Movies: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Though he never actually worked in Hollywood, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who died in 1982 at the age of 36, was influenced greatly by Amercian studio films of the 1950s and the convention of melodrama (the link most often mentioned is Douglas Sirk)....

An African-American GI retires from the US Army in West Berlin to live with his (white) girlfriend, who already has a baby with another black man. After an argument with her family, she deserts him as well. Despite finding a job and a new place to li...

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A soldier and a beautiful blonde on a train to Harrisburg....

Rainer Werner Fassbinder reflects on the various stages of his career, discusses how his motives behind filmmaking evolved up his film Despair....

The production of a film requires recording equipment and financial resources if nothing else. Hellmuth Costard places these basic prerequisites at the centre of his film: using a Super 8 camera system he developed, he films himself as he tries to ra...

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Theo, Marite, and Franz cannot make any money selling magazines door to door, so they try a little robbery....

An adaptation of Tennessee Williams' "The Lady Larkspur Lotion" created by Douglas Sirk with the assistance of his film students and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It depicts the conflict between a dreamy, delusional heroine and her brusque, practical lan...

After the war, almost by chance, Alfonso Sansone starts to produce documentary films and moves from Palermo to Rome, the city of film....

When Hitler watches Marlene Dietrich in a movie, he falls in love with her. He persuades her to come back to Germany to be with him, but upon her arrival she constantly insults and provokes him until he eventually, on her command, bites the carpet to...

A documentary that focuses on the making of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "The Marriage of Maria Braun"....

A young man named Jürgen joins the military. As much as he tries to make a heroic career as a soldier in a rearmed West Germany, he fails utterly and ends up in a bizarre sanatorium....

In this comedy, Iris Berben plays a mysterious, supernaturally beautiful girl from another planet, who confuses and flusters the men on earth, where she has landed. The men follow her wherever she goes. Marquard Bohm is no exception here - he leaves ...

"End of the Commune"/"Ende einer kommune" is a great 49 min. long movie made in 1969 about Fassbinder and the early years of the legendary Antiteater he was a member/leader of. You can here see and hear some of the actors he was going to use in his m...

About the making of "Der amerikanische Soldat/The American Soldier" in 1970....

Romi (Gabriela Mícová), a prostitute, is anything but successful at her job: she is of far too gentle a nature for her clients. The more obstinately she is pushed to the streets by her pimp Franz (Stanislav Majer), the closer she is to a complete bre...

Rainer Werner Fassbinder visits for two weeks the "Theater der Welt" festival 1981 in Cologne. 30 companies showed in over 100 performances their own visions of a new theater. Framed by Fassbinder's reading of one of the famous essays on theater: Ant...

Douglas speaks about some of the stars he has directed like Asta Nielsen, Lili Dagover, Zarah Leander, George Sanders, Signe Hasso, Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Wyman and many others....