Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Year Released: 1980
Rating: 4.0
Fassbinder's magnum opus - and one of the best films of the 1980's - digs deep into the source novel by Alfred Döblin to examine the German psyche following World War I - including its depravity, its depression and its political unrest - all through the eyes of a part pathetic, part monstrous ex-con named Franz Biberkopf (a great performance by Günter Lamprecht). Clocking in at 15 hours long, it requires a serious personal commitment and extensive attention, as Fassbinder does one of the most in-depth - and artistically inspired - examinations of a literary work possible (a point the late great Susan Sontag made), proving that film can compliment literature but it requires piercing analysis instead of the Cliff's Notes version we're so often accustomed to seeing (not that I want every film to be this long, mind you - I'd have to change hobbies) - it also stands to show that television (this was made for German TV) can be used cinematically, creating a lasting and profound impact within the viewer and granting one plenty of time to see all sides of multiple characters and how their lives intertwine. Fassbinder, for the most part, deals with the material in a (for him) straightforward manner, only truly indulging his penchant for wild excess with the stream-of-conscious Epilogue, in which Biberkopf eats out of a bowl while surrounded by rats, naked men get whipped, Janis Joplin and Leonard Cohen play on the soundtrack and a dizzying boxing match takes place between Biberkopf and the loathsome Reinhold (a brilliant Gottfried John) … among other transgressions. I probably stand alone in thinking Fassbinder never made an important picture following this; I'd argue he spent up his creative genius in one monumental achievement and collapsed two years thereafter due to exhaustion and drug abuse, a sad way to go for a man who - with France's JLG following closely behind - is, to me, the most enigmatic and difficult filmmaker to ever exist.
