Rainer Werner Fassbinder died prematurely in 1982 at the age
of 37. The official reason was heart failure resulting from a dangerous mix of
sleeping pills and cocaine. Up until his untimely demise he was recognised as
the leading light in the New German Cinema, a period of German film making that
lasted from the late 1960’s into the 1980’s, which also included, amongst
others, Werner Herzog, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders and like similar
movements in other countries still has a lasting influence to this day.
Fassbinder was a workaholic and rarely made less than four
films a year nearly always based on his own original ideas. In his short 15
year career he completed more than 40 feature length films, two television film
series, three short plays, four
video productions; twenty-four stage plays, four radio plays and in his
spare time took part in some 36 acting roles. He was quoted as saying that in
his opinion work alleviates loneliness.
He was a controversial figure and his desire to provoke and disturb was
reflected in both his private life and his film work.
Christian Braad Thomsen describes this contradictory artist
in his book Fassbinder: The Life and Work of a Provocative Genius ‘He was gentle and brutal, tender and
cynical, self sacrificing and egocentric; he was ruthlessly dictatorial and yet
always dreamed of working in groups and collectives. He was obese, unkempt, and
slovenly, went around in a leather jerkin and looked like a boozer in the bar
on the corner. But when he worked with the camera and with actors, he had the
grace and vitality of a ballet dancer. The ugly frog turned into a handsome
prince when he was kissed, not by a princess, but by the film camera, which
Fassbinder described as a holy whole’.
Fassbinder’s movies are the antidote for today’s mass-market
modern cinema, films that are made only to generate large amounts of money and
that strange arrogance that states no
film can be good if its not popular, therefore any film that is popular must be
good: bullshit. He believed that a filmmaker could work in a completely
personal and uncompromising way.
All Fassbinder’s
principle characters are victims of bourgeois society, which he is sharply
critical of at times, and not really rebels, sitting outside the called
respectable society. RWF supports the theory there are only two directions that
can be taken one is fascism and the other is anarchy, most of his work can be
taken to point in the direction of the latter. He
advocated that there was a direct link between sex and money, in Fassbinder’s
world both sex and emotions are commodities. Also within his work he portrayed
violence as an expression of frustrated sexuality.
As a director he constantly provoked aggression amongst the
people around him stating that ‘only when
people are aggressive, does a kind of honesty come to the surface’ and at
the same time loathed any kind of intellectualising.
Its obvious the more of his films you watch, the more you
realise that he preferred to work with women. It was the German women that run
the country while the men were away at war. When the men returned home the
situation was reversed. But RWF found women
more interesting and more fun to work with then men. ‘With women you can cry and scream, and make them do things while with
men it easily gets boring’[1] But
saying that an embrace between two men in many of his films is at times more
passionate than the embrace between man and women?
RWF
used personal incidents in his films for example in Lola (1981) we see her go to bed with her pimp on her wedding
night, this mirrors what happened in 1970 when Fassbinder married the actress
Ingrid Caven. On the wedding night Ingrid found the door to there bedroom
locked. Inside, her new husband was in bed with Gunther Kaufmann, she was
banished to the adjoining bedroom.
His films
always had an erotic feel, with songs that always sound sexy sung in German. A
great many of his films that have survived the test of time, in fact some have
even improved over time.
One of RWF theories was that the quicker you shot a film the
fresher the actors would remain allowing them no time to get complacent. This
short time span was possible because he always came into a film project totally
prepared. Because of the trust he had in his actors he was able to give minimal
directorial instructions to his cast.
The
First Phase: Avant-garde films (1969–1971)
During this period Fassbinder worked in both the
theatre and film creating his own style by combining the two art forms. Usually
shot with a static camera and with deliberately un-naturalistic dialog, these
films are generally austere and minimalist and said to have drawn influence
from the likes of Godard, Jean-Marie Straub and the theories of Brecht who used
his production’s as a forum for political ideas. Three of these early films use
the gangster genre to explore the criminal underworld of Munich. Praised by
some, these early films proved too demanding and inaccessible for a mass
audience.
Love is Colder than Death 1969
RWF first feature film was black and white and
almost entirely without words and music, a film obviously influenced by the
French New Wave and a film dedicated in the opening credits to Claude Chabrol, Eric
Rohmer, Jean-Marie Straub, the avant-garde filmmaker, and two characters from a
bizarre spaghetti western Quien Sabe
(1966). This was also the first of his gangster genre, but one where the viewer
has to work hard to understand the RWF’s screenplay with its minimal use of
dialog.
