"Fassbinder has shown what cinema can be" | Movies | '
There are a few names of directors who have dug deep into their compatriots when it comes to non-US cinema after World War II, Fassbinder occupies a prominent place, says Ellen Harrington. She has to know. Since January last year, Harrington has been supporting the "Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum" (DFF). Previously, it has long been where the heart of cinema beats for many people around the world: Los Angeles and Hollywood.
Since 1993, the American has worked at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, which annually awards the Oscars. Later, she was at the head of the planned Museum of the Academy, which will open later this year. Harrington has curated around 50 exhibitions on cinema and film.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder: appreciated even abroad
For a year and a half now, German film has been Harrington's focus. On Monday, the DFF celebrates its 70th anniversary, State Secretary Monika Grütters is expected. But more important than the jubilee celebrations will be the simultaneous inauguration of the new "Fassbinder Center".
Ellen Harrington next to the greatest treasure of the Fassbinder archive: the director's handwritten documents
Rainer Werner Fassbinder is for many film historians the most important German director of the postwar period. "The name Fassbinder as a director of the 20th Century is really a concept," says Harrington, "in the world, but especially in the US Fassbinder and his films have always triggered strong reactions, especially in New York." Harrington refers to the groundbreaking Fassbinder retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in 1997.
The German director has since been in the United States, at least in the culturally interested part of the American public, in focus. In this context, Harrington also refers to large Fassbinder retrospectives in other countries, to the comprehensive retrospective of the Cinémathèque française in Paris last year, or to the major film show in Australia: "The name Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a global brand, there are many and varied Activities to safeguard his work digitally for the future. "
Fassbinder is next to Günter Grass, Gerhard Richter and Joseph Beuys
That may surprise some in Germany. In the run-up to the opening of the "Fassbinder Center", the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung" (FAZ) pointed out this disproportion in the perception: "That he was recognized as an eminent artist of post-war Germany, who was no less important to the state than Beuys or Richter or Grass, although much more uncomfortable, that happened (…) not in Germany, not in Frankfurt, but in New York. " By the time of the major MoMA retrospective in 1997, his international rank was undisputed, according to the FAZ.
Files, files, files: The "Fassbinder Center" evaluates the analogue era
Even though Fassbinder is not a stranger to experts in Germany, some of his films have fallen into oblivion. This of course has to do with the early death of Fassbinder 1982. He died at the age of 37 and left an incredibly large work. Unlike his companions Volker Schlöndorff, Werner Herzog and Wim Wenders, the oeuvre of the director, born in 1945 in Bad Wörishofen, Bavaria, can be regarded as complete.
Or is not it? The "Fassbinder Center", which is now opening its doors to science and all those interested in the film industry, will certainly change that. Fassbinder's films appeal especially to today's, new generations, Ellen Harrington is convinced: "Because Fassbinder's films were so direct and so raw, so honest."
Fassbinder's films have a special aesthetic
His characters had spoken like real people, enthuses the director of the DFF. "Fassbinder's stories are incredibly dynamic and expressively narrated, so I think that's a movie that can reach even young people today." Fassbinder had never been "interested in a cinema of pure entertainment or even escapism": "He really had something to say, he had a very special vision."
Tireless Worker: The Director (second from right) in 1971 shooting "Dealer of the Four Seasons"
Is there an example for this? "The way Fassbinder portrayed women and gave them outstanding roles in his powerfully narrated stories was very visionary and modern!" When you see a Fassbinder movie today, you do not have the feeling of having a movie from previous decades, Harrington says: "They are very dynamic and therefore very close to us."
Ellen Harrington: "A moment of enlightenment"
Does she have a favorite movie, a Fassbinder movie that impressed her? "When I started to watch movies, and at some point realized that there was also a cinema outside the US, I discovered international cinema, a cinema that directly and directly appeals to you, I saw Fassbinder's The Marriage the Maria Braun '. "
Hanna Schygulla and George Byrd in "The Marriage of Maria Braun"
At that time, she became aware of what cinema could be outside of the Hollywood cosmos, which relies more on conventional storytelling: "That was a moment of enlightenment and wonder for me."
"The Marriage of Maria Braun" described in 1979 the post-war experience of a woman (played by Hanna Schygulla), which arranges itself in the economic miracle Germany with the circumstances. The film was also a spectator's success abroad.
Fassbinder's special look at German history
"If you came from the US and grew up with films about World War II that can be described as propagandist, who were biased towards evaluating the war that had a clear good-evil scheme, then Fassbinder really does produced something new, "says the American museum director in Germany.
Isabelle Louise Bastian captures everything that Fassbinder left behind
Questions about a collective guilt were discussed by Fassbinder, personal responsibility, questions, how people behave and survive at such moments. Fassbinder brought this over with a very personal, powerful look: "That impressed me and other people who saw Fassbinder's films."
A little from this perspective on Fassbinder's work, which was always different abroad than in Germany, Harrington and the employees of the "Fassbinder Center" want to convey from Monday to the public. Located in the immediate vicinity of the Goethe University in the heart of Frankfurt, the research facility (in conjunction with the Filmmuseum on the Frankfurt Museums-Ufer, where Fassbinder's films are then shown on a big screen) is designed to appeal to students in particular.
They, but also scientists from all over the world and other film enthusiasts, will then come across a treasure: the collections of the "Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation" from Berlin and New York, founded by Fassbinder's mother in 1986 (then by Fassbinder's former editor Juliane Maria Lorenz). Wehling 1992) have been combined with the holdings of the DDF.
Work script by "Lili Marleen": Fassbinder was a manic planner, his films were made in the head and on paper
And not only that: The "Fassbinder Center" not only collects Fassbinder documents, but also houses a focus on "New German Film". It already includes many followers and adventurers of companions like Volker Schlöndorff or Reinhard Hauff, but also younger directors like Romuald Karmakar and Dani Levy. Germany will thus have a very special historical cinema treasure in Frankfurt in the future.
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