By Tony Rayns (Sight & Sound, Winter 1974)
Translator: csh
The translation was first published in "Iris"
We recorded this interview at Rainer Werner Fassbender's apartment in Frankfurt. He had only recently come to the city to take over the Teater am Turm - an arrangement that abruptly fell through a few months later. Fassbender hated Frankfurt, especially his city council employers, and he vented his anger in a play called "Trash, the City and Death," which was immediately banned by the council. Later, Fassbender quit the Tower Theatre. In December 1974, the play was briefly shown at another theater in the city. In 1975, Daniel Schmid made it into a film called "Shadow of Angels," which also featured Fassbender.
Fassbender always needed a housekeeper to look after him, and in Frankfurt, Ursula Stratz played the role, former owner of Munich's "Operation Theater", which opened in 1967 The beginning belongs to Fassbender. Ms. Stratz brought some tea in an attempt to appease the indigested director. I knew that Fassbender was very fluent in English, so I nervously started the interview in English. But Fassbender interrupted me in German: "I don't understand a word." So, we started using German. The English here is translated by myself.
Reporter: When did you decide to work in film and theatre?
Fassbender: Very early, about nine years old. Never considered other possibilities.
Reporter: Did you start with drama?
Fassbender: No, I made two short films in 1965 and 1966. One of them stemmed from my fondness for Rohmer's Leo (1962), and the other was...a bit like Godard. But, back then every idiot was making movies. I felt an urgent need that I should work with a group. So I went into this little "underground" theatre in Munich, where I could still try something. Film is expensive after all...
My first drama was "Kazermacher". I was just writing at first because the publishers didn't want us to get the theater rights, they couldn't see any profit. When theaters close, what we do is "opposition theater." The police are in the theater, and they have all kinds of excuses, but mostly because it has become a political drama.
Reporter: How did you come back to the film industry?
Fassbender: Love is Colder than Death (1969) was made with almost no money. We got 10,000 marks from a collaborator and we ran out of it. Kazermacher (1969) was produced on credit. There wasn't a market for them in theaters at the time, but we could sell the TV rights, which paid off our debt, and the money that was left allowed us to make The God of Plague (1970).
These films are very dramatic, just as our plays are very cinematic. I think what I achieve with the actors in the theater can be tried again in the movies. You will find that you can learn something from one medium and apply it to another. However, I soon began to explore more purely cinematic work.
Reporter: Are you greatly influenced by American films?
Fassbender: Sometimes. Half of my early films were "related" to my discoveries in American cinema. In a way, I transplanted the spirit of American movies to the suburbs of Munich.
Other movies have basically nothing to do with America. They are all investigating the current situation in Germany: immigrant labor, the oppression of middle-class office workers, our own political situation as filmmakers. Beware of the Prostitutes (1970) explicitly explores this situation where we try to live and work as a group.
Reporter: Do you think these works are provocative?
Fassbender: Rather than provocation, it should be thought-provoking. I would have thought that if you put people in the face of the reality they are in, they will react.
I don't think about it that way anymore. I now think that the most important thing is to satisfy the audience and then to deal with the political content. First of all, you have to make films that are enticing, wonderful, that explore emotions or other similar themes…
Reporter: Like Samuel Fuller?
Fassbender: Pretty much. But what you have to know is why you made this film. In other words, you want to use the emotion you generate for a specific purpose. This is the preliminary stage of a political statement.
The important thing to learn from American movies is that you need to meet the entertainment needs and compromise on that. Our ideal is to make a movie as beautiful as the Americans, but we have to explore some other areas of the subject. I discovered this process mainly because of the work of Douglas Seck, or a film like Hitchcock's "Doubts" (1941). When you leave the theater, you feel that marriage is impossible.
Reporter: Is that why you prefer melodrama to realism?
Fassbender: I don't think melodrama is "unrealistic." Everyone wants to dramatize what's going on around them. Also, everyone has a bunch of anxiety, big or small, that they try to get rid of and avoid questioning themselves. The melodrama will give them a difficult problem.
We can cite Seck's "Bitter Rain Loves Spring Breeze" (1956) as an example: what happens on the screen, we cannot directly identify in life. Because it is so pure and unreal. But deep down inside of me, these things merged with my own reality and became a new reality. The only reality that matters is in the mind of the audience.
Reporter: However, your film style is very different from Sek.
Fassbender: Of course, because we didn't make movies in the same environment. At least half of his films are filled with the innocence of his bosses and studio heads. Whether more or less, we have never enjoyed such innocence. It's one of the great qualities of American cinema, and you'll hardly find it in European cinema. I long for some kind of innocence, but I don't see them.
However, there are big differences between my different works. The degree of stylization is proportional to the artificiality of the subject of the film. In this sense, "Lonely Heart" (1974) is much more closed than "Fear Eats the Soul" (1974). Because the theme of the film guides the character's direction, it does play a role. Both films have a very consistent attitude to the characters (I've been trying to give each character some sort of clear, understandable motivation these days), but the outcome of that attitude is largely dependent on the theme .
