Sunday, December 9, 2018
537 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 3--Franz and Ernst, Germany, 1972. Dir. Warner Rainer Fassbinder.
Now that Kretzschmer is gone, Franz would like to put in for Foreman. He already works at the factory. He is a good worker. He has a good rapport with the men. And he has aspirations for leadership.
There are just a couple of problems.
One is that Franz has a hole in his head--or so he says--when it comes to Mathematics. Franz has taken the training to be a foreman, but he has not finished. In order to finish he still needs to take a written test. One that involves math. Such as how to set the machine to the correct angle to produce the right product.
Franz does not have confidence that he can pass. He has already botched his effort to create a prototype because he could not get the math right. In a memorable scene he tells Jochen and Marion over drinks about his fears, and somehow they convince him to push forward anyway.
The other problem is that the company has a policy of hiring foremen from outside the company. They have tried promoting people in the past and have found that it does not work out too well. So when Franz tells Mr. Gross of his ambition, Mr. Gross informs him that he will be hiring someone else. As a passing gesture, he tells Franz that if he can pass the Mathematics test, then Gross will put in a good word for him.
Perhaps you can see where this is going.
But alas, Gross hires a man from outside the company.
The men close ranks against him. Perhaps they can freeze him out. Make his life miserable. Get him to quit before he gets settled.
They play dumb. Put in a faulty order for too many grindstones. Submit the bad part to be inspected.
But the new foreman surprised them. In a manner similar to Maria's first meeting the children in The Sound of Music, he covers for them, protects them, takes the blame himself.
They are flabbergasted. Now what?
Time for a Deus ex Machina, a God in the Machine. This is the Latin term translated from the Greek, which Aristotle made popular in his Poetics. In Greek tragedy, whenever a plot got complicated and the protagonists needed saving, a Greek god could descend from the rafters, an actor in character lowered by a pulley, a machine, to solve the characters' (and the plot's) problems and make everything work out. In contemporary literature it may refer to a stroke of coincidence that is so great that things just work out the way people want them to. It makes for a good feel-good story when it is time for one.
Throughout his career, Fassbinder rarely uses Deus ex Machina. Normally, he is all for pessimism, skepticism, cynicism, naturalism, and determinism. For taking all the characters and cramming as much suffering and misery as one can imagine in a two-hour span. But not with this mini-series. No, things are going to work out just fine. It is time for a feel-good story, so let us employ the Deus ex Machina.
And regardless of what position you take about it, we suspect that you just might allow yourself to feel good. After all, this is entertainment. And it is being done at a high level.
Meanwhile, Grandma hilariously is going to seek out a surrogate grandma for her son-in-law Wolf.
And Jochen is going to be fed just a few too many Cabbage Rolls.
Yum.
* * * *
Management wants to fill the position from the outside.
You guys really live on the moon.
Seven glasses of Kolsch.
If you want to sabotage my parenting, fine. He's your son.
cabbage rolls
First he takes the stupid classes, and then that ship sails on him.
Workers who think for themselves. What more could one hope for?
We get the feeling that there is something more you hope for.
Sorry Fellas. It just wasn't meant to be.
We want to achieve something, so all risks are justified.
The wish is father to the thought.
Hey. How are you? Are you happy?
Is everything okay with your husband?
Mr. Miltenberger incorrectly calculated an angle for Mr. Schwin.
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