PICTURE TREE INTERNATIONAL - German Films
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
PIC TU RE TREE INTERNATIO NAL
P R E S E N TS
Original Title: Enfant Terrible
Genre: Biopic
Length: 134 Minutes
Country/Year of Production: Germany 2020
Domestic Release: October 1st, 2020 - Weltkino Filmverleih
Film Website: www.picturetree-international.com/films/details/enfant-terrible.html
Director: Oskar Roehler
Screenplay: Klaus Richter
Cinematography: Carl-Friedrich Koschnick
Editing: Hansjörg Weißbrich
Sound: Andreas Wölki
Music: Martin Todsharow
Producers: Markus Zimmer, Stefan Arndt, Uwe Schott
Production Company: Bavaria Filmproduktion, X Filme Creative Pool, WDR, BR, Arte World Sales: Picture Tree International
Funding: Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, pti@picturetree-international.com
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, Deutscher Filmförderfonds www.picturetree-international.com
2
SYNOPSIS
When 22-year-old Rainer Werner Fassbinder storms the
stage of the ‘Antitheater’ (Anti-Theatre) in Munich, 1967
and seizes the t heatre production without further ado,
nobody suspects this b razen nobody to become one
of the most important post-war German filmmakers.
His passionate and driven character swiftly attracts a
bunch of dedicated admirers made up of actors, narcis-
PRESS NOTE
sists and suitors. As if he senses his limited life span,
he almost frantically creates film after film. While Fass-
binder radically pursues his creative vision and views of
society and people, he polarises professionally and pri- ENFANT TERRIBLE is a dedication by the director Oskar
vately. Despite early setbacks, many of his films break- Roehler (ELEMENTARTEILCHEN, DIE UNÜTÜHRBARE) to the
through at the most renowned films festivals and are film icon Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With an elaborate color
hailed and hated by audience, critics and fellow film- and light dramaturgy and exceptional backdrops, Roehler ap-
proaches and merges with Fassbinder’s universe. In an episod-
makers. His anger and his longing for love as well as his ic fashion, he tells the artist’s life and displays Fassbinder’s
self-exploitation, which he also imposes on everyone entire spectrum: from an ingenious director, to a desperate
around him, have made him the most memorable and seeker of love up to a relentless victimizer. Roehler can com-
pletely rely on his charismatic leading actor: Oliver Masucci
radical film director, an enfant terrible.
not only impersonates the famous filmmaker, he becomes one
with Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
ENFANT TERRIBLE was produced by Bavaria Filmproduktion
in co-production with X Filme Creative Pool, WDR, BR and
Arte and was funded by the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW,
Deutscher Filmförderfonds, FilmFernsehFonds Bayern and
Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.
3
Statement ABOUT
I felt like Klaus Richter: the first film I saw, and I soon went to the places where I could be
was “Händler der vier Jahreszeiten”, I was 12 close to my idol and his stars, Ingrid Caven,
at the time, and there was a home cinema in Kurt Raab, Volker Spengler and many more,
the boarding school that could accommodate who got drunk in the Paris bar and in the Ber-
about 20 people. This film pierced the heart of muda Triangle around Savignyplatz and where
my twelve-year-old self like a bullet. From then they celebrated their extravagant parties, and
on I sat and waited for the next Fassbinder “pressed my nose against the glass” because
film to be released. And the wait was not long. I didn’t dare to go in at first. I later got to know
Almost every six months, new, small, partly bi- some of them and had the honor of shooting
zarre, partly deep films were published, which with them himself.
