Fassbinder and film as a style medium

[Bungo the Mungo]

My awareness of this larger-than-life director has kind of crept up on me over the last few years. I've seen a handful of his films now, and have mixed feelings.

His earlier work is more interesting, I'd say. Everything I've seen is very stylised and stagey, but in films like 1969's 'Love Is Colder Than Death', 'The American Soldier', and 'Gods Of The Plague', there's an added artiness (and a little more energy) that makes these more watchable. I have to admit that the 'pretentious' nature of some of his work is what holds the appeal - artifice replacing substance. Or so it seems.

The original trailer for A Bout De Souffle, as I'm sure many of you know, simply features a series of images - a cigarette, a man, a girl - and these are shown, in turn and mainly in close-up, with a voice-over that just states what they are (un homme.....une fille....une cigarette...). It's extremely enjoyable, and Fassbinder used the exact same idea for the trailer to 'Gods of the Plague'. It works almost as well. So what? Well, so much of the fun is in the image and the style, as I said. Is that wrong to appreciate films in this way? probably not. Are we party to some kind of scam? Is the film less worthwhile, and the director less mature for not telling a story?

A few nights ago I saw 1973's 'The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant'. It wasn't particularly enjoyable, but stayed in my head for hours afterwards. The whole film takes place in one room, and the direction and camerawork are such that it feels claustrophobic - the focus is the dialogue. The film is about obsession, and unrequited adoration, and all the complications that invariably result. What was Fassbinder doing? He was making points, I'm sure - reflecting the problems of men and women in 'modern society'. But who was watching? Is this entertainment of any sort?

Arguably his most famous film is 'Fear Eats The Soul' - yet it's far from being his best. The arty elements had largely been left behind by this point (1975), but I find the most interesting thing about the film is spotting old packaging - attractive '70s typography, and all that . The point about mixed marriages is made clumsily, and there are scenes that - even allowing for his melodramatic/unnatural tendencies - are simply ridiculous. When a character kicks in a television set due to rage over being 'let down' by a family member seeing someone from a Muslim country, it's singularly unconvincing and quite laughable.

I don't know much about the man and his life, other than he was homosexual, addicted to drugs or alcohol, caused much national scandal with his private life, was a prolific film-maker, and died in his thirties. I'm looking forward to seeing more of his films. How does his work stand up today? have many of you seen anything?

[marios]

You're just showing off now. Bet you can't find many of his films in your local HMV.

[Jimbly]

You're just showing off now. Bet you can't find many of his films in your local HMV.

Can in mine

[Davey the Fat Boy]

Arguably his most famous film is 'Fear Eats The Soul' - yet it's far from being his best.

With art films, a really good title makes all the difference.

[Sneelock]

well, I'm a great admirer of Fassbinder. I agree that his earlier films pack a more solid emotional punch but I'd like to defend some of the later stuff.

by "Fox and His Friends" I think he's onto something else or maybe his style is just further along. I think Fassbinder's real contribution (to sneelock's movie watching enjoyment) has been a sort of synergy. He combined a very stylized approach to a VERY natural acting style to often powerful effect.

I know these films can be real root canals if you're not in the mood but those actors are, for all intents and puropses, REAL. much of this is the exceptional actors he cast but I think much of it is due to the fact that Fassbinder was some sort of an artist.

look no further than "Berlin Alexanderplatz" for what I mean. the performances are naturalistic, the movie is meticulously stylized. I think the effect is stunning. now, by 'Qurelle' maybe the party is over. maybe his most stylized, most naturalistically acted and least involving film. so, it's a good trick when it works.

I'll admit that I'm not somebody who enjoys a lot of his films front to back but I have a good book about him and hang onto a few VHS that I should have cut loose years ago.

he came at it differently than others. his concerns were different. films of high drama but with a fresh and different approach. I won't defend many of his films but I'll defend Fassbinder as a talented movie maker.

[The Modernist]

Arguably his most famous film is 'Fear Eats The Soul' - yet it's far from being his best.

With art films, a really good title makes all the difference.

It's a very bleak film, but very powerful and at its heart is genuine tenderness. I felt the opposite to John in that I didn't find it clumsy or didactic at all. I felt that it wasn't lead by the issues, but that the issues emerged naturally out of the convincing characterisations and performances. And looking back at the film perhaps the most taboo thing about their relationship wasn't so much the racial difference as the big age gap.
Sadly I found the bigotry of the germans in the film all too convincing, after all in the UK in the 2000's if a young Eastern European guy was with a woman in her late fifties there would be plenty of people whose first reaction would be "Oh yeah..I know what he's after".

[The Write Profile]

I love the gaudiness of Fassbinder's Lola, to me that seems to be hist most vibrant (and by turn bitter) film, very much indebted to the Douglas Sirk tradition of exagerating the melodrama for social and comic effect and also features a lot of offhand references to Marlene Deitrich classic The Blue Angel. There's something about the sarcasm about the picture, the whole idea that BDR "economic miracle" was hugely tainted (in this case the entrepeneurs literally prostitute themselves, which makes the final "wedding scene" bitterly ironic--essentially the idealist commisioner choses cuddling up to corruption for his own benefit by marrying her.

But on a visual level, it's great to watch,Fassbinder shot films so quickly, it's a bit rough aound the edges, but his use of colour, particularly during the nightclub scenes is startling, really--all those piercing reds everywhere and the way it offsets the drabness and clutter of Von Bohm's office with the headiness of the 'underworld.' You could argue that he uses flat-out charactitures to make his point at times, but in the context of the film, it works brilliantly--it's often wickedly sardonic.

I've seen a couple of his other films (The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss) and I personally don't think he's particularly 'arty' as a filmmaker--indeed, one of the keys to the film's effect is the fact that they're really stripped down, though obviously that came about as much through design as choice. Of all the "New German Cinema" filmmakers, he seemed the most stridently concerned with his country's affairs--Wenders was forever obsessed with America and Herzog was off on his own fantasist trip. I remember reading a piece on Paris, Texas once where Wenders was asked about Fassbinder and his importance (it was a Sight & Sound piece around the time of that film's release) and his response was merely "he fucking died on us" or words to that effect!

[Bungo the Mungo]

Hanna Schygulla was a beautfiful woman. Erm, by the way...

[the masked man]

Fassbinder was certainly a remarkable figure, largely because of his extremely prolific output - over forty films in a career lasting around 15 years - and the fact that there were so many exceptional films among them.

Generally, I prefer the later, more stylised films, particularly the epic Berlin Alexanderplatz, and the fascinating, enigmatic Marriage Of Maria Braun (I've never been able to work out precisely what the ending signifies). However, I find The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant perhaps his most powerful work, along with the exceptionally bleak The Merchant of Four Seasons.

This thread is reminding me that it's too long since I saw a Fassbinder fiolm and I need to revisit his work.