535 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 1--Jochen and Marion, Germany, 1972. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Friday, December 7, 2018

535 - Eight Hours Don't Make a Day, Part 1--Jochen and Marion, Germany, 1972.  Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Eight Hours Don't Make a Day.
A Family Series.
Part 1--Jochen amd Marion.

Maybe all good hearts are sick.

Jochen will wonder this about his supervisor, the foreman Fritz Kretzschmer.

Kretzschmer had a good heart.  A sick heart but a good heart.  His blood pump was sick.  His soul was good.

And Fassbinder seems to single out the good hearts in this, his first foray into television.

It is, as it says, a Family Series, a chamber drama.  With a more optimistic outlook and a bit of hope.

Our protagonist Jochen is presented as a good man.  Loving of his grandmother.  Loyal to his workmates.  Faithful to his family.  And from the outset he will be rewarded with love at first sight.  With a good woman.  Who will be good to him.  And the relationship between the two of them will be a joy to watch.

Fassbinder shows us the foils as well.

Harald, the cruel brother-in-law, married to Jochen's sister Monika.

Aunt Klara, the dour sister of Jochen's mother Kathe and other daughter of Grandma Kruger.

And Volkmar Gross, the factory boss where Jochen works.  He pushes performance quotas to human limits.  To keep costs down.  To keep efficiency high.

Rainer Hauer plays boss Gross fairly.  He does not make him out to be sniveling, but on the contrary, he is polite towards his employees.  He just happens to demand a lot from them and make decisions that are in the best interest of the company rather than them.

Jochen works at a factory machining parts for other machines.

He also lives at home.  With his father Wolf, his mother Kathe, and his grandmother "Oma" