Fassbinder

When Rainer Werner Fassbinder died at age 37 in 1982,

he left us 44 films and TV series.

What counts is the body of work you bequeath, he believed.

It must say something about the era it was made in, or it's worthless.

His films touch on the greatest fears and taboos of Germans.

No other German director was as productive,

controversial and obsessive as Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

My goal is to make films that are perfect,

that are indistinguishable from French, Italian or American films,

but that remain personal reflections of their maker

and cannot be mistaken for anyone else's work.

I knew I'd make films. I knew it...

from the age of 12.

For me it was just a matter of time.

I did various things,

a little acting, a little writing.

Ravioli!

I spent two years in drama school.

Filmmaking was what I knew least about, so I liked it best.

That's the backstory.

I'm used to a big camera. I haven't mastered this small one yet.

Voila!

He'd die laughing to see me now.

- Lucy! - I'll empty the water.

- What water? - That water.

You're lying. Come closer.

What did you want? Stand up for yourself. Look at me.

I remember we had to perform these exercises at school.

ACTRESS

What school?

It was a private school where I ended up by chance.

I didn't know I wanted to become an actress.

Then I noticed this boy.

Somehow he was both touching and intimidating at the same time.

Both vulnerable and...

predatory, rapacious.

He was this mixture...

Everything he did, he did unlike anyone else.

I met Fassbinder through a friend

who was at drama school with him.

She said to me,

ACTRESS

"There's an actor coming over, Rainer Werner Fassbinder...

to do a kind of reading.

Want to come?"

I remember he smoked 100 cigarettes

and read from a novel. I was electrified.

Whatever hurts me feels good.

How many people came?

Maybe three.

And what was so electrifying?

The focus, the intensity, with which he read...

It electrified me. It was completely new to me.

A few weeks later, Christoph Roser called me at the office where I worked

and said, "You see,

Rainer would like to... He's shooting a short film...

We have no money, we're very sorry..." But would I act in it?

I thought I'd pass out. I was completely rattled. And...

Why?

I was so excited. It was all new. I felt out of my depth.

But we shot it,

and from that moment on I was under his spell.

- Really? - Yes!

The way he talked to me,

told me to do this, do that, and demonstrating...

He showed me how to deliver each of my lines.

And it was more intimate than anything I'd done.

It was amazing.

No one had ever spoken to me like that before.

Not as he did. It was absolutely unique.

Then he moved into my apartment.

I was with him day and night.

It was exhausting. We never went to bed before 4am.

We never slept more than three or four hours.

We were always on the move.

We saw all the American B movies. Four a day.

Then we'd go to a bar.

We'd drink Coke. Fassbinder drank no alcohol then.

- Only tea or Coke. - Really?

Yes. For years. It wasn't until '74 and the Theater am Turm

that he used alcohol or drugs.

In '67 I met a fellow student from drama school

who said she was playing Antigone at the Action-Theater,

and that I should come and see it.

As it turned out,

I was standing at the bar after the performance,

and the director, Peer Raben, joined me.

He said he was looking for actors with a Bavarian accent, and...

we decided we'd see how well we worked together.

He had someone drop off a note in my mailbox.

I don't know if it was his handwriting. I hadn't seen much of his writing.

All it said was,

"Do you want to play Antigone? The premiere is in two days."

It went really fast.

You had to play both Antigone and in the chorus.

In the chorus you just copied what the others did.

And then in your moment as Antigone,

you weren't told much more than, "Do what you want...

And you can do very little, too. That also works."

Who was directing?

Peer Raben.

Yes, he was really...

the most important one there.

He was... Later he did lots of music,

but at times he was also Fassbinder's lover.

I was overcome with ecstasy in the moment -

the ecstasy of acting, I mean -

as soon as the spotlight fell upon me,

and I suddenly realized, "Right!

That's just the feeling I've been looking for!"

From then on I was part of it.

They moved, suddenly called themselves Antiteater.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR/ACTOR

They had a play, The Beggar's Opera.

There was a drummer in it who would beat his drum

and say a few lines. That was my in.

I'd never heard of Fassbinder.

The first time I saw him

he was bent over laughing at my performance.

Because I spoke extremely slowly

and looked like, the revolution incarnate...

moustache, sideburns, leather coat. Like from the Gestapo.

He'd just sit there bent over laughing with Hanna.

It never occurred to me that they were laughing about me.

In the meantime, for my parents' sake,

I was continuing my studies.

They would've worried.

With Fassbinder of all people!

- Why? - He was the bogeyman.

Really?

He was the bogeyman of the middle class.

I used to write short theatre and film reviews for a Hamburg paper.

ACTOR/DIRECTOR

And I was sitting there

in what was half theatre, half bar...

He hung out there. I thought, who is that?

He looked like some guy who'd just dropped by...

But then he became, in fact,

the central figure of the Action-Theater.

He can do anything. He'd be excellent as von Schmettwitz.

He's only directing.

The major is forceful.

He imposes his decisions.

You have to play the way he wants, not as you would.

You could feel that he had begun

to dominate the Action-Theater troupe.

At one point I realized he was the engine behind the whole thing.

The way he directed...

I'd always thought that Willi, Peer Raben, was the boss.

And he was at first, but Rainer more or less took over.

That's how society is. Those in charge don't have the money

so that everyone can be on the payroll.

So almost everyone also has to have a day job.

Only a few of us are always available, so we're the ones who are involved.

Why do you call it Antiteater?

Is it experimental, or anti-theatre?

It's more than just anti-theatre.

- Anti what? - Oh, anti-state.

Anti...

Anti-violence, war...

It was this grand longing

to change this capitalist, fascist, warmongering world.

LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH

He wanted to make films. That was clear.

And...

It's about chance encounters.

He met Ulli Lommel.

And then they got money

from an heiress to the Bosch fortune, 10,000 marks.

I was very convincing

when asking people for money

because I was so convinced about him.

I knew... I always said, "He's a genius.

He's a genius. You have to give him money."

- You knew that? - I was certain of it, that he's a genius.

Darling!

- Can I help you? - Do you have steel frames?

- Steel frames? - I don't...

- Do they suit me? - I don't know. Maybe.

They're nice, yes.

- Can I finally get help? - Yes sir?

- Just tell me if you have steel frames. - I don't know.

Wait your turn!

- She only... - Fine.

I'm looking for a pair of round glasses,

like the cop in Psycho has.

The one who finds Janet Leigh's car.

- You know? - What lousy service!

- I'm only human. - Steel frames.

- Steel frames! - Yes.

If you don't have those, what do you have, doll?

Our selection is limited. We're a department store.

Thanks a lot.

I let him do whatever he wanted.

Because of course I realized

how far ahead of us he was creatively.

It hadn't escaped my notice that...

he had something.

There was never any hesitation in him.

Often I didn't understand what he wanted.