of his very last

thanks I will

Gods of the Plague was also pretty good

The events in Berlin Alexanderplatz are depressing but I am not sure it hammers you with it for 14 hours straight. I'd give it another watch in a few years, for sure.

Third Generation is really really great. Only other time he made a straight political statement to the events of the day was in his section of Germany in Autumn which is really good as well.

the epilogue to Berlin Alexanderplatz was so shockingly surreal, just amazing

all of Fassbinder's films warrant a rewatch, definitely

just saw that Kanopy is streaming The Marriage of Maria Braun and Effi Briest, two I haven't seen recently, planning to watch those next

8 Hours now out on Criterion

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5972-eight-hours-don-t-make-a-day-the-utopia-channel

Started it the other day... Morbius OTM re: Hanna Schygulla's least neurotic role. I love all the zooms! The fast zoom onto Joachim's face when Marion says she's single is hilarious. Great theme song, too.

Querelle is such a fascinating failure that I don't really know how to feel about it. The art direction and cinematography are magnificent; the set decoration reminded me of an X-rated version of the Sweethaven from Altman's Popeye, and the whole thing is shot in rich Technicolor-evoking tones that eroticize even the film's ugliest moments (of which there are many). But the story is such a muddle of dangling plot threads and characters introduced and then never paid off that its frustrating and ultimately tedious. It is well known that the studio cut a half hour from the film that Fassbinder's editor presented to them, so maybe this accounts for some of the film's mess. Less charitably, but just as likely, is that Fassbinder was in the throes of addition and was taking an approach to the Genet novel which made sense only in his drug-addled mind, and which he didn't really have the opportunity to fully realize anyway.

Bummer. Did you see it at FF?

Nah, it was on TCM last week.

ah gotcha. they're showing a 35mm print this week and next, jealous of NYC ilxors, despite your assessment. Sounds like a drag but makes sense obviously- how does it compare to Kamikaze '89? I know he didn't direct it but he's the lead actor & iirc it was made right before he died. Looks like a fucking wreck in the stills I've seen.

Haven't seen--or even heard of--Kamikaze '89.

Despite my objections to the film overall, I imagine Querelle looking amazing on the big screen.

just as likely, is that Fassbinder was in the throes of addition and was taking an approach to the Genet novel which made sense only in his drug-addled mind, and which he didn't really have the opportunity to fully realize anyway.

He was much much more drug addled while making "Maria Braun" and that turned out pretty good - except I don't think he was ever really 'addled' by drugs at any time.

Yesterday, I had the displeasure of spending two endless hours with In a Year of 13 Moons. Pretty much everything about it was substandard, but the acting in particular was shockingly bad.

― Jeb, Sunday, October 28, 2007 3:17 PM (eleven years ago) bookmarkflaglink

most offffffffftm post ever

I like Querelle

"I fucked him in the ass, and when I pulled out, there was shit on my cock."

people are mannequins so it's okay to push them around

I loved 13 Moons. haven't seen Querelle in a while

Satan's Brew is sort of the cinematic equivalent of scratch paper, or one of those bougie "rage rooms" where you pay money to break stuff. Fascinating as a fan and equally cathartic as an artist. I think it's more than a 'sex farce,' it's very Freudian and like... trapped in the anal stage or something. I absolutely loved it.

and it very much feels like a play

The first film I saw of his was Fox And His Friends and it didn't draw me in and so I kind of avoided him

But I watched Ali last night and was blown away. I was feeling so on edge the whole movie, and so emotional, and I couldn't figure out why, at first, and then I did. I was internalizing all the racist and ageist things that were being said by the characters and it created a tension that I was SURE one of the characters must be acting inauthentically. Like, the constant stream of criticism made me as a viewer sure that something terrible was going to happen, but the only things that happened were small revelations that Emmi would at times betray her latent racism, and Ali would at times betray his latent ageism. The final plot "twist"-- the intrusion of a physical ailment-- was such a surprise, something inevitable and yet surmountable, it put their entire romance into perspective. Such an oddly tense and yet optimistic film, I guess? I loved it.

Querelle! I finally watched it, thanks to the Criterion Channel. It's the kind of terrible film that only a good director could've made.

Satan's Brew and Querelle prob my choice for his two worst

It's the kind of terrible film that only a good director could've made.

i.e. my kind of movie

I wish! I admire many follies. This is a stilted, etiolated one.

Also, hot.

Querelle is very hot but it is also a mess. Was that the only movie Fassbinder shot in 2:35 widescreen? Despair & the BRD Trilogy are 1:66.

I agree with Alfred, it's the kind of bad movie only a good/great director could make.

Eric sometimes likes good movies by terrible directors (Femme Fatale)

I haven't seen any of these, priorities? (gonna borrow a couple DVDs from a friend)

Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
Effi Briest
Fear of Fear
Mother Kusters' Trip to Heaven
Chinese Roulette
The Stationmaster's Wife / Bolwesier
Lili Marleen

afaik the rest never got a Region 1 disc release (except Whity and Rio das Mortes)

Looking through his filmography, I've never heard of Bird on a Wire or Women in New York.

Bird on a Wire is in no man's land; i haven't seen it. (44 minutes)

I remember liking Mother Kusters, Herr R and Lili Marleen quite a lot (tho the last is perhaps his most 'conventional' film). Effi Briest is a pretty long lit adap, and i frankly am foggy on it. Fear of Fear has a good rep but it's been a long time with that too.

If you liked Satan's Brew, you might as well try everything.

Herr R/ Fear of Fear/ Mother Kusters are my favourites from that list. I've never seen Lili Marleen and only seen the TV Bolwieser not the edited film version, and that was so long ago I can't remember much about it. Chinese Roulette and Effi Briest are good too, btw.

Mother Kusters' Trip to Heaven is one of his best.

Yes, I think so too, but so are Herr R and Fear Of Fear imo.

Good movies from bad directors, bad movies from good directors, bad movies from bad directors, good movies from good directors — I’ve got room in my heart for all of them. So long as they have directors.

If you liked Satan's Brew, you might as well try everything.

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius)

oh I will but I'm not gonna ask my friend if I can borrow ~10 of his OOP Fassbinder DVDs all at once, I'm thinking like 3 or 4. and like someone said upthread I sort of want to keep a few saved for later.

I didn't realize Effi Briest was so long (multiple miniseries & WOAW aside, p much all of his theatrical films are 2 hours or less).

For whatever reason the one I'm most curious about is Chinese Roulette - maybe for Anna Karina, the game itself, or the fact that it was a major turning point for him personally (iirc he hadn't done any hard drugs prior to shooting CR).

2 episodes into Berlin Alexanderplatz... just stunning that it's all first takes.

Happy birthday to The Beetle's #JohnLennon -- seen here with his beloved Aunt Mimi pic.twitter.com/UzcXmN0HOm

— Eric Allen Hatch (@ericallenhatch) October 9, 2019

LOL, similar noses!

his Ibsen adaptation is on youtube with English subs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GuI8GLm22Aw

saw Lili Marleen shortly after Todd Haynes' similar work for hire Dark Waters... glad that there's only one movie where RWF not only seems bored but the whole thing is so familiar & anonymous, not as blank as DW but by far the most inessential film of his I've seen.

RIP Volker Spengler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzIbKfkqOlg

Unlikely cultural figures wearing German football club kit - Rainer Werner Fassbinder modelling an 1.FC Köln shirt (+ cigarette!) pic.twitter.com/CRco5g4EIB

— German at Portsmouth (@GermanAtPompey) February 6, 2020

Especially unlikely as he was one of the world's biggest Bayern fans.