I really like his mid-period, but Katzelmacher is good. I really like his two shorts, and I think they’re on the Petra von Kant DVD.
I have only seen about ten of his works so far, one of them being “Love Is Colder Than Death” which I really enjoyed. I believe it was his third journey into film making. All the other films I have seen were his later projects. I enjoyed it just as much a his other films I have seen. It is reminiscent of Godard’s early works, just not done as well.
I’ve only seen Satan’s Brew. I’m hoping that this was not a good Fassbinder movie to start with, because it kind of sucks.
Satan’s Brew sucks OUT LOUD. An aggressively unfunny movie.
A number of Fassbinder’s early films work best, I think, if you appreciate that he had a head full of ideas, almost no money, and loads of ambition. I can’t help but cut some slack to a guy who managed to make four feature films in one year. He was occasionally able to make virtues of disadvantages, which he didn’t always bother to hide. In Katzelmacher, where he couldn’t move the camera, he arranged these long static shots of young people standing around talking or not talking — which worked, because that’s how they spend their days. He was also able to use black and white in the early years to create a very despairing, crummy, down on the heels look.
I’ve tried over the past couple of years to watch his films in succession and it’s been an interesting journey in a hit or miss sort of fashion, as he gets both better and worse, better because he has an increasing grasp of how to use to camera and worse (at times) because his ideas weren’t always that well thought out or were just too bloody complicated (The Niklashausen Journey, for example, which is Fassbinder in his Godardian dalectic mode.)
In his early years, however, he did make four stand-out films that are among his best and are definitely worth pursuing:
“Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?” is a brutal indictment of middle-class boredom, social regimentation, which follows the story of a man who has had it up to here with life, wife, job and family — and ultimately just can’t take it anymore.
“Beware of a Holy Whore” is similar in some ways to 8 1/2, Day for Night, and Wim Wenders’ “The State of Things” — it’s a movie about a movie, one that runs out of money, and which consequently turns all the actors and crew against each other.
“Merchant of Four Seasons” is about a fruit peddler who realizes, as Herr R. did, that the cards are stacked against him and his existence is a hopeless endeavor.
“The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” is a great film about an aging fashion designer who tries to make a young model her love slave, only to have the tables turned upon her. Fassbinder knew all about sexual power struggles, and how young and beautiful can easily trump rich and powerful.
Fassbinder had only ten more years to live after that, but — for all his drugging and drinking and smoking and swinging — managed, as always, to make some extraordinarily good films, including “Ali: Fear Eats the Soul,” "The Marriage of Maria Braun, “Lola,” “Veronika Voss,” and “Berlin Alexanderplatz.”
Love is colder than death and why does herr r. run amok? are both good films of his. But my personal favorite is Fox and his friends.
I didn’t really like Martha or the one with 13 moons in the title although it has a haunting ending.
I could take or leave Fassbinder in the end. I’m not a major fan of his work.
“Fox” and “Herr R” are both great films, but I believe Chris is asking about his earlier works. those aren’t his earlier works.
Thanks for the ideas guys, I’ll check Petra Von Kant next as I do like the sound of that one and then I’ll probably try Herr R.
This is not an early work, but “THE THIRD GENERATION” (ca.1978) is a masterpiece, IMHO.
A brilliant, wild, tragi-comical portrait of 70’s leftist-anarchist counter-culture.
Incredible use of sound, splendid acting, unforgettable scenes.
Firmly on my 10 favorite films of all time list!
The one thing earlier than the BRD trilogy that I’ve seen is Effi Briest. It wasn’t as good as the trilogy, IMO. I do want to see Petra von Kant, though.
“Who Does Herr R. Run Amok?” came out in 1970, one year after Fassbinder’s first feature was released. That makes it an early work.
I just noticed this thread and wanted to revisit it. Fassbinder’s work can be divided into pre-Sirk and post-Sirk. He met Sirk in 1970, and immediately after that his films became more lavish-looking, color-saturated, and with an interest in using deconstructed elements of Hollywood melodramas. The Merchant of Four Seasons could be taking place in the 1950s.
