Fassbinder’s understanding of the limitations and widening of spatial consciousness and emotional consciousness is not binary absolute. The confined space accumulated is for the explosion of open dynamic potential energy, which is caused by the unstable fate of the characters. Suddenly, the limitation and openness of space lies not in the physical environment, but in the flow of emotional consciousness.
In December 2015, the Berlin International Film Festival Organizing Committee announced that at the 66th Berlin International Film Festival, which opened in 2016, the Lifetime Achievement Award will be awarded to the 80-year-old German gold medal photographer Michael Bauhaus. Michael Bauhaus is Fassbinder’s long-term photography partner in the mid and late stages of film creation, from the dazzling baroque interior style of "Patina’s Tears" to the retro-futurism of "Between Days and Nights", Then to the iconic 360-degree tracking photography technology invented by "Marta", and the later popular "Maria Braun's Marriage", these photography that makes good use of moving lenses to express the emotions and psychological states of characters are all included. The result of the cooperation between House and Fassbinder.
"Fox" is the sixth film between Fassbinder and Bauhaus. Fassbender, the playground worker Fox, won a huge lottery prize after losing his job. The bankrupt middle class Eugen coveted Fox's wealth and stayed with Fox. Fox gave Eugen the greatest trust and did not hesitate to invest his wealth in Eugen's father's paper mill, buying a house and car for Eugen, and exhausting all his wealth in a very short time. In the end, Fox found that Eugen had never loved him at all, and desperately died after taking medicine in the subway station. The drama-like plot of the film does not seem to leave much room for photography, and the frequency of mobile photography is far less than that of previous works. Often the actors do not move, and the camera does not move. The accumulation of kinetic energy in the work mostly relies on sudden editing and the sliding shots in the dialogue. Corresponding to the film's theme "On the obstruction of love and being loved", photography plays more of a role in creating a sense of restraint in confined spaces. However, there is a development in the film that seems to go against the creation of this sense of restraint, and reconstructs a seemingly smooth mobile photography look and feel. This scene happened at the moment when Fox proposed to break up with Eugen. The bottom-born Fox finally couldn't fit the vanity and anxiety of middle class Eugen. He took the initiative to abandon this relationship. At the beginning of the scene, Eugen and Fox walked one after another on the rectangular path of the department store. The dialogue between the two mixed the complex emotions of instinct and individual experience. Fox walked behind Eugen, he always showed Unpredictable words and deeds oscillate between friendliness and rudeness, gentleness and aggression. Only when Eugen discusses investment in a paper mill will Fox lose his original initiative and initiative. Eugen asked Fox: "Do you really have any problem? Little idiot!", in order to paralyze Fox's anxiety about the status quo with a kind of false comfort in the form of a tranquilizer. We noticed that the camera was always in a distant perspective, the character moved forward slowly by the railing, and the camera followed the character in rare movements. The narrative and emotional potential accumulated in the previous 100 minutes is finally channeled here. However, this movement is still a breakpoint. Every time the camera moves to the corner of the rectangular path, it will stop. On the one hand, of course, it is because of the actual space. The problem of shooting restrictions, on the other hand, is a sign of movement loss. When Fox starts to move freely (relative freedom, the movement of the railing accompanied by the movement of the characters always reminds us that this is still a restricted space) movement, In the process of transforming potential energy into kinetic energy, it has encountered resistance from "society"-as Fox said, "all relationships will be tested by reality, daily life, occupation and habits." In the disintegration of the break, the loss needs to be stopped from time to time to trim the movement. What’s more interesting is that the finishing of this pause is done by the antique dealer Marx. Marx will not always appear in the trail of Fox and Eugen shopping malls, but he will definitely appear in the five corners of the camera pause. Place. Here, Marx acts as a disintegrating force. It is he who brought Fox into the rich gay community. It is also his secretive conspiracy about Eugen’s coveting Fox’s property. He can propose a relationship with Ou on Fox. After the breakup, Root hugged his waist to comfort him, and was able to abandon Fox's body after suicide in order to avoid trouble at the end of the film.
In the above rectangular space of the shopping mall, which is neither open nor narrow, the actors are walking, and the camera moves horizontally and deeply in a fixed space, but the restrained photography style of the whole film will not be due to these four minutes. The breakpoint moves and loses the sense of wholeness. The reason lies in Fassbinder’s comprehensive understanding of "restricted" and "open". The restriction and openness in his spatial awareness and emotional consciousness are not binary absolute, and the restricted space saved is for openness. The explosion of dynamic potential energy of, the explosion of dynamic potential energy is stopped abruptly due to the unstable fate of the characters. The limitation and openness of space is not in the physical environment, but in the flow of emotional consciousness.
The emotional source of "Fox" comes from Fassbender's real experience. Fox's prototype is a young lover in Fassbinder's real life-Amin. When Fassbender and Amin met, Amin worked as a butcher during the day and earned extra money in a bar at night. After the two were together, Fassbender began to help Amin with wealth, and Amin also completely relied on Fassbinder emotionally. Fassbinder started filming "Fox" in Marrakech and Munich in April and July 1974, and dedicated the film to "Amin and others". However, in reality, Fassbinder, who is in emotional demand, chooses to play the role of emotional contribution in the film, which shows that Fassbinder is aware of the anxiety in emotional relationships and the anxious object. He is not ruthless because of ignorance, but because of omniscience. He believes that emotional "limited" and "open" are often interchangeable, and sadism and masochism are essentially the same. When Fassbender argued with Amin, Fassbender would lock the key in the room, preventing the hapless Amin from entering the apartment for a whole week. In 1978, Fassbender took his new lover to Cannes to participate in the premiere of "Despair" at the film festival, but Amin did not go. On May 31, Fassbinder’s birthday, Amin sneaked into the apartment where the two of them lived together and swallowed a large amount of drugs to commit suicide. Amin’s body was discovered five days later, and Fassbender did not attend Amin’s funeral. The film commemorating Amin did not start until his death. Fassbinder, as usual, completed the creation of the movie script "Thirteen Moons" in a very short time, and started filming in July. This time Fassbinder was not only responsible for the screenwriting, director and editing He also served as the art director and photographer of this film.
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