Love is Colder Than Death |
|
[Liebe ist kälter als der Tod]
Director Starring |
|
And Gods of the Plague [Götter der Pest] (1970) 
These early films, one sort of a sequel to the other, are strange delights. You can see Fassbinder beginning to develop his voice. As noted elsewhere, Love is Colder in particular reminded me strongly of Godard — I would even call it derivative of Godard rather than a successful homage, but it’s a neat atmosphere piece and play with form anyhow. The characters’ situations and “too cool” attitudes are all there, and long, challenging static shots that humorously take one out of the experience of watching a film, and then mercifully he sets the action in motion again in a lovably incomprehensible, noirish plot. When I watch this again, I will have to pay closer attention to the pacing. In retrospect, I have a hunch it may have been quite effective indeed. It’s more Godard than Fassbinder and doesn’t quite succeed as either, but it held my interest throughout, which is more than I can say for Gods of the Plague.
Gods of the Plague has more Fassbinder in it. It’s a similar story but here now are more abstracted gazes, more theatricality, more playing up of the power structures between the characters. It’s all there in incipient form but nothing is realized to its potential. It’s just interesting to recognize the little things — play with mirrors, say, that he would go nuts with later. Aside from that, it’s really a muddled mess that doesn’t manage to say much even fragmentarily. But again I feel this will be ripe for a rewatch in a few months or a year. Sometimes this sort of thing comes together more clearly on further examination… and if it doesn’t, it’s an interesting marker in Fassbinder’s progression as an artist, and that’s really enough for a solid watch in my opinion.
)
)
)
)
)
)
)
1 Comment »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URILeave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed:<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>
[...] 1982 Veronika Voss 1981 Lola 1979 The Marriage of Maria Braun 1978 Despair 1978 In a Year of 13 Moons 1976 Satan’s Brew 1975 Angst vor der Angst 1975 Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven 1974 Ali: Fear Eats the Soul 1974 Effi Briest Martha 1972 The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant 1972 The Merchant of Four Seasons 1971 Beware of a Holy Whore 1971 Rio Das Mortes 1971 Whity 1970 Gods of the Plague 1969 Lover is Colder Than Death [...]
Pingback by The Life Cinematic » Rainer Werner Fassbinder — 24 December 2007 @ 24 December 2007