Unappreciated: R.W. Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

 

It's true, I have a weakness for crazy people. Especially if the crazy person is capable of producing a body of work the likes of which the world has never encountered. And definitely if it ends with the crazy person being gunned down in a mysterious death scenario that still goes unanswered in 2013. Are you kidding? What's not to love?!

 

Have you met my friend, R.W. Fassbinder? We share initials, so we're very close. He's not much to look at - but boy, could he make a movie like nobody's business!

 

 

When you study film, you study everything. You may have even heard his name mentioned in passing, but the facts surrounding Fassbinder are remarkable. In fifteen years - Fassbinder wrote, directed, edited, produced, (often starred in) and publicized FORTY FEATURE LENGTH FILMS.

 

That's right, I said 40. As in, more than Spielberg and Hitchcock put out in their lives - Fassbinder shot them out in fifteen years. Of COURSE, he was on cocaine. Who cares? The forty features created by this man are (hands-down) masterpieces of cinema. So much so, it's often quite difficult to select his crowning achievements because almost every film is flawless. There are no lulls. It's all slam dunks. In selecting my top five - I basically pulled all my DVDs onto the floor and threw darts at them. I have 40 favorites. Here are the five that fate deemed worthy.

 

 

5) "Querelle" (1982): The final film from a legend. Released posthumously, Querelle would go on to become Fassbinder's best known feature. Can I just add - there aren't many films that are any gayer than this. Get a load of that original poster art, why don'tcha? Nasty...just nasty...but artistic as hell!
True: Fassbinder liked men. True: he was into kinky BDSM stuff and barrels full of cocaine. What he produced as he faded was (possibly) the best adaptation of a Jean Genet novel ever put to film. It's not for everyone. You have to have a lot of patience, a strong stomach and enjoy seeing phallic imagery in every shot. This is not the best Fassbinder film, but it is a punctuation mark at the end of a whirlwind of creativity. A great big exclamation point of penises.

 

 

4) "World On A Wire" (1973): Made for TV means something completely different in Germany. I learned that lesson from watching World On A Wire. At no point do you get the impression that this was made for television. Then again - I'm corrupted as an American. When someone says "Made for TV" to me - I picture cheap production values, B-list celebrities and poorly filmed soap operas. In Germany (as it was in most of Europe), a movie for TV was every bit as powerful as the ones released in theaters. This is a classic example of this trend. World On A Wire is a wildly inventive science fiction trip into the future. Inspiring other sci-fi hits (Ridley Scott knows what I'm talking about), this film was impossible to find for many years up until recently when Criterion did a bang-up job on the restoration. It's long. Long as hell, actually - but oddly enough, you don't really feel as if you've been sitting there for 5.5 hours when it's all over. No...I'm serious! Ugh, I'm so tired of you snickering like that...let's move on.

 

 

3) "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980): Talk about Made for TV and long - kaboom! You won't sit through this in one afternoon...or a week. This miniseries, adapted from the classic German novel, was a 14 part miracle that was very dear to Fassbinder's heart. A pet project, he insisted upon making this epic work. No one stood in the way of the wunderkind. This is not the finest hour in Fassbinder's career, but it's so damn good it doesn't even make sense. I'm a sucker for long movies - and this one satisfies the Hell out of me. The ten DVD box set is so beautiful, everyone needs this movie in their collection, whether you like dry, long winded, bland, foreign films or not. The gist of this story follows a man as he is released from prison and trying to make a new life for himself while being tugged back into his old ways by his returning friends. A simple story told between the two World Wars, Berlin Alexanderplatz captures the Weimar era and shines a spotlight into the gentle soul of a weary citizen, allowing us to enjoy his misery decades later. Who wouldn't love this?

 

 

2) "Fox & His Friends" (1975): Now when I think "Fassbinder," I think of this film. It is a rarity for a director to stamp his mark onto a film in such a distinct manner, but in Fox And His Friends captures everything there is to love about a Fassbinder film. The acting (yeah, he stars) is raw, angst-riddled and natural. The setting is so real, you feel damp from the rain after the 90 minutes is over. The editing, angles, tracking shots - are all composed with the eye of a man who's been behind the camera for far longer than Fassbinder. It's uncanny to watch his movies and think - he had no knowledge of what he was doing. Seldom do you see someone come out of nowhere, attack a medium of art and own it so completely that they alter it for all those to come. Fassbinder did it. Also - this has the best ending of any of his films. Trust me. It's beautiful in a gritty, stinky, perverted, subway riding kind of way.

 

 

1) "Ali: Fear Eat Soul" (1974): Oh snap! Now this is what I'm talking about! Starting with the title, there is a little confusion as it appears to read as grammatically incorrect. This is on purpose. The original German title is grammatically incorrect and translates to: "Fear Eat Soul Up" which isn't that catchy in America. When it debuted here in the US, the title was changed to "Ali: Fear Eat Soul" keeping the grammatical burp, while clarifying it loosely by adding the main character's name. Ali, in the film, is an immigrant who speaks in broken German - so the title of the film, as he would have said it - is perfectly suited and NOT a mistake.

The subject matter of this story is why it will always remain my all time favorite. Brigitte Mira stars as Emmi. If you've never seen this woman act, I feel sorry for you. She's delicious, humble, charming, heart-wrenching, kind, grandmotherly and spunky as hell. Probably my favorite German actress of the 20th century, this is her finest performance. She snubs her nose at her racist, old-school friends and family and embarks on a late-in-life romance with Ali, a Moroccan immigrant. Be prepared for nudity. As in most Fassbinder films, the tallywhackers are waggling a-plenty, but behind the surface - you are left with a very powerful message about what really matters in relationships with others. We should all aspire to be half as accepting as Emmi and the world would be a much better place. Fassbinder had it right in 1974, now when are the rest of us gonna catch up?