aimed their distorting mirror at
If anyone has transgressed society, the petty-bourgeois, What made Fassbinder and his friends so fa-
original reactionary, Germans mous and notorious was the fact that they
the conventional borders of of the early 1970s, which I at had managed to mix up the cultural landscape
German narrative cinema, 12-, 13-, 14-year-old could then with their poisonous cocktail of most differ-
it is Fassbinder. That makes takeaway deeply impressed by
their impact on me. It was a
ent films, so much so that international fame
had already dawned on them. They were a
him stand out uniquely German reality that I had never gay group of gamblers, thesbians, and part-
sharp and dazzling. seen before and that I had nev-
er thought about. Fassbinder’s
time actors who achieved this, a colorful
bunch that came from everywhere: the deep-
films gave me the tools and the est Bavarian province to the original stars of
means to do so. As a result, I started my first the UFA. The big shot amongst them, young
attempt at writing early on. These films were Fassbinder, was the only rock star in German
a great blessing within the deserted film in- Cinema at the time as well as to this day, who
dustry of Germany. And when I went to Berlin ultimately only appeared in sunglasses with
at 19-years-old on the hunt of the collapsing mirrored glass, completely dressed in leather
modern structures and that legendary Fass- and a poker face, always flanked by two body-
binder, who was still almost a professional guards, also dressed in leather. He got away
youth at the time, he was in his mid-thirties, with devastating hotel rooms in Cannes, ap-
4pointing stars and dropping others and even- sonally and with German society, that a single no retreat where he could have crawled like
tually ended up destroying his own life with life, however intense, simply wasn’t enough. the others. Art and life were completely inter-
everyone watching. He brought the eccen- The big circus, the limelight, the drugs, the twined.
tricity and the liberation of the gay avant-gar- legends he created finally devoured him.
de scene into German cinema and into the For me, he was a comet in the night-sky of He was a very young man with great wisdom
German cultural scene, even with the many Berlin, a bright neon sign fluttering in the and humor. He was the unique, the formative
films that had nothing to do with this topic, wind, a monolith that invented bright colors among German film directors and authors.
to symbolize, aestheticize and at the same to stage itself, but which was actually made Everything for art and living as if there was
time update the form. The topics were always of the cold, gray bedrock of post-war German no tomorrow. Living by this motto means not
new and contemporary with the really good society. With all the dark thoughts, the pessi- getting old. Fassbinder was spared the hassle
films. His melodrama “In a year with thirteen mism, the self-doubts that went with it. Every of being a veteran, just repeating himself and
moons” was unique, it played with poetic and broken hero of his stories who perished him- doing boring stuff. He died at the height of his
theatrical means and exaggerated them. Fass- self was a fragment of Fassbinder. And with creative glory - at the age of 37.
binder originally came from the theatre world, each of them he died a little more. In the end
THE DIRECTOR
and you could tell. He told social parablesin he died like real rock and rollers do, burned
as strict a manner as Brecht. Mother Küster is out with his life in shards and extremely lone-
just one example. ly. He burned friendships in the furnace of his
Fassbinder had the kind of rock and roll in his productivity and moved on. “Corpses paved”
blood which you can’t buy. He made every- his way. We owe 39 films to him. Everything
one famous. And fame was important too – to was there: from the breathtaking melodrama
gain fame from an outsider position through to wonderful evil black comedies to the great
ingenuity and to get into the key position of in- social dramas. Every film was different, al-
ternational cinematic attention. Andy Warhol, most every film a surprise. He was not infal-
Jane Fonda, Dirk Bogarde. He searched ever lible. It wasn’t his aim to make perfect films.
higher, his films became increasingly hermet- He was too impulsive for that, ultimately too
ic and crazier, and he himself progressively emotional. He had to put life in order to make
