I wanted to have a good 1000th post but it's not happening. This will have to do. (In other news, I'm back. Yay! I built a crane and dolly, too, and am doing a mini35 shoot this October as some crew member. So exciting.)
Anyhow, so I'm taking a class on the New German Cinema, and every week we watch a film by either Wenders, Shlondorff, Herzog, or Fassbinder (a few others, too I guess) but right now we're focusing on Fassbinder.
The man is amazing. I saw Marriage of Maria Braun last year and didn't get it. Then I saw (this year) Love is Colder than Death (if you think that's a cool title, his original idea for a title was "Cold Steel") and thought it was the weirdest thing ever but interesting. Then Merchant of Four Seasons. Again, bizarre. But I'm starting to love all his movies the more I think about them.
The guy's fascinating, too. Two of his primary influences are Douglas Sirk (made 1950s melodramas) and Brecht (wanted the drama/empathy to be taken out of a production so that a moral message or cultural critique or whatever would appear). They have totally opposite goals which seem impossible to reconcile and yet Fassbinder achieves both distance and tenderness.
He's also insane. He was gay, but he got married, he made like 40 films in 20 years, he made a 15 hour movie, he's a horrible cynic, yet the interviews I've read with him make him out to be one of the most tender people you could imagine, just somehow completely disheartened. He also looks just like me (or at least did when he was only a bit older than me.)
Anyhow, if anyone has seen any of his movies, I'm curious what they think, especially in relation to Sirk or even Lars von Trier (especially Dogville.)
Anyhow, so I'm taking a class on the New German Cinema, and every week we watch a film by either Wenders, Shlondorff, Herzog, or Fassbinder (a few others, too I guess) but right now we're focusing on Fassbinder.
The man is amazing. I saw Marriage of Maria Braun last year and didn't get it. Then I saw (this year) Love is Colder than Death (if you think that's a cool title, his original idea for a title was "Cold Steel") and thought it was the weirdest thing ever but interesting. Then Merchant of Four Seasons. Again, bizarre. But I'm starting to love all his movies the more I think about them.
The guy's fascinating, too. Two of his primary influences are Douglas Sirk (made 1950s melodramas) and Brecht (wanted the drama/empathy to be taken out of a production so that a moral message or cultural critique or whatever would appear). They have totally opposite goals which seem impossible to reconcile and yet Fassbinder achieves both distance and tenderness.
He's also insane. He was gay, but he got married, he made like 40 films in 20 years, he made a 15 hour movie, he's a horrible cynic, yet the interviews I've read with him make him out to be one of the most tender people you could imagine, just somehow completely disheartened. He also looks just like me (or at least did when he was only a bit older than me.)
Anyhow, if anyone has seen any of his movies, I'm curious what they think, especially in relation to Sirk or even Lars von Trier (especially Dogville.)
