Tuesday, February 4, 1997
FILM:
Talented German filmmaker’s short career included 44 moviesBy
Brandon Wilson
Daily Bruin Staff
When directing a biopic on bebop jazz titan Charlie Parker,
Clint Eastwood began with a quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald on how
great American lives always seem to lack a third act. Even though
Fitzgerald is not an American, his words sum up to a tee the short
life and brilliant career of German filmmaker Rainer Werner
Fassbinder. His persona is not unlike Parker’s, or a slew of other
brilliant contemporary musicians, whose gifts seemed to lock them
on a live fast, die young trajectory.
Now, the impressive body of work left behind by Fassbinder is
coming to UCLA, thanks to the efforts of the UCLA Film and
Television Archives, in cooperation with the Goethe-Institute and
the Fassbinder Foundation. Before his death at the age of 36 (a
victim of heart failure), Fassbinder had made a staggering 44
films, 30 of which will show between this Friday through Sunday,
March 16 at the James Bridges Theater (the theater formerly known
as Melnitz) in Melnitz Hall.
Born in Bad Worrishoffen, Germany circa 1946, Fassbinder became
one of the bright lights of the New German Cinema movement in the
1970s. Along with filmmakers like Wim Wenders and Werner Herzog,
these directors garnered international accolades with their
provocative work, giving Germany a prestige amongst cineastes it
hadn’t enjoyed since the height of Expressionism in the 1920s.
Originally heeding the call of the thespian, Fassbinder met his
future leading lady Hanna Schygulla (She starred in 18 of his
films) while with a classmate of hers in drama school (Schygulla
will be on hand this Friday to introduce two early Fassbinder
works).
After building his reputation on the stages of Munich,
Fassbinder formed his own experimental theater company called
Antiteater (Anti-theater). The group performed loose adaptations of
classics, as well as original material by Fassbinder, and it was
with this group that Fassbinder made his first few films in the
late ’60s.
Unphased by his rejection from the prestigious German film
academy he’d applied to in 1966, Fassbinder attacked the medium
with abandon, beginning with an average rate of three to four films
a year, an output he would maintain throughout the ’70s. Initially,
Fassbinder collaborated with his troupe while writing, directing
and pseudononymously editing his first efforts, but soon he
disbanded the group.
Though Antiteater had gone the way of the dial phone, Fassbinder
still worked frequently with an informal rep company of talented
actors (including Schygulla, his one-time wife Ingrid Caven,
Brigitte Mira, Margit Carstensen, Ulli Lommel and Kurt Raab), as
well as cinematographers (Michael Ballhaus, Dietrich Lohmann) and
editors (Thea Eymesz, Juliane Lorenz). These relationships enabled
Fassbinder to reach such unheard of levels of productivity, as much
as his own seemingly boundless creative energy would allow (it
should be noted that this energy reserve was also aided by his
predilection for controlled substances, a proclivity that
doubtlessly played a hand in his untimely death).
Fassbinder’s work is reflected in his inspirations, such as
American filmmaker Raoul Walsh, melodrama master Douglas Sirk, and
French filmmakers like Jean-Marie Straub and Nouvelle Vague avatar
Jean-Luc Godard. Whether exploring the social terrain of postwar
Germany, the politics of sexuality, or employing his trademark
brand of campy melodrama, Fassbinder puts an unblinking eye on his
subjects, infusing his films with a unique candor and unflinching
honesty.
The director typically preferred a sometimes fluid camera with
an inconspicuous editing approach. His actors were directed by him
to go anywhere between deadpan line recital to emotionally volcanic
and over-the-top. His surprise endings often blindsided audiences
and put his characters through one last cruel twist of fate.
Some of the highlights of the series include: "The Bitter Tears
of Petra von Kant" (Feb. 8), a chamber piece of four women and the
sadomasochism of romantic obsession; "Fox and His Friends" (Feb.
27), a melodrama in which Fassbinder stars as a naive and suddenly
rich gay circus worker; "Ali: Fear Eats The Soul" (March 1), a
reworking of Douglas Sirk’s "All That Heaven Allows" set in
early-’70s Germany, and "The Marriage of Maria Braun" (March 9),
the first of Fassbinder’s trilogy of melodrama’s centering around
women surviving the perilous landscape of postwar Germany.
Also on hand, Feb. 15 & 16 is a rare free screening (held at
the the Goethe-Institute) of Fassbinder’s magnum opus "Berlin
Alexanderplatz." An adaptation of his favorite novel, this 15 hour
TV miniseries was the realization of a lifelong dream of
Fassbinder’s. The epic novel was written by Alfred Doblin and set
in postwar, pre-Hitler, 1920s Germany.
Concluding on March 16, the series ends with "Querelle," an
adaptation of a Jean Genet novel, a film where Fassbinder died just
before completion. A full-on treatment of the gay themes that run
through much of his work, "Querelle" marks a shift in visual style
to lush lighting and a surreal atmosphere, a turn away from the
stark melodrama he was famous for. "Querelle" might have been the
beginning of a new era of Fassbinderian Cinema, but that is a third
act in a brilliant career that seemed to burn out twice as quickly
for being twice as intense.
For more information, call (310) 206-8170.
UCLA Film & TV Archive
German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder during the shooting of
"The Merchant of Four Season" in 1971.