By the time of his untimely death at age 37, Rainer Werner Fassbinder had directed over 40 films and TV series that reshaped the way cinema and television were perceived. The enfant terrible of European cinema combined his vast knowledge of theatre, with unusual sexual liberation, and modern acting techniques to craft one of the most singular filmographies by any director. In The Fassbinder Story director Annekatrin Hendel has made the most insightful documentary film about Fassbinder yet. As the film is presented at the Kino Film Festival, Hendel spoke about Fassbinder's legacy:
The film explains that Fassbinder went into making films because it was the artform he knew the least about. What inspired you to want to make films?
When I started making movies I had no clue how the business works. I had been working in theater until then. But I knew I had a lot of potential because I was born and raised in a country that doesn’t exist anymore. We have many stories from the time of the cold war that are still relevant today. You’ll hear and see a lot of these stories from me in the future. Also, I’ve been seriously infected by Fassbinder’s boldness to simply get going.
Did you find anything in Fassbinder's life/philosophy that paralleled your own views on art?- What did you learn about Fassbinder that changed the way you see one of his specific works, or maybe his oeuvre in general?
Fassbinder always said his main interest was to shed light on anything that is amiss; an attitude that I found astonishing ever since I was a teenager. That to me is what makes him the most important German film maker to date. His plays and films served me as a gateway drug to life and art. That’s what I’m trying to pass on to my younger audience with this film. What I’m missing in this world where everyone’s constantly trying to do everything right and according to plan is passion, wildness, obsession, and anarchy. We should always use Fassbinder’s instinct and his gift to identify his own strengths and the strengths of others, use those strengths and integrate them into his work as an example.
Was it easy to arrange all the interviews? What proved the most challenging to organize?
If it were easy to make this film, it wouldn’t have sparked my interest to make it. The biggest challenge, however, was to organize everything in such a short time. We had ten months to finance the film, find, convince, and travel to everyone we wanted to speak with, comb through Fassbinder’s excessive oeuvre, film the interviews and edit the film. It needed to be completed by Fassbinder’s 70th birthday. That was a huge challenge. But why should I take time when Fassbinder never has?
We see Ms. Schygulla painting, how did you set up the format of the interviews? Why was it important for us to see her painting for instance, rather than sitting and talking to the camera?
I tried to meet everyone where they are today. I talked to Irm Hermann on a stage in Berlin as she is still doing theater to this day. The backdrop for Volker Schlöndorff’s interview was a film set as he is still making great films today. And we met Hanna Schygulla as she was preparing a performance where she read early poems by Fassbinder. She was trying something new with that. During the performance, Schygulla painted the contour lines of an early photo of Fassbinder. We filmed the rehearsal. I was interested in remembering her director with her and in this very lively context.
Fassbinder was very outspoken (made me think of Kanye West) about what he thought was the quality of his films. Do you think that in our culture the idea of extreme modesty has damaged how artists perceive themselves?
Fassbinder simply made one film after the other. He never contented himself with waiting around until someone asked him to work. With a tremendous lust for life he seized every opportunity and never shied away from conflicts or scandals. That’s why he is – to this date – a very controversial figure in Germany. Due to his boldness, the quantity of his works, and the fact that he constantly reinvented himself, Fassbinder’s force as a filmmaker developed so quickly. I don’t believe that today’s society allows us to get what we want by being modest and humble. Today even less than ever before.
How did you settle on the structure you wanted to give the film?
It was clear to me from the beginning to work with the fragments that Fassbinder left us; to let him tell his own story through his work. There are so many autobiographical-tinted sequences in his films and texts. And Fassbinder, who - certainly not coincidentally – often played parts in his own films, cannot not be understood without looking at his work. Everything that makes him who he is is present in his films: fear and courage, trust and mistrust, tenderness and aggression, vanity and humbleness, desire and sadness. That’s what the initial idea was and that’s what the film is: a symbiosis oft he life and work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
We see footage of Rainer the day he died, can you comment on the importance of film as a medium to "capture time" and preserve historical moments?
The viewer can listen to and watch never seen before interviews with a young Fassbinder and unpublished passages from his early works as a writer – these are very touching. And I feel like they are important to understand a little bit more the human being within the artist. It also offers the opportunity to take something away for one’s own path. That also goes for the tragic footage toward the very end of his life.
What are your personal favorites by Fassbinder, why?
My favorite films are the ones that deal with questions that are still relevant to this day. The ones that demonstrate social power structures through the lives of the protagonists. The more provocative the better. For example the two-way interaction between terror and surveillance as seen in The Third Generation. The way in which fascism touches on so many aspects of our daily life as in The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lili Marleen and Lola. Fassbinder’s films on the topic of xenophobia are magnificent and still significant. Though I can’t explain exactly why, my absolute favorite is In a Year of 13 Moons.
For more information on the Kino Film Festival click here.
