I can’t seem to figure Fassbinder out. It’s comforting to know then that no one else, even those who knew him well, could really figure him out either. According to most, he was an enigmatic and energetic psychotic who lived a life marked by contradiction. Openly gay, he was married twice. Fervently opposed to oppression, he was a tyrant behind the camera. One thing is for certain. He had talent, and the potential to be a world class filmmaker. Fassbinder’s career is often lamented over by those wondering “what if.” Much has been made of his tragic death by drug overdose at the age of 37, before which he managed to produce 23 feature films. Though somewhat comparable to Kubrick in personal look and directorial autocracy, the pace at which the two produced pictures couldn’t be more different.
In his brief time as an auteur Fassbinder worked like an assembly line, cranking out pictures at a rate of more than two a year. It is a wonder then that some are as good as they are. Admittedly, prior to seeing his The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) I’d only seen three other Fassbinder’s, none of which I loved, all of which I’d liked. The 1001 list* prompted me to all of them, and this was the last of his films contained therein, but it won’t be the last of his that I see.
Widely considered his most successful release, Maria Braun is also the best I’ve seen. A fan and purveyor of melodrama, of which I’m not particularly fond, Fassbinder’s work can be painful to watch. His The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972) is heart-wrenching in its depiction of a scorned lover, and his Fox and His Friends (1975) would garner sympathy from a stone. One of his most celebrated works is Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974). An adaptation of his hero Douglas Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows (1956), Fassbinder made that picture in 14 days, so quickly that Ebert writes that he “leaves out all the highs and lows [of melodrama] and keeps only the quiet desperation in the middle.” In many ways Maria Braun is similar. The woman at the center of the film is minus the melodrama at least, but her desperation is direct and obvious.
Like many a war bride Maria has spent more nights thinking about her husband than those which they actually spent together. Like everyone else in post-war Germany she’s struggling to find food and keep a fire going, but in the entire two-hour runtime of the film she never once appears to lose hope. The closest she comes is when she decides to stop going to the train station to search for her husband amongst the returning survivors. This scene would be played heavy for emotion in another film, full of tears and an (Oscar clip) speech, but here it is handled lightly, with a simple visual cue. Maria doesn’t have time to cry, she has to hustle. Thinking on her feet she quickly turns a couple of packs of cigarettes into a dress fit for a job interview.
Working briefly as a hostess for American GIs in a makeshift bar, she hones her skills as a con artist and spin doctor. When her husband finally returns, he interrupts a sexual interlude between Maria and a customer that quickly leads to violence. After he’s sentenced to prison for the resulting crime, Maria continues her climb up the social later, seducing a businessman and convincing him to eventually give her a controlling interest in his company. The irony of the film is that through all of her affairs and exploits, Maria remains fiercely loyal to the love of her husband who she barely knows. This all plays out brilliantly, as her cold and exacting treatment of all the men in her life leads her to wealth and comfort. Though she is drawn back to the bombed out buildings of the city, she is determined not to expire freezing to death in one of them.
She gets her wish, so to speak, in what was apparently one of the most controversial endings in the history of the Cannes Film Festival. From what little I know about Fassbinder, I think he delighted in this controversy. Like his life, his ending was purposely enigmatic.
Grade: 3 Hats Off
P.S. Early performance here from the guy who played General Ourumov in GoldenEye (Gottfried John).
*The complete list in its current extended form is available at:
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