German film industry was in the dumps for quite a while (since WWII) until maverick filmmakers like Fassbinder, Werner Herzog, Volker Schlöndorff and Wim Wenders brought it back onto its feet starting in the late 60's and then of course the subsequent decade is considered the most important in German cinema history. The "New Wave" truly arrived. But, with all due respect to Herzog, Schlöndorff, and Wenders (all still active), no one contributed more than Fassbinder.

Fassbinder was born in a small town in Baravia in 1942. Unlike his associates of the new wave, he started in theater - as an actor. He made his first feature in 1969 (Love Is Colder Than Death) and he went to make 41 films while he worked as an actor in about 25 other. Fassbinder also worked as a cameraman, composer, designer, editor, producer and theater manager.

The Great ones know that they're great. Call that whatever you want but it's a fact Fassbinder knew. He was also a provocateur, no doubt about it and he didn't shy away from any controversy. Yes, he was an alcoholic, a drug and a sex addict but no one cared more for the social, political, and most importantly, psychological challenges faced by his people post WWII and time and time again he found a way to incorporate that into his films (some morons even called that anti-Semitism).

Fassbinder loved Douglas Sirk (another key figure theatrically speaking would be Jean-Marie Straub) . In The Anarchy of the Imagination (I highly recommend it), which is a collection of interviews, essays, and other notes by the man himself; he states, " Yes, actually ever since I saw his films and tried to write about them, Sirk's been in everything I've done. Not Sirk himself, but what I've learned from his work. Sirk told me what the studio bosses in Hollywood told him: a film has to over in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, in Okinawa, and in Chicago - just try to think what the common denominator might be for people in all those places. To Sirk, something still mattered that most people in Hollywood don't care about anymore: make sure his work was in tune with himself, with his own personality, that is, not just produced 'for the public', like in those films in Germany that none of us like: those sex and entertainment films that the producers think the public likes, but they don't like themselves." Sound familiar!

Here's what Sirk said about Fassbinder, "Before I met Rainer I sensed something, and then when I saw him I recognized, with that eye every filmmaker has to have, a personality of great originality."

French filmmaker François Ozon paid tribute to Fassbinder by using his play (which Fassbinder wrote when he was 19!) into his masterful Water Drops On Burning Rocks. The theatrical/melodramatic aspects apparent in his other films are also an influence of the great man.

The Marriage of Maria Braun, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and Katzelmacher are 3 of the finest films made in Germany or in any other country for the last half-century. Some of his others aren't far behind. Katzelmacher is silent and fragmented, much like the people it depicts. Using long takes, Fassbinder investigates the hollow lives of a few as they go through their daily rituals. The interracial couple of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul provoked the people around them and that was what Fassbinder was about yet he still managed to portray the humanity of the situation and fragility of the relationship. The Marriage of Maria Braun, is considered by many as his crowning achievement and one can see why. Taking place right after the war, the film depicts yet critiques the immorality in his people due to the economic struggles they have to endure. True love cannot survive in a world like this.

Fassbinder will live forever.

(Dammit wpqx! I planned on reviewing a film today)