broke. He had so much to work through per- these real-life films. That was the crux. He had
5BIOGRAPHY
2020 ENFANT TERRIBLE (Director)
2018 OUTMASTERED (HERRLICHE ZEITEN) (Director)
2015 PUNK BERLIN (TOD DEN HIPPIES!! ES LEBE DER PUNK)
(Screenwriter & Director)
2013 SOURCES OF LIFE (QUELLEN DES LEBENS)
(Screenwriter & Director)
2010 JEW SUSS (JUD SÜSS! – FILM OHNE GEWISSEN) (Director)
Oskar Roehler started his career as a screenwriter and had In Competition at Berlinale
his breakthrough with his second feature NO PLACE TO 2009 LULU & JIMI (Screenwriter & Director)
GO (DIE UNBERÜHRBARE; 2000), a very p ersonal portrait 2006 ATOMISED (ELEMENTARTEILCHEN) (Screenwriter & Director)
of his mother, which premiered in Cannes (Director’s Fort- In Competition at Berlinale
night) and received the German Film Award (Lola) for best Nominated for the Audience Prize of the European Film Prize
film. His other award winning films include ANGST (DER ALTE 2003 AGNES AND HIS BROTHERS (AGNES UND SEINE BRÜDER)
AFFE ANGST, 2003 – B erlinale Official Competition), AGNES (Screenwriter & Director)
AND HIS BROTHERS (AGNES UND SEINE BRÜDER; 2004 – Best Screenplay at the Bavarian Film Prize
Venice Orizzonti) as well as his film adaptation of M ichel 2002 ANGST (DER ALTE AFFE ANGST) (Screenwriter & Director)
Houellebecq’s novel ELEMENTARY PARTICLES (ELEMEN In Competition at Berlinale
TARTEILCHEN; 2006 – Berlinale Official Competition). With 2002 FAHR ZUR HÖLLE, SCHWESTER! (Director)
JEW SUSS: RISE AND FALL (JUD SÜSS – FILM OHNE GEWIS- 2001 SUCK MY DICK (Screenwriter & Director)
SEN; 2010 – Berlinale Official Competition) Oskar created 2000 NO PLACE TO GO (DIE UNBERÜHRBARE) (Screenwriter & Director)
one of his most polarizing films. After SOURCES OF LIFE (DIE Best Film at German Film Prize
QUELLEN DES LEBENS; 2012 – Karlovy Vary Official Compe- 1999 GIERIG (Screenwriter & Director)
tition) and his ‘Masterand Servant’ portrait OUTMASTERED 1997 IN WITH THE NEW (SILVESTER COUNTDOWN)
(HERRLICHE ZEITEN; 2018), ENFANT TERRIBLE is Oskar’s (Screenwriter & Director)
latest film and homage to one of the most legendary and rad- Fund Prize German Film for Direction at Munich IFF
ical German Filmmakers - Rainer Werner Fassbinder. 1995 GENTLEMAN (Screenwriter & Director)
FILMOGRAPHY
67
Katja Riemann Frida-Lovisa Eva Mattes Erdal Yildiz
(Gudrun) Hamann (Martha) (Brigitte Mira) (Salem)
Oliver Masucci Isolde Barth Jochen Schropp Alexander Scheer Michael Klammer
(Rainer Werner) (Rainer’s mother) (Armin) (Andy Warhol) (Günther)
Lucas Gregorowicz Anton Rattinger André Hennicke Désirée Nick
CAST
(Ulli) (Britta) (Transvestite) (Bärbel)
8Sunnyi Melles Felix Hellmann Michael Ostrowski Antoine Monot Jr. Meike Droste Detlef Bothe
(Veronika) (Harry) (Peter Chatel) (Peter Berling) (Ursel) (Wally)
Markus Hering Norbert Ghafouri Simon Böer Ingo van Gulijk Christian Berkel
(Peer) (Dietrich) (Mike) (Director of Photography) (Interviewer)
Götz Otto Ralf Richter Wilson Gonzalez
(Jack Palance) (Blumenpeter) (Raoul)
910
OLIVER MASUCCI
The German actor Oliver Masucci grew up in ly, he played alongside Tom Schilling, Paula DARK by B aran bo Odar, the first German Net-
Bonn. He studied acting at the University of Beer and Sebastian Koch in the Oscar®-nom- flix series, since 2017. Masucci later played
the Arts in Berlin and then started a success- inated drama NEVER LOOK AWAY (WERK in the ZDF three-part PREIS DER FREIHEIT
ful theater career: from Basel (1995) to the OHNE A UTOR) (2018) by Florian Henckel (2019) alongside Nadja Uhl, Barbara Auer and
Schauspielhaus Hamburg (1996–2002), the von D onnersmarck. At the same time he Nicolette Krebitz, in the television film PLAY
Munich Kammerspiele (2001), the Schauspiel also starred in the feature films PLAYMAKER (2019) by Philip Koch and took on an epi-
Hannover (2000–2005), the Schauspielhaus (SPIELMACHER) (2018) by Timon Modersohn sode lead in the successful series SHADES
Bochum (2003-2005), the Schauspielhaus
with Frederick Lau and Antje Traue and in OF GUILT (SCHULD) (2015-2019) with Moritz
Zürich (2005-2009) and the Salzburg Festival OUTMASTERED (HERRLICHE ZEITEN) (2018) Bleibtreu . Oliver Masucci is currently film-
(1999 and 2007) until he reached the Vienna by Oskar Roehler, for which he was again ing DIE SCHACHNOVELLE directed by Phillip
Burgtheater. Here Masucci was an established nominated for the German Film Award. Stölzl.
member of the ensemble from 2009 to 2015.