Reporter: Have you seen similar examples in other German works?
Fassbender: In other German directors, I don't really see these things that I've been talking about. They are completely different directors, and there are other possibilities in them. I did get a few opportunities that taught me a lot more than most. I do feel like I have a kinship with Volker Schlöndorff, who is somewhat similar to me in terms of his approach to movies and life.
Reporter: Why do you want to open a "joint stock company"?
Fassbender: The group has been renewing itself. I like to work with the same people. That way, there is a higher chance of agreement, otherwise you'll have to keep going back to where you started.
Reporter: Do you plan to make them "stars"?
Fassbender: For me, they are the stars.
Reporter: Do you also try to gather the same crew members?
Fassbender: Yes, but they're not as persistent as actors. They'll do a lot of TV work and they'll work for other directors, it's impossible to have that kind of continuity. But let's say, I've only used three photographers, and I check all the lenses myself.
Reporter: What about the artists?
Fassbender: I did it myself when I was making The Bitter Tears of Patina (1972). At other times, I'll have Kurt Raab do it. He played Harman in Yuli Rommel's Tenderness of the Wolf (1973). I would tell him everything I needed, every color, every composition was carefully considered.
Reporter: Will the actor's role in one film be related to his role in another film?
Fassbender: I've been experimenting with extreme changes over the years. The change between The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and The Bitter Tears of Bertina (1972) is already great. You can see this change all the time in the last few films: Hannah Schygulla in Lonely Heart, Margit Carstensen in Marta (1974), Brigitte Mira in Fear Eats the Soul and more. In the case of Hannah, each time we unearth all the elements of her own character and interpret them in a different way.
Reporter: Why do you sometimes produce original projects and sometimes adapt other people's texts?
Fassbender: If I find someone has a better story than my own, then I use it directly. The reason why I made "Lonely Heart" is because I feel that Fontana's attitude towards society has many similarities with mine. And I'm a German, and I make films for German audiences.
Reporter: However, works like "Four Seasons Merchant" are still universal...
Fassbender: Yes, almost everyone I know has experienced this kind of story. A man hopes that he can do something he has never done in his life. His education, circumstances and circumstances did not allow him to achieve his dreams.
Reporter: On the contrary, "The Bitter Tears of Bertina" may seem more private...
Fassbender: Oh, it's not very private. People can recognize its theme, and they do. Because it also explores a universal theme: everyone experiences pain in love and (naturally) wants something greater than the love they already have...Most people grieve because They can't really express their sadness.
Reporter: Was it originally a drama?
Fassbender: Yes, but I don't think it's a very dramatic movie. The problem is that the women in the film put themselves in a dramatic situation. You're going to use very long takes in this film, and that kind of take is so tied to the performance. We would consider these passages to be coherent for the actress. Only without being interrupted can she walk through it. This is the original vision that governs the structure of the film, which happens to stem from the original concept of drama.
Reporter: You said in the director's commentary track of "American Private" that when you first told the story of "Fear Eats the Soul," you didn't know about Seck's "Deep Locked Down" (1955). Did this discovery surprise you?
Fassbender: No, it's no surprise that Sek and I are in perfect harmony. Seck tells a lot of stories that I want to tell too.
("Fear Eats the Soul") is a similar story, the two films are the product of different circumstances. Seck tells some kind of fairy tale, and so do I, but the stories I tell come from everyday life. Seck had the courage to tell such a story simply. I probably don't believe I can do this simply.
But for years, I've wanted to shoot stories like this...I couldn't find the right actress until I met Brigitte Meera and I realized she could do it. This is a story about two people who are in almost the same situation and whose motivations to suppress themselves are basically the same.
Reporter: Why do you use that emphatically fade-out technique in the film?
Fassbender: I think they're a good fit, they're great for this kind of story. In fact, they just separate the different events and then emphasize the passage of time. In Lonely Heart, the same concept is pushed to the extreme.
Reporter: You starred in "Wolf Tenderness," a movie that was obviously influenced by you. How do you feel about it?
Fassbender: It's very brave. Before that, Yuli Rommel and I had worked together many times, and he obviously embraced some of my practices. But the way he works with actors is very different.
Reporter: Can you talk about the movie you just made?
Fassbender: That's The Fox and its Friends (1975). This is a film about capitalism. It tells the story of a lottery winner who eventually wipes out his fortune.
Reporter: Will you devote more of your work to the theatre?
Fassbender: Yeah, I'm trying to do an experiment with a group of people. In theatre, I am more interested in the work and the creative process. When making a film, I'm mainly interested in the final product. Audience groups in theaters are also different, smaller and more specialized.
Reporter: What about your TV series Eight Hours is Not a Day (1972)? The audience it faces is at the other extreme.
Fassbender: Well, I have to reiterate that point about movies. You know you're going to have 23 million viewers, and you've got to try and find some common ground for them to anchor the political context.
Reporter: Can you repeat this experience?
Fassbender: If I hadn't said it before, then I would have said it.
Reporter: Does this mean that you just want to try this format?
Fassbender: No, I think TV is the most important thing we can do.
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