History Creator / RainerWernerFassbinder

** Appropriately, Michael Ballhaus made his name through shooting for Fassbinder before working with Scorsese, most famously on ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}''.

** Fassbinder noted that what interested him about women, is that where men when they are subjected to the HumiliationConga tend to loose all their will and become TheAlcoholic and TheLoad, women tend to make their MiseryBuildsCharacter. It's more accurate to say that for Fassbinder, women are tougher in both the good and bad sense, and actresses appreciated him for giving them complex roles that allowed them the same moral ambiguity and complexity given to actors.

* WomenAreWiser: Played straight, deconstructed and subverted many times. Women who are smart tend to be very ruthless and pragmatic (''The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola''), they also fall victim to LoveMakesYouDumb and their own FreudianExcuse leads them to suffer from DomesticAbuse and many of them don't necessarily have the maternal instinct society expects from them and despite their own oppression become AbusiveParents in turn.
** Fassbinder noted that what interested him about women, is that where men when they are subjected to the HumiliationConga tend to loose all their will and become TheAlcoholic and TheLoad, women tend to make their MiseryBuildsCharacter. It's more accurate to say that for Fassbinder, Women are tougher in both the good and bad sense, and actresses appreciated him for giving them complex roles that allowed them the same moral ambiguity and complexity given to actors.

[[caption-width-right:310:On the set of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz''.]]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982) has a name that rolls off your tongue, and can be recognized as so obviously German from the Moon. Fassbinder was to the movies what PunkRock was to music. His films were a deliberate reaction against the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave, which weren't always cheery but generally tended to be light and filled with some amount of hope. Fassbinder's films of the 1970s and early '80s were set in a CrapsackWorld of middle-class malaise, working-class flophouses with the powerful always exploiting the weak, and the weak letting themselves be exploited. His was a very bleak worldview with very few moments of tenderness. That said, because the tenderness in his movies is so hard-earned and so qualified, it can be all the more moving.

Fassbinder died before he turned 40, but is the textbook definition of ShortLivedBigImpact, in a career of 15 years, Fassbinder left behind 40 films, several theater productions and four miniseries including an epic 14 episode adaptation of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' that is one of the most complex and beautiful achievements ever achieved for Television. His filmography is vast, varying in style and frequently undergoing GenreShift. His films had a MythArc which he admitted was deliberate, the history of Germany since the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. He himself was born three weeks after the surrender of UsefulNotes/NaziGermany. A running theme in his works, which made him highly controversial in Germany, was that he felt that the post-war Germany wasn't so different from their predecessors. His films gleefully explored the AllGermansAreNazis trope from every side, [[{{Deconstruction}} deconstructing]] and [[{{Reconstruction}} reconstructing]] it all the time, stating that the Germans of the post-war generation never truly took responsibility for Nazism and that it fell on his generation to explore the OldShame.

He was the definition of EnfantTerrible in Germany, taking an outsider identity as a queer artist and surrounding himself and casting in his movies other outsiders like prostitutes, male and female, as well as transsexuals. His film ''Fox and His Friends'' is one of the first to show gay culture as it is, from the inside, with Fassbinder himself playing the lead role. He was also considered a PrimaDonnaDirector on the set, described by some as TheCaligula for the pressures and abuses he put on his cast and crew, who nonetheless showed a great deal of loyalty to Fassbinder and continued working with him. Fassbinder's collaborations with actresses Creator/HannaSchygulla and Barbara Sukowa helped make them stars. His hard-drinking and hard-partying lifestyle caught up with him and he died of a drug overdose during the editing of what turned out to be his last film, an adaptation of Creator/JeanGenet's ''Literature/QuerelleDeBrest''.

[[quoteright:280:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fassbinder_crop.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:280:On the set of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz''.]]