AS RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER
The charismatic actor had his breakthrough
in cinema in 2015 in the satirical role of Adolf
Hitler in the bestselling adaptation LOOK
WHO’S BACK (ER IST WIEDER DA) by David
Wnendt. The comedy was not only successful In 2016 Oliver Massucci took on the role of
at the box office, critics also praised the film, Ugly Joey in Phillip Stölzl’s elaborate three-
and Oliver M
asucci was delighted to be nomi- part Winnetou reissue WINNETOU – DER
nated for the German Film Award. MYTHOS LEBT and was seen in Sherry Hor-
mann’s two-part political thriller TÖDLICHE
Masucci was last seen in the cinema in Caro- GEHEIMNISSE. He was in front of the cam-
line Link’s adaptation of the youth book WHEN era in 2017 and 2018 for the award-winning
HITLER STOLE PINK RABBIT (ALS HITLER DAS German television series 4 BLOCKS. Masucci
ROSA KANINCHEN STAHL) (2019). Previous- has c ontributed as one of the main actors in
11Bavaria Film GmbH ABOUT
Bavaria Film in Munich, Germany is one of 1971), Bob Fosse (CABARET, 1972), Ingmar
Europe’s largest film and television pro- Bergman (THE SERPENT’S EGG, 1977), Robert
duction companies. Alfred Hitchcock shot Aldrich (Twilight’s Last Gleaming, 1977), Wolf-
his first film, THE PLEASURE GARDEN, at gang P etersen (ENEMY MINE, 1985), Claude
Bavaria in 1925. The studios have been
Chabrol (THE BRIDESMAID, 2004), and Oliver
used by numerous directors, including Elia Stone (THE SNOWDEN FILES, 2015). Bavaria
Kazan (MAN ON A TIGHTROPE, 1952), Max Film is known for television films such as
Ophüls (LOLA MONTÈS, 1955), Stanley Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXAN-
Kubrick (PATHS OF GLORY, 1957), Richard DERPLATZ (1980) and Wolfgang Petersen’s
Fleischer (THE VIKINGS, 1958), John Huston DAS BOOT (1981), both also shown theatrical-
Producer’s Statement:
(FREUD: THE SECRET PASSION, 1962), Rob- ly. Also other production companies have pro- Markus Zimmer
ert Siodmak (THE NINA B. AFFAIR, 1960), Billy duced films in the Bavaria studios,
Wilder (ONE, TWO, THREE, 1961 and F EDORA, including Constantin Film, for exam-
1978), John Sturges (THE GREAT ESCAPE, ple for Petersen’s THE NEVEREND-
“Bavaria Filmproduktion is proud to
1963), Robert Wise (THE SOUND OF MUSIC, ING STORY (1984), Oliver Hirsch present two of the greatest German
1965), Orson Welles (THE DEEP, 1967), Jerzy biegel’s DOWNFALL (2004) and film icons in one film: Rainer Werner
Skolimowski (DEEP END, 1970), Mel Stuart Tom Tykwer’s Perfume: THE STORY
(WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, OF A MURDERER (2006). Fassbinder, whose work remains influ-
ential to filmmakers all over the world,
and Oskar Roehler, one of the most
inventive film and writing talents this
country has ever produced. ENFANT
THE PRODUCER
TERRIBLE is both an homage to and
an analysis of a manic film director,
visually stunning and full of amazing
performances, led by Oliver Masucci.”
12Co-Producer
X-FILME
CREATIVE POOL
Together with the directors Wolfgang Becker,
Dani Levy and Tom Tykwer, producer Ste-
fan Arndt founded the production company
X Filme Creative Pool in 1994. Great public
and critical successes like Tykwer’s LOLA
RENNT, Levy’s EVERYTHING ON ZUCKER
or Beckers GOOD BYE, LENIN! paved the
way for international co-productions under
German leadership such as the multi-award-
winning Michael Haneke productions DAS
WEISSE BAND and AMOUR or Tom Tykwers
and Lana & Andy Wachowski’s CLOUD ATLAS,
the most expensive independently financed
European film of all time. Stefan Arndt and
Uwe Schott have been Managing Directors of
X Filme since 2009.
