Much has been made of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s relationship with the great Hollywood auteur Douglas Sirk, and of Fassbinder’s predilection toward working within a mode of overwrought melodrama – the kind of “weepies,” largely intended for female audiences, that Sirk was most comfortable working with in the ‘50s. Those who study Fassbinder have even come… Read more »
The dense and austere film melodramas of Douglas Sirk pose a problem of interpretation to their viewers, a problem which strikes me as being founded on cultural paradox and compounded by misleading appearances. Sirk, who began his artistic career as a leftist playwright in pre-Nazi Germany and who finished his career as a studio filmmaker… Read more »
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) opens to Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira), a German cleaning woman, timidly entering a bar one night on her way home to get out of the pouring rain. Fassbinder’s frame composes her at a distance; she is isolated and alone and by the looks of it, lonely…. Read more »