FREE ON CINEGEEK.DE Rainer Werner Fassbinder - Love Is Colder Than Death 

For a short while Fassbinder was the most famous non-American director in the USA - although the New German Cinema did not have the same status there as, say, the Nouvelle Vague. That was in the late 70s. In the 80s, no one was to take up this legacy; the veterans of the New German Cinema of the 70s are now only successful with their documentaries. And Fassbinder? He still influences American indie directors like Todd Haynes. And even Scorsese worked with Fassbinder's cameraman for a long time! And yet; in our video library, Godard and Antonioni are requested much more often than Fassbinder. And directors like Alexander Kluge or Werner Schroeter are requested once a year. At the most. For quite a while it was extremely difficult to complete Fassbinder's oeuvre on DVD. The Fassbinder boxes from England, which summarise his early work, were very helpful. In such a box you also find Love is Colder Than Death. In his early work, Fassbinder likes to try to look like American gangster films of the 40s. At least there are a lot of references. For Fassbinder, these references are helpful and probably intentional. Fassbinder came to film via an anti-theatre group. I think it was in Bremen (at some point I had to learn that for university...). Then he discovered Douglas Sirk and set out to make more accessible films. He wanted to film exactly the kind of melodramas Sirk did! In his films, true love and self-destruction always go hand in hand. A Fassbinder "love" relationship must be understood as a manipulative power struggle. Politically, Fassbinder saw himself as a radical leftist, but his films were conservative. Fassbinder's extreme pace of work was driven by cocaine abuse. And in his films he also found it difficult to look beyond his personal pathologies. Ultimately, he created a film world in which his own constraints became general conditions. That is why he may also be considered one of the very first for whom his own homosexuality was not a dirty secret. He openly declared that he was gay. And that in 1969! Finally, he also directed films with LGBT characters. But he was never a friend of positive images of any kind, which is why the gay and lesbian community did not exactly react positively to his work. In any case, Fassbinder treated his queer and homosexual relationships as darkly as he did everything else. His heterosexual relationships too, of course. Love Is Colder Than Death, his 1969 debut, attempts to subvert the classic Hollywood gangster films. The actors never disappear into their roles - they always PLAY. Everything seems superficial. For long stretches, the pimp Franz (Fassbinder), his friend Bruno (Ulli Lommel) and Franz's girlfriend Johanna (Hanna Schygulla) seem to hang out rather than act. They hang out in empty rooms. Like in a gallery. Franz and Bruno are urged to join the syndicate - and yet they spend more time shopping than committing crimes. Or they play pinball. Or they go for a walk. Fassbinder seems completely disinterested in the plot. The result is half an art film (even with shots by Jean-Marie Straub) and half a film noir. Quite boring, this mess. The misogynistic ambience doesn't help either. The last word is "whore".