13HIS LIFE ABOUT
Rainer Werner Fassbinder (May 31, 1945 – ateur directing- scripting-acting efforts did cination on the women. A few weeks later, in
June 10, 1982) was born into a cultured bour- Fassbinder take lessons with a professional May 1968, the Action theater was disbanded
geois family in the small Bavarian spa town acting studio, where he met Hanna Schygulla, after its theatre was wrecked by one of its
Bad Wörishofen. Raised by his mother as an his most important actress, who thanks to him founders, jealous of Fassbinder’s growing
only child, the boy had only sporadic contact became an international star. It was through power within the group. It promptly reformed
with his father, a doctor, after the divorce of Schygulla that Fassbinder turned his interest under Fassbinder’s command as the antite-
his parents when he was five. Educated at a to the theatre. ater, which pursued an equally radical and fre-
Rudolf Steiner elementary school and sub- quently provocative production policy.
sequently in Munich and Augsburg, the city In 1967 Fassbinder joined the Munich
of Bert Brecht, he left school before passing action-theater. He directed, acted in, and
The years from 1969 to 1976 were Fassbind-
any final examinations. A cinema addict (“five adapted anti-establishment plays for a tight- er’s most prodigious and prolific period. An
times a week, often three films a day”) from ly knit group of young professionals, among outstanding career in the theatre (produc-
a very early age, not least because his moth- them Peer Raben and Kurt Raab, who along tions in Munich, Bremen, Bochum, Nurnberg,
er needed peace and quiet for her work as a with Schygulla and Hermann, became the Berlin, Hamburg and Frankfurt, where for two
translator, “the cinema was the family life I most important members of his cinematic years he ran the “Theater am Turm” with Kurt
never had at home.” stock company. Jean-Marie Straub directed Raab and Roland Petri) was a mere backdrop
the action-theater in an eight-minute ver- for a seeming ly
unstoppable outpouring of
Fassbinder made his first short films at the sion of Bruckner’s Krankheit der Jugend, us- films, tv film, adaptations, and even a TV va-
age of twenty, persuading a male lover to fi- ing part of this stage production in his short riety show (in honour of Brigitte Mira). During
nance them in exchange for leading roles. film DER BRÄUTIGAM, DIE KOMÖDIANTIN the same period, he also did radio plays and
He also applied for a place at the Berlin Film UND DER ZUHÄLTER (1968), with Fassbinder took on roles in other director’s films, among
School (dffb), but was refused. He acted in as the pimp. In 1968 Fassbinder directed the them the title part in Volker Schlöndorff’s
both his early films: DER STADTSTREICHER first play written by himself, Katzelmacher, a Brecht adaptation BAAL. By 1976 Fassbinder
(The City Tramp), which also featured Irm Her- twenty-minute highly choreographed encoun- had become an international star. Prizes at
mann (later often used in character roles); ter between Bavarian v illagers and a foreign major film festivals, premieres and retrospec-
and DAS KLEINE CHAOS (The Little Chaos). worker from Greece, who with scarcely a word tives in Paris, New York, Los Angeles, and a
In the latter, his mother – under the name of German, becomes the object of intense ra- first critical study on his work appearing in
of Lilo Pempeit – played the first of many cial, sexual, and political hatred among the London had made him a familiar name among
parts in her son’s films. Only after these am- men, while exerting a strangely troubling fas- cinephiles and campus audiences the world
14over. He rented a house in Paris and could be Germany itself Fassbinder was permanently they made, among others, the television se-
seen in gay bars in New York, earning him cult in the news, making calculatedly provocative ries EIGHT HOURS DO NOT MAKE A DAY, and
hero status but also a controversial reputation remarks in interviews, which nonetheless were in 1978 cowrote THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA
in and out of his films. Art house circuits avidly usually shrewd and to the point. His work of- BRAUN, Fassbinder’s commercially most prof-
took up his films: because he had so many to ten received mixed notices from the national itable film and the first in his post-war German
his credit by the time he was ‘discovered’ with critics, many of whom only began to take Fass- trilogy (the other two were LOLA and VERONI-
FEAR EATS THE SOUL, the rerelease of his ear binder seriously after the foreign press had KA VOSS). For many foreign critics, his crown-
lier films, together with the steady stream of hailed him as a genius. ing achievement was the 14-part television
adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexander-
platz , much maligned by the domestic press.
