Schijnheilig cinema, August 22nd: FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT

SUNDAY AUGUST 22 , at 21:30

FAUSTRECHT DER FREIHEIT
(FOX AND HIS FRIENDS/ FIST-FIGHT OF FREEDOM) 1975
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
123 minutes, In German with English subtitles. English introduction by Jeffrey Babcock.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder has long been considered the ‘enfant terrible’ of modern European cinema, a writer/director/actor who repeatedly has taken chances and because of his brutal honesty has succeeded in making a stream of astounding films. He was an expert at examining the psychology and sociology of modern life, and his analysis was never dull.

The translated title “Fist-fight to freedom,” describes rather bluntly the thrust of this spiraling drama. Fassbinder himself takes the starring role of Franz- a carnival sidekick thrown out of work when the cops close down a circus fairground. Introduced to a group of cultivated homosexuals he becomes involved with the upper-class Eugen who finds the naive, uneducated Franz easy prey. As a character, Fox is blinded by love; and although we know that he regrets his actions the moment he has taken them, he proceeds regardless… convinced that he’s doing the right thing for the person he loves. It is here that Fassbinder begins to expose the dark heart of his story: the idea of abuse in the name of love.

The story is partially autobiographical, inspired by Fassbinder’s own relationship with an illiterate butcher, but the director casts himself as the victim in the cinematic incarnation and turns his tormentor into a veritable vampire. It remains one of Fassbinder’s most affecting, accomplished, and personal films, and he delivers a beautifully wounded performance as the working-class Franz lost in a den of well-respected, cultured, upper-class wolves.