Line #61 Creator/RainerWernerFassbinder


1	[[quoteright:310:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/fassbinder_crop.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:310:Fassbinder on the set of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz''.]]
3
4	-> ''"What I would like is to make Hollywood movies, that is, movies as wonderful and universal, but at the same time not as hypocritical."''
5
6	Rainer Werner Fassbinder (31 May 1945 – 10 June 1982) was a German filmmaker, actor and dramatist. He has a name that rolls off your tongue, and can be recognized as so obviously German from the Moon.
7
8	It could be said that 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.
9
10	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 cinematic influence was Creator/DouglasSirk, whose career and reputation Fassbinder played a major role in reviving. (Before Sirk, his other most famous influence was Creator/BertoltBrecht.) 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.
11
12	Fassbinder died before he turned 40, but [[ShortLivedBigImpact left a great body of work behind]]. In a career of 15 years, he created 40 films, several theater productions and four miniseries including an epic 14-episode adaptation of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz''. His filmography is vast, varying in style and frequently undergoing GenreShift. His films had a MythArc -- the history of Germany since the end of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII -- which he admitted was deliberate. 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.
13
14	Fassbinder also had an EnfantTerrible status in Germany, taking an outsider identity as a queer artist and surrounding himself with[=/=]casting other outsiders like prostitutes, male and female, as well as transsexuals. His film ''Film/FoxAndHisFriends'' 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.
15
16	Fassbinder's 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''.
17
18	----
19	!! Selected Filmography
20
21	[[index]]
22	* ''Love Is Colder Than Death''
23	* ''Katzelmacher''
24	* ''Gods of the Plague''
25	* ''The American Soldier''
26	* ''Film/BewareOfAHolyWhore''
27	* ''The Merchant of Four Seasons''
28	* ''Film/TheBitterTearsOfPetraVonKant''
29	* ''Film/{{World on a Wire}}''
30	* ''Film/AliFearEatsTheSoul''
31	* ''Film/{{Martha}}''
32	* ''Literature/EffiBriest''
33	* ''Film/FoxAndHisFriends''
34	* ''Mother Küster's Trip to Heaven''
35	* ''I Only Want You to Love Me''
36	* ''Film/{{Satansbraten}}''
37	* ''Film/ChinesischesRoulette'' (Chinese Roulette)
38	* ''Film/{{Despair}}''
39	* ''In a Year of 13 Moons''
40	* ''Film/TheMarriageOfMariaBraun''
41	* ''The Third Generation''
42	* ''Literature/BerlinAlexanderplatz''
43	* ''Lili Marleen''
44	* ''Lola''
45	* ''Film/VeronikaVoss''
46	* ''Film/{{Querelle}}''
47	[[/index]]
48	----
49	!! Tropes include.
50
51	* AllOfTheOtherReindeer: A recurring theme in his film which he frequently deconstructs. He believes that mainstream society defines its own identity, [[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything by picking on other people]]. In ''Katzelmacher'', people who live depressed shallow lives in a low-income housing project only get together and become a community by attacking and abusing a Greek Immigrant worker (Played by Fassbinder himself in a CreatorCameo). Furthermore, he notes that even gay communities are filled with DoubleStandard and are in many ways no different from heterosexual society.
52	* AllGermansAreNazis : Fassbinder was especially bold in taking this concept head on, unashamedly exploring it from every angle and deconstructing the trope with attention to context, society and class. For Fassbinder, Nazis or the low-level functionaries who were the vast majority, were mostly PunchClockVillain who basically fell to society pressure, family values or were OnlyInItForTheMoney and not that different from post-war West Germany. Many of his characters were ex-Nazis or family with connections. He also stayed away from ThoseWackyNazis and StupidJetpackHitler, showing them merely as normal people who enabled great evil because they were JustFollowingOrders rather than follow their conscience.
53	* BuryYourGays : Gay audiences complained that Fassbinder tended to lean to this, and never portrayed a happy gay relationship. Fassbinder merely justified this as part of his pessimistic view of relationships.
54	* CampGay / ManlyGay / StraightGay : Fassbinder was defiantly and flamboyantly bisexual and was one of the first who presented down to earth portrayals of LGBTQ sub-cultures and moreover broke stereotypes by showing many different character types with a lot of variation in roles assigned in relationships. Plenty of HoYay and actual gay relationships abound in his films with a lot of AuthorAppeal.
55	* CasualKink / BondageIsBad / BrainsAndBondage : also abounds. He was fascinated with all kinds of "Other" in sexual behaviour.