RAINER WERNER
Although for VERONIKA VOSS Fassbinder re-
ceived the Golden Bear at the 1982 Berlin Film
Festival, a much-coveted Oscar nomination
eluded him. As had often been noted, Fass-
binder was the engine and motor (the “heart”
FASSBINDER
in Wolfram Schütte’s words) of the New Ger-
man Cinema. His sudden death from a vicious
combination of drugs and sleeping pills in June
1982 symbolically marked the end of the most
Source: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation
exciting and experimental period the German
cinema had known since the 1920s.
new work, made his extraordinary productivity In 1972 Fassbinder began his collaboration
seem even more phenomenal. (…) with a highly experienced and successful pro- Thomas Elsaesser
His flamboyant and at the same time seedy ducer at West Germany’s most prestigious
life-style, his openly displayed and well adver- television network, Peter Märtesheimer of
tised homosexuality, and at the same time life WDR. Under Märtesheimer’s influence, Fass-
and love to women, the scandals, public out- binder turned with even more determination to
rages and bouts of self-pity ensured that in recognizably German subject matter. Together
15HIS ART
The Forward-looking Traditionalist
In the mid-1960s, when Bertolt Brecht’s Epic tors of the New German Cinema, could not labor of the studio system with the author’s
Theater dominated the German-speaking have come about without the cooperation of personal creativity through an amalgamation
stage, Max Frisch spoke of Brecht possess- the public television stations. Yet he, as did of group dynamics and individualistic work
ing the “striking ineffectiveness of a classic.” no other, realized the implications of the spe- processes. He was producer-tycoon and star
The playwright, who agitated for social change cifically German production situation. His ar- director all in one; and to feed the artistic
in epic parables written for a “theater of the tistic productivity, which resulted in an oeuvre imagination that spurred him on, he needed
scientific age,” was accepted by society and of forty-four film and television productions, to make sure that he kept both feet on the
integrated into it, and was thus a classic: im- coincided with the vigorous appropriation and ground. This he first achieved with the team of
mobilized. Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who exploitation of every possible source he could the Action Theater, in the group which evolved
attained comparable artistic status in the draw from. He alone gave exuberant life to the from it, and later in various teams of actors,
German-language cinema between 1969 and declaration on which the Young and the New cinematographers, musicians, set designers,
1982, and whose public image dominated the German Cinema staked its claim, that “Opas and studios.
scene during those fourteen years, neither be- Kino” (grandpa’s cinema) was dead. lf there The auteurist film, whose emergence accom-
came a classic nor did he achieve outstanding was a German Autorenfilm (auteurist cinema) panied the decline ofthe “producer film” that
success. But was he ineffective? – and certainly the genius-cult of West Ger- could no longer compete with television in the
Looking down at the lamentable depth of con- man Sturm und Drang in the 1960s and 1970s domestic market, was unmistakably a harbin-
temporary German cinema from the aesthetic did produce the works of Kluge and Wenders, ger of the antiauthoritarian movement and an
summit of his late works, after the 1978 DE- Schroeter and von Praunheim, Herzog and expression ofthe international student and
SPAIR, and from the paradigmatic validity of Syberberg, Thome and Straub – Fassbinder’s youth revolt, which in the Paris of May 1968
his “German” subjects, from KATZELMACHER far-reaching activities were at the center of it. had its storming of the Bastille and, shortly
to VERONIKA VOSS, one will scarcely discern His genius – probably the only one of the post- after, its Thermidor and Waterloo. Euphoria
anything in the ten years since he died except war German cinema – is evident not only in his over a new lifestyle was rapidly succeeded
his disappearance: not only the dissolution of work but also in the freewheeling activity and by depression over its failure – more quickly,
Fassbinder as a steady presence, somewhat inspirational vitality with which he combined in keeping with the modern process of accel-
like the basso continuo in the polyphony of the film and film production, television and televi- eration, than at the turn of the eighteenth to
German cinema that came after him, but the sion production into a comprehensive, always the nineteenth Century. The socialist-liber-
