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Rainer Werner
Fassbinder |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Actor / Editor / Producer / Production Designer |
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1945 - 1982 |
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Born May 31, Bad
Wörishofen, Bavaria, Germany |
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Key
Production Country: Germany |
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Key Genres:
Drama, Psychological Drama, Melodrama,
Gay & Lesbian Films, Crime Drama, Period Film |
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Key
Collaborators: Peer Raben (Composer/Producer),
Kurt Raab (Production Designer/Screenwriter), Irm Hermann (Character Player),
Ingrid Caven (Character Player), Hanna Schygulla (Leading Character
Player), Michael Ballhaus
(Cinematographer), Thea Eymesz (Editor),
Julianne Lorenz (Editor),
Gunther Kaufmann (Character Player), Volker Spengler (Character Player) |
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Highly Recommended: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)*,
Fox and His Friends (1975), Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)* |
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Recommended:
Katzelmacher (1969),
Love is Colder Than Death (1969), Gods of the Plague (1969), The
American Soldier (1970)**, Why
Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970)
[co-directed with Michael Fengler], The
Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972)*, Martha (1973), Fear of Fear [TV]
(1975), I Only Want You to Love Me [TV] (1976),
In a Year with 13 Moons (1978)*, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978)*, Lola (1981), Veronika Voss (1982)* |
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Worth a Look:
The Little Chaos (1966), Beware of a Holy Whore (1970), Whity (1971),
Effi Breist (1974), Mother Küsters Goes to Heaven (1975), Chinese
Roulette (1976), Stationmaster's Wife (1977), The Third Generation
(1979), Querelle (1982) |
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Approach with Caution:
The City Tramp (1966), Despair (1979) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; **
Listed in TSPDT's
Ain't Nobody's Blues But My Own
section. |
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Links:
[
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ]
[
Film Reference ]
[
The Fassbinder Foundation ]
[
Bright
Lights Film Journal Feature ] [
Wikipedia ] [
The Film
Journal Article (2006) ] [
Jim's Reviews: The Films of Rainer Werner
Fassbinder
] [
Biography/Filmography
] [
GreenCine Article (2007) ]
[
The Criterion Collection ] [
Bright Lights Film Journal Article (2011)
] [
Moving Image Source
Article (2012) ] |
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Books: [
A Companion to Rainer Werner Fassbinder]
[
Fassbinder's
Germany ] [
Rainer
Werner Fassbinder ] [
The
Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes ] [
Fassbinder: Life and Work of a Provocative Genius ] [
Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Plays ] [
Chaos as Usual: Conversations About Rainer Werner Fassbinder ] [
Understanding Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Film As Private and Public Art
] [
Rainer
Werner Fassbinder and the German Theatre ] |
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"Fassbinder's
most distinguishing trait within the tradition of
"counter-cinema," aside from his reputation for rendering
fragments of the new left ideology of the 1960s on film, was his
modification of the conventions of political cinema initiated in
the 1920s and subsequent tailoring of these conventions to
modern conditions of Hollywood cinema. He did this to a greater
degree than
Godard, who is
credited with using these principles as content for filmic
essays on narrative." -
John O'Kane (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers,
1991)
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"The bare fact is
enough: Fassbinder died well short of forty, the maker of at
least half a dozen extraordinary pictures: The Bitter Tears
of Petra von Kant still has no equal in its simultaneous
delight in "style" while pouring acid over the image; Beware
of a Holy Whore, Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun,
and Lola (at least) are outstanding examples of how
contemporary history can be focused on the screen in short,
tough tales." -
David
Thomson (The New Biographical Dictionary of Film, 2002)
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"One
of the finest directors working in the '70s, Rainer Werner
Fassbinder ranged widely through genre and style, but consistent
through his prolific career (he made over 40 films in 13 years)
was an ironic approach towards often melodramatic subjects, and
an abiding interest in the despair underlying the material
affluence and bourgeois moral conformism of postwar German
society." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Film Handbook, 1989) |
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"Violence, psychosis, repression, and anxiety fill the work of
Fassbinder. He is one of the premier European directors to
emerge in the last decade." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"The
best thing I can think of would be to create a union between
something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood
films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to
make such a German film." -
Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include World on a Wire (1973), Satan's Brew
(1976), and Lili Marleen (1981). |
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"Rainer
Werner Fassbinder was perhaps the best-known director of the
New German Cinema, partly because of his aggressive
personality and self-destructive lifestyle. Fassbinder was
influenced by the French New Wave and the political
modernism that intensified in the late 1960s . Beginning as
an actor, playwright, and theater director, Fassbinder
revealed a taste for grotesque comedy, splashy violence, and
strong realism of characters' regional dialects . Yet he
rejected the Brechtian theory that was important for Kluge,
Straub, and others. He insisted that politically critical
art had to engage the spectator's feelings, "With Brecht you
see the emotions and you reflect upon them as you witness
them but you never feel them… I let the audience feel and
think." -
Kristin Thompson & David Bordwell,
Film History: An Introduction |
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501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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●
Gregg Araki |
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Jean-Luc Godard |
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Todd Haynes |
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Aki Kaurismäki |
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Alexander Kluge |
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Edgar Reitz |
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Volker Schlöndorff |
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Douglas Sirk |
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Gus Van Sant |
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Paul Verhoeven |
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Josef von Sternberg |
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Wim Wenders |
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Favourites |
| The
Damned (1969)
Luchino Visconti,
Dishonored (1931)
Josef von
Sternberg,
Flamingo Road (1949)
Michael Curtiz,
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
Howard Hawks,
Johnny Guitar (1954)
Nicholas Ray,
Lola Montès (1955)
Max Ophüls,
The Naked and the Dead(1958)
Raoul Walsh,
The Night of the Hunter (1955)
Charles Laughton,
The Red Snowball Tree (1973) Vasili Shukshin, Salo, or the 120
Days of Sodom (1975)
Pier Paolo
Pasolini. |
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