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

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.

I'm sure I read somewhere he used to collect jerseys worn by Bayern players - something worn by Bayern players anyway!

Yes, there was a Fassbinder exhibition in Berlin that displayed his Bayern Munich shirt with the No. 8 on it. This was Paul Breitner's shirt number, whose Maoist leanings would probably have amused Fassbinder.

Fassbinder also turned up to the filming of 'Berlin Alexanderplatz' in a Bayern Munich T-Shirt, which would have gone down well with the Berliners.

https://pop9blog.files.wordpress.com/2019/03/025006.jpg

Yes, there was a Fassbinder exhibition in Berlin that displayed his Bayern Munich shirt with the No. 8 on it. This was Paul Breitner's shirt number, whose Maoist leanings would probably have amused Fassbinder.

I saw it!

Coming back to his films a second time, sometimes after months as with Mother Kusters, or a little over a year like 13 Moons, or 2+ years like Petra von Kant, Merchant of Four Seasons, and Beware of a Holy Whore. Obviously coupled with reading a few books on him and becoming familiar with every key player in the ensemble/'group,' is that these fairly dense arthouse movies suddenly open up and become much less heady, much more from the gut. 13 Moons is a special case, but the two things that stuck with me the most after revisiting it about 2 months ago were two simple shots: push-ins on Elvira as she walks in on Anton and Zora kissing on her bed and the devastation on her face, and when Irene gets the call that she needs to come over and open up the apartment.

In these shots, the monologues about Schopenhauer and the 'steaming life' of the slaughterhouse are for a moment wiped away for a pure primary color emotion, less of an imitation than the more straightforward melodramas. and even more astonishing that he did all of this from the hip, filming (as the opening credits say) from July 24 to August 28, 1978. I love how he 'signs' the movie in a way, obviously a film full of tossed of personal gestures, the most obvious being the brief TV cameo talking about having an 'unusual' childhood. less obvious now is the Amarcord theme playing whenever Red Zora/Ingrid Caven shows up. or how much the bathroom that Elvira and Zora go into when they first meet up resembles RWF and Armin Meier's apartment, as seen just months earlier in his Germany in Autumn segment.

I think it's his supreme achievement, maybe because he made it so immediately and intensely, more than anything else in his career. Armin Meier's body was discovered around June 10...... 45 days later they're shooting the first scene. I know, cocaine. that's not it. this is a film shot right from the heart, and though I knew it the first time I saw it, what struck me this time were its equal earthbound emotional effects.

Beware of a Holy Whore had the same pathos, an even headier and more inaccessible movie. but knowing that Lou Castel is wearing *that* leather jacket, the one that Fassbinder wears in everything for the first few years of his career. Knowing every key player and who plays who, I mean Irm's dubbing and send off are devastating. and he presides over it all... what distinguishes RWF among other similarly self destructive and provocative and abusive artists was his rigorous self critique, which was constant. perhaps what endears him to me the most is that he seems like a wounded, lost animal that wants so desperately for the world to be a better place, and his expression is so brilliantly crafted and beautifully immediate and direct. I'm grateful for him, particularly lately.

Found this on youtube the other day, surprisingly good discussion for a university. Also realized 2020 is indeed a moon year with 13 new moons. Criterion tweeted a photo of Ingrid Caven as Red Zora from the movie the other day, hopefully they're preparing a release this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ri_1N3R7T-E

RIP Irm Hermann 💔

Oh no! RIP Irm ;_;

:-(

RIP

wasn't aware Irm was still around til 8 Hours restoration

I was gonna revive to ask about Martha.

She does as she pleases, she waits there for me. If that's the Martha you mean.

has anyone seen RWF's Women in New York? I think that's the last thing of his that features Irm in a significant role (she's only in Berlin Alexanderplatz for one episode right?)

omg had no idea what this revive was for until i spotted this elsewhere. rip

women of new york is insane, borderline unwatchable. all the sets are clearly built on the same stage and there's a floorboard that creaks in the same place no matter where the scene is set and it becomes increasingly distracting.

some guy, that RWF

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6965-irm-hermann-from-torture-to-triumph