Co-presented with Anthology Film Archives

German actor Volker Spengler (1939–2020) is known to film audiences in North America primarily as part of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s extraordinary stock company of actors, with whom he worked repeatedly. Spengler turned in numerous memorable performances for Fassbinder, but none more legendary than his heartbreaking turn as Elvira, the transgender protagonist of In a Year of 13 Moons (1978), which is both Spengler’s most prominent starring role and one of the greatest performances by any actor in Fassbinder’s body of work.

Spengler’s career, however, extended far beyond his collaborations with Fassbinder. He was one of the giants of German cinema and theater, thanks in part to his roles in films by Christoph Schlingensief (a filmmaker, playwright, and author who was in many ways Fassbinder’s successor, and with whom Spengler worked every bit as closely), Volker Schlöndorff, Hans-Christof Stenzel, and others, but perhaps above all for his work on the stage. He appeared in countless productions at the country’s most important theaters—the Volksbühne and the Berliner Ensemble, as well as Pina Bausch’s Tanztheater—and worked with a who’s who of German theatrical luminaries including Schlingensief, Heiner Müller, René Pollesch, Frank Castorf, and others.

Just months before Spengler died in 2020, filmmaker Hans Broich convened a gathering of some of Spengler’s friends and colleagues, at one of his regular haunts, the Berlin bar Diener Tattersall. The result, Highfalutin (2021), is a highly unusual filmic portrait that eschews the conventional technique of narrating an artist’s life via isolated talking heads, film clips, and other archival material. Instead, Broich conducts something like a cinematic equivalent of sitting shiva (albeit prior to Spengler’s death), in which a vibrant, organic portrait of the artist is formed through the anecdotes, memories, and insights of those who knew him best.

Film Program:

Hans Broich, Highfalutin
(2021, 96 min., DCP)
Filmmaker in person!

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Satan’s Brew
(1976, 113 min., 35 mm)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, In a Year of 13 Moons
(1978, 124 min., 35mm to DCP)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, The Third Generation
(1979, 110 min., 35mm to DCP)

Christoph Schlingensief, Sheep in Wales
(1988, 64 min., 16mm to DCP)

Christoph Schlingensief, The 120 Days of Bottrop
(1997, 60 min., 16mm to DCP)

Claude-Oliver Rudolph, The Fat Rebel
(1987, 45 min. (excerpt), 16mm to DCP)