We first see Franz
(Rainer Werner Fassbinder) at what looks like a normal job interview but he is
being coerced into joining a crime syndicate and gets beaten up for refusing.
Its here he meets the handsome but murderous Bruno (Ulli Lommel) and invites
him to visit his Munich flat which Franz shares with his girlfriend Joanna
(Hanna Schygulla[2]).
From the chemistry that develops between the two men we know that their
relationship is more plutonic although Bruno does try it on with Joanna without
raising any objection from Franz. Following a killing spree the two men plan a
bank robbery that does not succeed because Joanna betrays them to the police.
Bruno arranges for Joanna to be shoot but is killed in a shoot out with the
police. Franz and Joanna escape together.
The RWP trademarks
are already in place: the strange erotic feel, the lengthy long held shots, the
facial close ups and the minimalist backdrops, with the production allowing
bags of cinematic space because of its unhurried pacing. This mean and moody
offering is a fine example of RWF’s early work.
Katzelmacher 1969
The film open’s with a quote from German author and actor Yaak Karsunke
‘It is better to make new mistakes than to perpetuate the old ones to the
point of unconsciousness’. This is RWF’s second film but the first where he
describes and criticises the ‘bourgeois’ world.
In a programme note RWF characterises his film as follows:
Marie belongs to Erich. Paul sleeps with
Helga. Peter lets himself be kept by Elisabeth. Rosy does it with Franz for
money. In the backcourt, in the pub, in their flats, they meet singly, in
couples, as a group, and exchange opinions, become aggressive, get bored, piss
off one another, drink. That Helga, who belongs to Paul, gets involved with his
friend Erich, that Peter is fed up being bossed around by Elisabeth and works
off his anger on the purchasable Rosy, that Paul sometimes goes to handsome
Klaus, that Gunda is teased because she can’t get anyone, does not make any
difference to the isolation of their lower-middle class suburban haunt. That’s
what it’s like, that’s normal, and everything is as it should be. Only when
Jorgos ‘a Greek from Greece’ (played
by Fassbinder) breaks into their world
and with his ‘no understand’ triggers xenophobia, potency envy, aggression
against the stranger, in short, the fascist syndrome, do the men wake up, rouse
themselves and beat him up. ‘Things have to be sorted out around here again’
These characters
who do not pursue any meaningful activity, they all talk of sex and money, they
sit, walk, play cards, smoke and drink. Just a group of bored young people who eventually
take there racial bigotry out on a guest worker from Greece who rents a room
from Elisabeth who is supposed to be having some great sex from this stranger
on the assumption that all non indigenous people are great at sex having bigger
penises. A relationship drama about how different people interact and how
simple truth is twisted to suit the individual.
Gods of the Plague 1969.
This is a direct follow up to Love is Colder Than Death (1969), apparently the only time RWF made
a sequel. This time Harry Baer and not RWF portray the main protagonist Franz
Walsch.[3]
Franz is released from prison and sets about looking up his
old acquaintances. His first stop is
the bar where girlfriend Joanna Reiher (Hanna Schygulla) works as a singer. Its
obvious that she loves Franz and would do any thing to help him but he finds
her far too possessive so decides to move on. Its then he meets Margarethe
(Margarethe von Trotta) another beautiful conquest equally supportive but far less
controlling. When he meets up with Gunther, known as Gorilla, (Gunther
Kaufmann) the big man informs Franz that he has killed his brother ‘because he
talked’ excepting this, Franz joins with him. The pair plans to rob a supermarket.
Neither realizes that Joanna Reiher is planning her revenge for being spurned.
A black and white
movie that’s both raw and gritty, with a imaginative use of light and shadows
from the director of photography Dietrich Lohmann[4].
The main character seems a complete misery having very little to do or say,
while Gunther Kaufmann portrayal of Gorilla is ever so slightly insane. As in
other films RWF seems to be better at directing women than he does men or is it
the fact that he writes them better parts? The title is to a certain extent
clarified in the trailer, which states criminals
are our gods and capitalism is a
plague.
Its in this film that RWF films the reflection of a mirror
for the first time, the symbol he was later to employ frequently, in order to
express a split or a doubling.
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok! 1970.
What are the reasons for Herr R.
running amok? Fassbinder makes it very clear in his drama/documentary that is
almost more suited to the TV than the cinema because of its minimal sets, only
venturing outside for a family walk through a snowy country landscape, the fact
that most of the story is told through a series of everyday conversations
between the characters.