general decline of all aesthetic principles that expanding, retrospective, and progressive al coalition; the ban on employment of rad-
blossomed in the richness of his vast oeuvre. unity. His utopian vision, which he very nearly icals in state schools and public institutions
Fassbinder’s oeuvre, like that of other direc- made come true, was to merge the division of in general; the German Director’s Theater of
16Peter Stein, Claus Peymann, and Hans Neuen- whose character as a total work of art these (as a creative counterpart, for instance, of the
fels; and the New German Cinema were par- directors evoked on stage; yet only with Fass- Döblinesque montage technique in BERLIN
allel events, riddled by the ricochets of Baad- binder did the theater open its eyes wide, be- ALEXANDERPLATZ). This, in particular, made
er-Meinhof terrorism. cause in his films it plays a vital role (as it does possible Fassbinder adaptations of literary
in those of Visconti). sources (as with EFFI BRIEST, THE STATION-
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, born in 1945, was With one other German-speaking artist, name- MASTER’S WIFE, QUERELLE), where – each in
not one of the initiators of the Oberhausen ly Peter Handke, whose often-professed love its own way – no residue of the adaptation pro-
Manifesto. He did not subscribe to their pro- of the cinema he has frequently brought to the cess remains to disturb or irritate.
grammatic approach, in which German post- work of his spiritually congenial friend Wim Nevertheless, the theater from which he grew
war film history was understood largely as a Wenders, Fassbinder shared a talent that the and eventually escaped shaped the director’s
continuation of UFA films (Universum-Film stage directors Stein, Neuenfels, and Bondy style, determined the stringency of his sto-
AG, or UFA, was the principal film company in did not have at their disposal: an innate nar- rytelling and the visual concentration of his
Germany before 1945) and as a product of the rative creativity. It is this that accounts for work. The stage as the scene of action, as the
Adenauer-era restoration. Nor did he adopt Fassbinder’s unique status, the concentrated conceptual abstraction of a lived life, returns
Alexander Kluge’s idea of a conscious return density of his filmic oeuvre, and it is this – de- even in apparently naturalistic movies, such
to authentic, documentary-oriented contem- spite craftsmanly equivalents, for example in as THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS, ALI:
porary film subjects. Fassbinder, as the young- the work of Volker Schlöndorff or Reinhard FEAR EATS THE SOUL, FEAR OF FEAR, or I
est, had only recently become one of the West Hauff – that fundamentally sets him apart. He ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME, through a non-
German filmmakers, and he was and always is also set apart from the storytellers of the naturalistic mode of speech. He signals dis-
remained an outsider. His roots were in the New German Cinema insofar as this teller of tance, irritation with realistic events, which are
theater rather than in documentary, industrial, his own tale was able to handle his own ma- – to a greater extent than stage scenery would
art, or television filmmaking. In the theater, as terial and subject matter in an aesthetically permit – charged with additional narrative val-
director, actor, and author, as spiritus rector, far-more-intimate and personal way, or, to ue through a metaphoric use of camera angles.
he gathered around him a troupe. paraphrase Kleist, he was able to recognize This is why one finds more than one sees and
In the course of his filmmaking career, Fass- the cinematographic potential of his stories, hears in Fassbinder’s “realistic works”; and
binder’s involvement with the theater ended “formulating his ideas while he was talking”; in this is what distinguishes his films from the
Source: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation
– definitely by 1974-75, when he foundered short, he did not think of storytelling in film as numerous “realistic” movies about the work-
with the management of the TAT (Theater am adapting literature to the medium of vision and ers’ world, by which a part of the New German
Turm) in Frankfurt, which he had tried to de- sound but was able to think in cinematograph- Cinema turned its attention, polemically and
velop into a base for parallel film production. ic terms from the start. functionally, to the everyday lives of the work-
He nevertheless succeeded where comparable This genuine filmic creativity comprehends ing-class petit bourgeoisie.
