Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors

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william kent

Well-known member
As @jenks and I just read the Penman book and there doesn't seem to be a Fassbinder thread, this is the Fassbinder thread.

Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery – Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman’s long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of the late West German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982). Written quickly under a self-imposed deadline in the spirit of Fassbinder himself, who would often get films made in a matter of weeks or months, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors presents the filmmaker as a pivotal figure in the late 1970s moment between late modernism and the advent of postmodernism and the digital revolution. Compelling, beautifully written and genuinely moving, echoing the fragmentary and reflective works of writers like Barthes and Cioran, this is a story that has everything: sex, drugs, art, the city, cinema and revolution.
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william kent

Well-known member
I've only seen Ali: Fear Eats the Soul but got the fire to watch more after reading the book. A fair few are on YouTube.









 
jenks

jenks

thread death
Yep, I’m planning on watching a few once I’ve finished the book. I would’ve said re-watching but as it’s more than 35 years since I’ve seen any I think it’s safe to say chances of me remembering much is nil.
 
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william kent

Well-known member
I finished the book yesterday. Really liked it. I'd never really read anything of Penman's before beyond a couple of LRB articles and just knew him by name and reputation. There were a couple of moments I didn't like (that etymology tic I mentioned in another thread and what felt like an 'I took a lot of drugs' humblebrag) but on the whole it was great. I liked the prose, he was talking about a lot of things I'm into, I liked the numbered fragments structure and how he jumped around and it made me want to watch more Fassbinder. About everything you'd hope for from the book, really.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
I used to go out with a girl from Spain and we watched a lot of films together, especially a lot of Fassbinder, so I guess I'll always associate him with that time in my life. Still I have watched a few since...

One of my favorites that hardly seems to get mentioned is American Soldier, weird Jim Morrison on downers kinda theme tune and fantastically creepy final scene as....
Fassbinder's character flops homoerotically around on the warm corpse of his brother
Feels like a Lynch film before his time.
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Other favourites are Bitter Tears of Petra Vin Kant, Beware Of A Holy Whore which would make a good companion piece to 81/2 I feel. Also World on a Wire is killer super stylish scifi, it's adapted from a book called maybe 13th Floor or something and there is a US take on that too which I thought worth seeing though not a patch on Fassbinder's version of course.

Querelle is fun too. I guess he was having a laugh taking the ultra-macho DJango guy and sticking him in the gayest film ever - a ship staffed by sailors out a Gaultier ad.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
ive seen 3. one was quite annoying. too gay for me i guess. world on the wire was quite fun. and fox and friends was fantastic. really rate that film and the performances. i'll do a few more this year.
 
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william kent

Well-known member
The Third Generation's one that caught my eye, although it looks as though it could be incredibly irritating. Penman talks about it a lot in the book.

"... a wildly anarchic satire of guerrilla terrorism in which a band of leftist radicals inadvertently become puppets of the West German government, which uses them to justify its authoritarian policies ... "
 
IdleRich

IdleRich

IdleRich
Love Is Colder Than Death is a great title. I don't remember it that well, I think it's one with weird stagey acting, like Bresson. Totally unnaturalistic... a lot of his early ones are like that. It feels as though he doesn't care if you believe in what's happening or not, and somehow there is something fascinating about that. They should repel but somehow they don't.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
i absolutely despise the look of fitzcarraldo books too. it makes me feel violently ill. its like a pastiche of a book. i'd never let anyone see me reading one in public. so fucking shameful.
 
luka

luka

Well-known member
4161
 
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