Herr R. (Kurt Raab) is a middle
class architect; along with his wife (Lilith Ungerer) and young son (Amadeus
Fengler) live above their means in a well-furnished apartment. As RWF went on
to disclose in The Third Generation
(1979) Herr R. suffers the same bourgeois malaise that drives the ‘group’ into
acts of terrorism which fulfils there obvious need for adventure and
excitement, that is to say a dreary family life and boring work patterns. We see from a meeting with their old school
friends (Hanna Schygulla and Peer Raben) how both Herr R. and his wife yearn
for freedom, and even an escape back into childhood, something that reoccurs in
Martha (1974) and Rio das Mortes (1970).
A series of situations, which
individually could be coped with, but together they force Herr R. to loose
control. As I have said previously his working environment is dreary and when
he attends the office dinner with his wife he says things under the influence
of alcohol, things he shouldn’t to his boss and co-workers. His son is not
doing well at school; his wife is constantly on about promotion and extra
money, although she does not go to work. And then there’s the embarrassing
scene in a record shop where he tries to buy a single as a present for his wife
but does not know the name of the song or the artist. Eventually returning home
with the gift, his wife leads him on only to turn down his sexual advances.
Even the family walk adds to Herr R’s stress levels because of the constant
bickering between his mother and his wife. His migraines, which visits to the
doctor don’t seem to cure, just add to his problems. But on the surface for his
life is normal but anyone can have enough of ‘normality’ and turn inwards on
one self.
Jointly directed by Fassbinder
and Michael Fengler who also together wrote the draft that was used for the
actors to improvise their dialogue. This was RWF first film in colour. It’s
almost an expression of relief to both Herr R. and the films audience when the
desperate and meaningless violence finally erupts. This dark satire was the second of what has
been called his bourgeois films and RWF first international success. It was
shot over a period of thirteen days in December 1969 in Munich and premiered at
the Berlin Film Festival on the 28 June 1970.
Rio das Mortes 1970
Originally made for TV and billed
as a lower middle class comedy, we have a simple straightforward narrative,
which involves two friends, Mike (Michael Konig) and Gunther (Gunther Kaufman)
who after discovering a map want to travel to Peru to search for their fortune,
but firstly they have to raise the funding for this adventure to take place
which becomes quite a problem. Eventually they get to know a rather refined
elderly lady who sympathises with the two dreamers and gives them the money. Played
by Hanna Axmann-Rezzori, who a year before had given another dreamer, Rainer
Werner Fassbinder, 20000 marks so that he could make his first film.[5]
The whole business is very
displeasing to Mike’s girlfriend Hanna (Hanna Schygulla) who does not want them
to go.
Probably not the best of the great
mans work but worth sourcing out for three scenes. The first shows a drawing of
a penis on a wall with USSA written above it, the four women in front of the
wall never stand still whilst taking to one another. The complete incident
appears to have no logical reasoning; only this moving about while speaking is another
RWF trademark. The second scene is recognisant of a similar scene found in Ken
Russell’s Women in Love (1969) where
Alan Bates and Oliver Reed wrestle in front of an open fire. We may not have an
open fire but the fight that takes place between Mike and Gunther in their flat
has the same reasoning: a declaration of love between two men. But the best is
the scene that involves Hanna, in a very fetching red dress, and a stranger
played by RWF in his familiar leather jacket that dance together to Elvis
Presley’s Jailhouse Rock playing on a
jukebox in a club. When RWF goes back to his girl friend who has been watching
from a stool situated in front of the bar she points that he never dances like
that with her, he response by saying “And you can’t dance like that either” and
then gives her a slap around the face for no particular reason, they must be in
love! This is a wonderful scene where RWF makes it appear that he has not got
an ounce of rhythm in his body.
The Niklashausen Journey 1970.
One night in 1476 in the German
town of Niklashausen Hans Bohm, a street entertainer, had a vision of the
Virgin Mary. She told him to preach the virtues of life and social equality.
Bohm spoke on the sins of the secular and spiritual authorities telling 30000
peasants and pilgrims that they should not pay rents to the church and that
their forced labour, tolls and levies should be denied from the rich nobles and
basically all means of ‘production’ should be owned by the peasants. Bohm, not
unsurprisingly, was deemed dangerous by the ruling authorities. When tens of
thousands of peasants from all over Germany converged on Niklashausen to hear
his speeches which resulted in a peasant revolt, the authorities put our
ancient revolutionary on trail for that grand crime of heresy and burnt him at
the stake on July 19th 1476 only a few short months after he had his vision.