movie talents, like Peter Stein and Luc Bondy, the “straightaway” of Raoul Walsh and Michael
had failed, in finding the royal road to devel- Curtiz in the same sovereign manner as the
oping his artistic potential in film. The theater lighting direction of Josef von Sternberg, the Wolfram Schütte
of Stein, Bondy, and Hans Neuenfels repeat- color dramaturgy of Douglas Sirk, and Joseph
edly cast envious glances toward the cinema, L. Mankiewicz’s complex narrative strategies
17Selected Filmography (Director)
1982 QUERELLE – EIN PAKT MIT DEM TEUFEL
1982 DIE SEHNSUCHT DER VERONIKA VOSS
1981 LOLA
1980 BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ
HIS
1980 LILI MARLEEN
1978 IN EINEM JAHR MIT 13 MONDEN
1978 DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN
1976 SATANSBRATEN
1974 FONTANE EFFI BRIEST
1974 MARTHA
WORKS
1973 ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF
1973 WELT AM DRAHT
1971 HÄNDLER DER VIER JAHRESZEITEN
1970 WHITY
1969 LIEBE IST KÄLTER ALS DER TOD
Selected Theatre Plays Selected Filmography (Actor)
1975 DER MÜLL, DIE STADT UND DER TOD 1982 KAMIKAZE 1989 von Wolf Gremm
1971 BREMER FREIHEIT 1974 FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT von Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1970 DAS BRENNENDE DORF 1973 ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF von Rainer Werner Fassbinder
1969 DAS KAFFEEHAUS 1970 MATHIAS KNEIßL von Reinhard Hauff
1966 TROPFEN AUF HEIßE STEINE 1970 BAAL von Volker Schlöndorff
1965 NUR EINE SCHEIBE BROT 1967 TONYS FREUNDE Von Paul Vasil
18Picture Tree International
Picture Tree International (PTI) is an energetic PTI’s line-up of up to 15 films a year is de-
and fast-growing world sales company with its signed to ensure the right mix of arthouse and
headquarters in Berlin. The core business is crossover productions to fully maximize the
worldwide licensing across all platforms, with revenue potential of each film. Picture Tree In-
the company maintaining a presence at all ternational was founded in December 2012 by
the major film and television markets. Along- Andreas Rothbauer and has been run jointly
side licensing, PTI is also able to act as your by his partner and Co-Managing Director Yuan
German co-producer and local distributor via Rothbauer since 2017.
a fully integrated business model that offers
producers individual sales and financing strat-
egies in a results-driven and transparent part-
nership, something essential in today’s ever
changing audio-visual industry landscape.
Contact
WORLD
Picture Tree International GmbH
Husemannstr. 7
10435 Berlin Germany
Phone: +49 (0) 30 4208 248 - 0
Email: pti@picturetree-international.com
SALES
www.picturetree-international.com
19PICTURETREEINTERNATIONALPRESENTSABAVARIAFILMPRODUKTIONPRODUCTIONINCO-PRODUCTIONWITHX-FILMECREATIVEPOOLWDRBRARTE
STARRINGO LIVERMASUCCIHARYPRINZKATJARIEMANNJOCHENSCHROPPERDALYILDIZFRIDA-LOVISAHAMANNDÉSIRÉENICKANDRÉHENNICKEANDEVAMATTESANDALEXANDERSCHEER
CINEMATOGRAPHYBYC
ARL-FRIEDRICHKOSCHNICKCOSTUMEDESIGNBYPERIDEBRAGANCAMAKE-UPBYURSULARÖLINGSOUNDDESIGNBYANDREASWÖLKIEDITINGBYHANSJÖRGWEISSBRAUCH
MIXBYH UBERTUSRATHMUSICBYMARTINTODSHAROWWRITTENBYKLAUSRICHTEREDITORIALSTAFFANDREAHANKE(WDR) BARBARABUHL(WDR) CORNELIAACKERS(BR) CARLOSGERSTENHAUER(BR)
ANDREASSCHREITMÜLLER(ARTE) PRODUCTIONMANAGEMENTANDREASHABERMAIERPRODUCEDBYMARKUSZIMMERSTEFANARNDTUWESCHOTTDIRECTEDBYOSKARROEHLER
www.picturetree-international.comYou can also read
