and his friends
may 9 - june 5, 1997
photo: a scene from ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL
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r. w. fassbinder and his friends may 9 - june 5, 1997 photo: a scene from ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL |
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Presented with the support of Patsy and Jeff Tarr and TWICE Magazine, and in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut New York/German Cultural Center and with the R.W. Fassbinder Foundation (Berlin). Special thanks also to the Museum of Modern Art, New Yorker Films (Dan Talbot and José Lopez) Ingrid Scheib-Rothbart and Brigitte Hubmann. Placing THE MERCHANT OF THE FOUR SEASONS at the top of his Ten Best list for 1973, Andrew Sarris hailed Rainer Werner Fassbinder as "the most important new director of the past decade." RWF had made his first feature a mere four years before. Less than a decade after Sarris's pronouncement, Fassbinder was dead--of a drug overdose, accidental or intended; or perhaps from heart failure, after too much self-indulgence in every arena except his art; or maybe just inevitably, inexorably burnt out. He was 36. Although an avid filmgoer, RWF's earliest interest was in drama, which he left school to study in 1964. Three years later he was working with Action-Theater, a group that staged its shows in Munich basements, barrooms, any space it could temporarily commandeer. He joined as an actor--which he would remain throughout his career--but soon was also adapting and directing plays, then writing and directing his own originals. In May 1968, that month of student revolts across Europe, Action-Theater was shut down by the authorities, whereupon RWF and some key associates--Hanna Schygulla, Peer Raben, and Kurt Raab among them--founded their own "anti-teater." This volatile company drifted from one home to another for a year or so, and eventually made a feature film, Love Is Colder Than Death. That title might be applied to virtually any of the 35 features that followed, along with short films, contributions to omnibus productions, two massive TV miniseries (the latter of which, 1980's 15 ½-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, RWF regarded as a single feature film), and sundry scripts and/or acting turns for other directors. He was always well served by his stock company, an expanded, wildly dysfunctional family of players who appeared in film after film (and in numerous stage productions as well), freely trading off leading roles for cameos and bit parts, and ever able to spike their characters cleanly with a glance from under a hat brim, a certain way of throwing a lip over a glass. RWF shared many of his contemporaries' disdain for capitalism, nationalism, U.S. imperialism, the bourgeoisie, and all the other targets so readily available for denunciation in the last half of the 20th century, but he rejected political--and even radical--action (as THE THIRD GENERATION and the finale of MOTHER KÜSTERS make clear). Society, especially the materialistic society of postwar Germany, was rife with xenophobia, religious bigotry, racism, classism, homophobia, ageism, and every other form of prejudice, but "society" didn't need to be bigger than a family, or a couple, to poison the fondest aspirations of the human heart. And so, in fiercely composed frames, with people's options visibly shaped and caged by the mundane yet powerfully Expressionistic architecture of their modern world, RWF again and again watched his characters--black and white, gay and straight, aristocrat and prole--eat each other alive. The canon ranges from wired, ratty little films like KATZELMACHER, GODS OF THE PLAGUE, and THE AMERICAN SOLDIER--an imitation-Godard imitation of an American gangster picture--to the delicate literary adaptation EFFI BRIEST; from the bleak bourgeois deathwatches WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? and THE MERCHANT OF THE FOUR SEASONS; to the embattled interracial, transgenerational love story ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL; from the hothouse closet drama of THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT and MARTHA to the glorious "Entire History of the German Democratic Republic" trilogy: THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN, LOLA, and VERONIKA VOSS. Rarely is there a dull shot in any of them, or one that fails to catch the eye, provoke the intellect, and remind us what an invigoratingly participatory experience the watching of a film can be, should be. RWF had the ability to frame and impel an event in all its immediacy, at the same time that he was commenting on the dynamics of the moment, and of all the social and personal history and conditioning that had preceded and shaped it. In this he was at once utterly modern and the natural heir to such classical masters as Josef von Sternberg and Douglas Sirk. His legacy is prodigious, and invaluable. He has not been, will not be, replaced. --Richard T. Jameson, excerpted from the Fassbinder Tribute Page at www. Cinemania.com. Also see information about the recent Fassbinder series at the Museum of Modern Art program notes and times
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a scene from THE MERCHANT OF THE FOUR SEASONS 
a scene from FOX AND HIS FRIENDS 
a scene from WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK?
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Note: All films are subtitled in English.
ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL
THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS /
FOX AND HIS FRIENDS /
KATZELMACHER /
WHY DOES HERR R. RUN AMOK? /
THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT /
BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ
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a scene from EFFI BRIEST 
a scene from DESPAIR 
a scene from THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN |
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EFFI BRIEST / FONTANE EFFI BRIEST
QUERELLE
IN A YEAR OF THIRTEEN MOONS /
DESPAIR / DESPAIR -- EINE REISE INS LICHT
THE AMERICAN SOLDIER /
BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE /
GODS OF THE PLAGUE / GÖTTER DER PEST
MOTHER KUSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN /
THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN /
THE THIRD GENERATION /
THE
STATIONMASTER'S WIFE
LILI MARLENE / LILI MARLEEN
VERONIKA VOSS /
LOLA
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