Film posters & homages
Presented by the Goethe-Institut & TIFF
with EUFFTO
German film critic Wolfram Schütte once wrote that "with Fassbinder’s death in 1982 the heart of the New German Film stopped beating." Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982) was undeniably one of the most prolific directors of all time. Over the short span of his career, which lasted only from 1968 to 1982, he directed 44 films. However, his work came to a halt in 1982 when Fassbinder died of a drug overdose at the age of 37.
Created by the Goethe-Institut and the Fassbinder Foundation, the exhibition “Fassbinder 1945-1982” shows German Fassbinder film posters and statements from prominent international directors paying homage to the seminal New German Cinema director and his influence on their works.
Born in Bavaria shortly after the end of World War II, Fassbinder spent a lot of time in the cinema, and it was from there that he developed his passion for films. After graduating from high school in 1964, Fassbinder took up many different jobs while studying at drama school. He also tried but failed to get into film school. He was very active, however, in Munich’s underground theatre scene, and it didn’t take him long to jump into the film scene and to finish his debut “Love is Colder than Death” (1969), which screens in the TIFF Fassbinder Retrospective.
Fassbinder’s œuvre encompassed widely different topics, from harsh social critique or melodramatic love stories to ambitious literary adaptations. One constant was that he remained critical in his portrayal of society and its underdogs. 1978 saw a turning point in Fassbinder’s career when he started working on the first film in his post-war West German trilogy, “The Marriage of Maria Braun”. The depiction of a war widow not only became Fassbinder’s signature film, but also put lead actress Hanna Schygulla to the height of her career.
Film posters:
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun)
Ali: Fear eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf)
Veronika Voss (Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss)
Lola
Martha
Lili Marleen
Homages by:
Akin, Fatih (Germany/Turkey)
Egoyan, Atom (Canada)
Kaurismäki, Aki (Finland)
Leigh, Mike (Britain)
Ozon, François (France)
Park, Chan-Wook (South Korea)
and others
The Goethe-Institut is the Presenting Partner of TIFF’s “Imitations of Life: The Films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder” and “All That Heaven Allows: Fassbinder's Favourites” this fall.
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