It was this story that was the
starting point for RWF’s movie. His film was not based on the Hollywood movies
of his childhood but the more contemporary revolutionary cinema for example
Brazilian filmmaker Glauber Rocha and his film Black God, White Devil (1964) although the film does remind me of
the work of Alejandro Jodorowsky best known for his avant-garde films with
their surreal images and their blend of mysticism and religious provocation.
RWF adapted the original story and
set it in the present, although some of the characters do appear in period
dress and we get the insertion of message about the death of two Black
Panthers. This time Bohm (Michael Konig), after his vision and accompanied by a
group of friend, go to stay at the house of a rich woman whose husband is
dying. We see him preaching against wealthy landowners and the church,
threatening the very stability of the Bishop. Johanna (Hanna Schygulla) agrees
to appear in public as the Virgin Mary supporting Bohm’s proposals for a
utopian world of equality and fairness. He calls for the people to form
cooperatives, nationalisation and the end to free enterprise. Asking the
question, that does really deserve an answer in the light of modern politics
‘why does one person work so that another can have all the fun’ But similar to
the original folk tale he is burnt at the stake but now its followed by an armed
revolutionary shoot out. A wonderfully meaningful film.
The American Soldier 1970.
This is RWF’s German New Wave film
noir and his last and most perfect gangster film. A film on two levels,
depending how the viewer interprets RWF script, is he saying that the
authorities in the form of a corrupt police force are as bad as the criminals
they certainly look and act no different from gangsters or is it RWF’s way of
showing how the German public see Americans; good in bed, attractive, violent
and extensively cool?
When three of Munich guardians of
the law hire an ex Vietnam veteran, the American Ricky, played by German actor
Karl Scheydt, to kill people that they can’t get away with, all hell breaks
loose. Again excellent use of minimalist lighting and close up face shots especially
in the card game scene at the beginning of the film where RWF jacks up the
tension while the card players, who turn out to be policeman, await the hired
killers arrival from America. This melodrama and the films so far go a little
over the top with violence towards women[6].
Something the film is said to imply
is that violence is an expression of frustrated love, where sexual intercourse
is substituted by murder, and emotions are seen as a weakness in fact shown to have
been the reason for Ricky’s death. RWP has a great love of Hollywood, particularly
for the Hollywood of his childhood and it can be seen in this film, although he
does present his own personnel take on the gangster genre.
Beware of a Holy Whore 1970
The film has a motto ‘pride comes before a fall’ and also
includes a quote from Thomas Mann’s novella Tonio Kroger ‘I tell you, I’m often tired to death of portraying humanity, without
being part of humanity…
The first part of Fassbinder’s
film career concludes with what is deemed a merciless self-criticism and ‘reflects on the relationship between ends
and means and about the potential of film art in the fight for social change’[7] and
it also marks the end of his avant-garde period. This bluntly autobiographical
film deals with the interaction of a group of people whose tensions and
conflicts lead them into chaotic situations in fact the relationship between a
film crew and its domineering director.
In a seedy seaside hotel in Spain a
film team await the arrival of its director, the main star and the money
supplied by the state supported film agency. The unique atmosphere is a mix of
hysteria, apathy, hope, arguing, jealousy and various on location affairs and
sexual intrigues. Finally the director Jeff (Lou Castel) flies in accompanied
by the star Eddie Constantine playing himself who despite being much older than
the other members of the cast and crew gets close to the actress Hanna (Hanna
Schygulla). Along with his production manager, Sascha played by Fassbinder, Jeff
attempts to get the shooting organised in his own authoritarian manner and
dealing with the egos on set.
RWF ploughs the experience of eight previous feature films into this
brilliant piece of self-mockery with its instances from these earlier films
with references to places, clothing and even lines and music. The only
criticism of the film is that Fassbinder should have played Jeff the manic director
himself instead of the production manager. RWP has been quoted as saying that
at the time he was only capable of acting unsympathetically. Had he taken the
lead it would have been too much for the audience: but I think he was wrong.
[2]
The sensual Hannah Schygulla starred in 20 Fassbinder
film productions, retaining her professional ties to the director despite
frequent and increasingly violent personal and professional disagreements.
[6] Violence against woman is explained away by Fassbinder
‘that with love, there’s got to be pain’.
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