Pre-Sirk: the eleven films he made between 1969 and the end of 1970, an incredibly prolific period. These films show a different influence; there are traces of Melville, Straub, Godard, Rohmer. These films are often in black and white and take place in barren, white-walled apartments, or on the streets of Munich. They feature long takes rather than the elaborate camera movements later introduced by Michael Ballhaus. They feel like the work of a guy literally reinventing cinema. The use of genre is totally revisionist. Whity is a western, but it’s really a film about how the slave-holding culture of 19th century America was a giant cult of sadomasochism. The American Soldier is a gangster film, but it’s really about how insecure men seek to purge all traces of feminine weakness from the world, and thus from themselves. Rio das Mortes is a screwball comedy about, among other things, working for a living and how to teach political awareness to children. Niklashausen Fahrt, one of Fassbinder’s funniest films, is a retelling of the Christ story with Christ as a grass-roots communist; it’s an investigation of how martyrs are manufactured.
Probably the best of these are Gods of the Plague, Katzelmacher and Beware of a Holy Whore. Beware is a beautiful film about being young and driven and sensitive and troubled with demons, and just tearing everyone apart who tries to come near you. It’s beautifully soundtracked by Leonard Cohen songs.
I would agree that you definitely should check out Gods of the Plague. That film was my introduction to Fassbinder when I took a course on him. I don’t think you need to watch his films in chronolgical order.
Fassbinder was more concerned in the later years of his career in gaining commercial acceptance for his films, which makes them more accessible… I didn’t REALLY connect to his films until after I watched Ali: Fear eats the Soul. After I saw that, I found a way into his earlier films, and now I appreciate them more fully. I think that the more films you watch of his, the more you will appreciate the earlier stuff, even if the later stuff still grabs hold of you more.
I also love Beware of a Holy Whore … it makes me laugh throughout :-)
The Third Generation is simply amazing.
For those of you who like it, Fassbinder, and theater, and I would recommend you check out the undergroundzero festival in NYC in late July, you won’t be dissappointed.
The early bird catches the worm. Fassbinder was one happy bird.
“Beware of a Holy Whore” is the best of his early films. it’s all about the shooting of “Whitey” — and according to those who were there a rather dishonest account of what went on. That is to say the production wasn’t stalled due to lack of funds but because Rainer was besotted with Gunther Kaufmann.
Lou Castel makes a very funny, idealized version of Rainer.
“Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?” is more a work by Michael Fengler htan RWF.
“Martha” is amazing — particularly for the whiplahs 360 pans he had Ballhaus create for a key scene.
“Satan’s Brew” is incomprehensible to anyone unfamilair with the excesses of Stefan George and German romanticism.
“Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? can be a one shot masterpiece by Michael Fengler or it can be the best film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder or the greatest co-direction in the history of cinema.
The film contents are typical Fassbinder that he will use in later films, so I think the vision is very Fassbinder. But anyway the film is a masterpiece, dark, realistic, devoid of any romanticism or exagerated visceral reactions, the film is pure, banal, everyday reality, the real cause of neurosis in the capitalist society, a gray and sick reality and gray and sick people. A life without any kind of dream.
The power of the film relies is that externally almost nothing is happening, but the small reactions, the deep expressions of the characters points to a internal hell. This is one of the most daring flms I have ever seen, considering that most of us are office workers.
Chris Kieslowski
I’ve only really seen Fassbinder’s later films (Veronika Voss, Lola, Marriage of Maria Braun, Berlin Alexanderplatz) the earliest one I’ve seen is Ali Fear eats Soul, and while I did enjoy it I think I prefer the others that I’ve seen. I love that colourful visual glow he used in the later films, where his Douglas Sirk visual flare really hit its peak I think. I want to wach more of his older films, but I’m concerned I won’t like them as much. I really wish I had started to watch Fassbinder in more of a chronoligical order, as opposed to the kind of backwards order I seem to be watching him.
Are there any particular earlier Fassbinder films anyone can recommend?