256 - Fox and His Friends, 1975, Germany. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Wednesday, September 13, 2017

256 - Fox and His Friends, 1975, Germany.  Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Everybody loves you when you're rich.

Fox!  The Speaking Head!

Fox is not rich.  Fox is a carnival actor.  A travelling side show.  A freak for hire.

Fox is not a freak in real life, but he plays one on the stage.

The Speaking Head!

But today, just as they are about to begin the show, as Klaus, the carnival barker, the owner-operator, is calling to people to Step Right Up, two policemen visit him on stage.

And they are not coming to see the peep show.

They are coming to arrest Klaus.  For tax evasion.

Fox is out of a job.  Fox is his nickname.  His real name is Franz.  Franz Bieberkopf.

No worries.  He will win the lottery.  He plays the lottery every week.  He is bound to win.  If he lives long enough.

Fox needs his lottery fix so badly he says he is going to die if the ticket office closes before he makes his purchase.

But what do you do when you lose your job and have no cash?

Fox knows exactly what to do.  Become a street walker.

Fox is picked up by a man named Max.  Fox calls him Uncle Max as a joke, and he says his name really is Max.  Good guess, Fox.

He asks Max to take him to the ticket office.  Hurry!  Before they close.  Max refuses to lend him ten marks though.

No worries.  Fox can con a florist.

They stop at the florist.  Fox goes in.  The florist looks him over.  Fox says he wants two dozen flowers for his sister--a dozen crimson, a dozen white.  The florist is pleased.

Fox leaves the florist with ten marks and no flowers.  He has conned the florist.  He makes it to the ticket office just as she is closing.  At first she refuses him.  He is late.  But Max uses his wiles to talk her into selling Fox a ticket.

Good thing too.

Because Fox really does win the lottery.  This time.  500,000 marks.

According to my quick and crude internet search, one German mark in 1975 equalled 2.48 U.S. dollars.  So 500,000 marks was $201,613.  Likewise, $201,613 in 1975 is worth $947,256.04, using the Consumer Price Index, in July, 2017, the latest month available on the site I used.

So Fox has won around a million dollars.

Fox is a working man.  A carnival worker.  Uneducated.  Without cultivation.  Uncultured.  And hardly able to read.

His new friends are upper-class.  And cultured.  They act and speak circles around him.

He embarrasses them.

Yet the moment he is into money, they know exactly how to play him.

Eugen takes him home.  Fox falls in love with Eugen.

Philip discovers it and is angry with Eugen--until Eugen tells Philip what he is doing.

Max talks Fox into investing into Eugen's company.  100,000 marks.

Eugene talks Fox into buying their own apartment and filling it with lavish furniture.  80,000 marks.

They buy clothes at Philip's clothing store.

He will give Klaus 30,000 marks when Klaus gets out of jail.

And the list goes on and on.

He will pay for everything.

Until he has nothing.

Until Eugen and Philip and Max and the others can enjoy all the money he won.

And all the money he gives them.

Fox was pure.

And for a time Fox was happy.

Are you happy?

Happy?  What's that?

It's when you're together with someone you can talk to.

Fox was happy because he had someone to talk to.  Someone to love.  Someone he thought loved him.

But they took him for all he was worth.

Until even in his death two boys strip his pockets bare.

As he lies alone on the dirty subway floor.