56	* CrapsackWorld : Fassbinder's films are set in post-war Germany after its economic miracle but shows it to be a hollow, ugly society with no values and is absolutely ruthless to people who are outsiders, who are in turn betrayed [[WeAreStrugglingTogether by other outsiders]]. It's not a pleasant world to be in if you are different.
57	** This arguably applies to Fassbinder's biography as well. Due to the sheer amount of fascinating, chaotic and HeroicBSOD-inducing events, it's joked that ''his life'' would've made for a perfect film of his.
58	* DarkerAndEdgier : To European cinema and the 70s as a whole. He brought a harshness in characterization and setting that really defined the post-60s generation.
59	* {{Deconstruction}} : Of Germany, Middle Class society, movies, entertainment and especially narrative.
60	** Fassbinder's films were also critical of sexual politics and "lookism", in that he would deal with the sexuality of characters who society would consider ugly, such as a middle aged woman who enters into an affair with an African migrant worker in ''Ali : Fear Eats the Soul''. His films tended to be fairly democratic and avoided Hollywood glamour.
61	** Fassbinder considered himself an anarchist and was highly critical of how people dealt with power, criticizing people for needing group, family or society approval rather than following their own conscience and intellect.
62	* HellBentForLeather : Very much so, in all the myriad ways.
63	* TheFilmOfTheBook : A few of his works are adaptations. ''Literature/EffiBriest'', ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'', and ''Querelle'' stand out especially, but others include ''[[Creator/VladimirNabokov Despair]]'', ''[[Literature/ADollsHouse Nora Helmer]]'' and ''World on a Wire'', an adaptation of ''Simulacron-3'' (the novel that ''Film/TheThirteenthFloor'' is loosely based upon).
64	* FoeRomanceSubtext : Another theme for Fassbinder is hatred that is a mask for love. This becomes text in ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' a 14 hour epic saga of two pimps and lowlifes who ultimately love each other but CantSpitItOut.
65	* {{Jerkass}} : Most of his characters are not nice people. Indeed [[NiceJobBreakingItHero nice people tend to do more damage]] and get into more trouble than jerks.
66	* LeaveTheCameraRunning : Shots in his movies often linger on doorframes, window frames, and spaces even when characters aren't "doing anything". The director Todd Haynes cited this as an influence on ''Film/FarFromHeaven''.
67	* LoveMakesYouDumb : A major believer of this and a theme of all his films:
68	--> ''"I am more convinced than ever that love is the best, most insidious, most effective instrument of social repression."''
69	* PostHistoricalTrauma : His movies deal with the trauma of the post-war German generation, dealing both with the violence and fallout of the war, and the ruin of families and their own OldShame in their parents participating and enabling UsefulNotes/NaziGermany and its many atrocities. His film ''The Marriage of Maria Braun'' touched on this in particular.
70	* ProductionPosse: Frequently worked with the likes of Creator/GottfriedJohn and Creator/HannaSchygulla.
71	* SillyRabbitIdealismIsForKids : His general belief is this, people who are naive and ignorant have a [[CosmicPlaything Cosmic "Kick Me"]] sign on their backs [[KillTheCutie and will be put down]] if they don't wise up, and if they do wise up, they become [[BecameTheirOwnAntithesis just as bad as their former enemies]].
72	* StylisticSuck : Like his idols, Creator/BertoltBrecht and the Hollywood director and German emigrant Creator/DouglasSirk, his films often had deliberately kitschy settings, lighting and design, and especially fake happy endings which weren't meant to be taken seriously.
73	* TheOner: Famous for his long takes and circular 360 degree tracking shots, especially in ''{{Martha}}'' which manages to suggest LoveAtFirstSight and [[https://youtu.be/8z0tVsI-63g?t=23s deconstruct it in a single roller-coaster tracking shot.]]
74	** Appropriately, Michael Ballhaus made his name through shooting for Fassbinder before working with Scorsese, most famously on ''Film/{{Goodfellas}}''.
75	* TrippyFinaleSyndrome / GainaxEnding : The Epilogue of ''Berlin Alexanderplatz'' is perhaps the TropeCodifier or an UnbuiltTrope. Most of the series is a naturalistic and realist look at 20s Germany, the finale is filled with SurrealHorror and AnachronismStew and features {{Futureshadowing}} of the horrors of UsefulNotes/WorldWarII that will come.
76	* WomenAreWiser:
77	** Played straight, deconstructed and subverted many times. His films' 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.
78	** 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 male actors.

Context Creator / RainerWernerFassbinder