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982) has a name that rolls off your tongue, and can be recognized as so obviously German from the Moon. Fassbinder was to the movies what PunkRock was to music. His films were a deliberate reaction against the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave which weren't always cheery but generally tended to be light and filled with some amount of hope. Fassbinder's films of the 70s and early 80s, were set in a CrapsackWorld of middle-class malaise, working-class flophouses with the powerful always exploiting the weak, and the weak letting themselves be exploited. His was a very bleak worldview with very few moments of tenderness. That said, because the tenderness in his movies is so hard-earned and so qualified, it can be all the more moving.

* ''World on a Wire''

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982) has a name that rolls off your tongue, and can be recognized as so obviously German from the Moon. Fassbinder was to the movies what PunkRock was to music. His films were a deliberate reaction against the UsefulNotes/FrenchNewWave which weren't always cheery but generally tended to be light and filled with some amount of hope. Fassbinder's films of the 70s and early 80s, were set in a CrapsackWorld of middle-class malaise, working-class flophouses with the powerful always exploiting the weak, and the weak letting themselves be exploited. His was a very bleak worldview with very few moments of tenderness. That said, because they are so highly qualified, the tenderness in his movies, like in his idol, Creator/BertoltBrecht, radiates with true sincerity.

The main cinematic influences of Fassbinder include Creator/JosefVonSternberg, Creator/MaxOphuls, Creator/MichaelCurtiz (albeit not for ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' so much as for his Creator/JoanCrawford vehicles), Creator/LuchinoVisconti, Creator/AgnesVarda, Creator/LuisBunuel, Creator/ClaudeChabrol and Creator/JeanLucGodard. He also said many times that he wanted to be for German cinema what Creator/FedericoFellini and Creator/IngmarBergman were for their own national cinemas. His most famous influence was Creator/DouglasSirk, whose career and reputation Fassbinder played a major role in reviving. Fassbinder didn't see Sirk's films until a retrospective of his works in 1969-1970. This was the only year in which Fassbinder didn't make films, and after that, he inaugurated his famous art-house take on the Hollywood melodrama that in time influenced the likes of Creator/PedroAlmodovar and Creator/ToddHaynes among others.

He was the definition of EnfantTerrible in Germany, taking an outsider identity as a gay artist and surrounding himself and casting in his movies other outsiders like prostitutes, male and female, as well as transsexuals. His film ''Fox and His Friends'' is one of the first to show gay culture as it is, from the inside, with Fassbinder himself playing the lead role. He was also considered a PrimaDonnaDirector on the set, described by some as TheCaligula for the pressures and abuses he put on his cast and crew, who nonetheless showed a great deal of loyalty to Fassbinder and continued working with him. Fassbinder's collaborations with actresses Creator/HannaSchygulla and Barbara Sukowa helped make them stars. His hard-drinking and hard-partying lifestyle caught up with him and he died of a drug overdose during the editing of what turned out to be his last film, an adaptation of Creator/JeanGenet's ''Literature/QuerelleDeBrest''.

* ''Martha''

* ''Beware of a Holy Whore''

* ''Despair''

He was the definition of EnfantTerrible in Germany, taking an outsider identity as a gay artist and surrounding himself and casting in his movies other outsiders like prostitutes, male and female, as well as transsexuals. His film ''Fox and His Friends'' is one of the first to show gay culture as it is, from the inside, with Fassbinder himself playing the lead role. He was also considered a PrimaDonnaDirector on the set, described by some as TheCaligula for the pressures and abuses he put on his cast and crew, who nonetheless showed a great deal of loyalty to Fassbinder and continued working with him. Fassbinder's collaborations with actresses Creator/HannaSchygulla and Barbara Sukowa helped make them stars. His hard-drinking and hard-partying lifestyle caught up with him and he died of a drug overdose during the editing of what turned out to be his last film, an adaptation of Jean Genet's ''Querelle de Brest''.

* ''Film/{{The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant}}''

* ''Film/{{Fox and His Friends}}''
* ''Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven''

* ''Querelle''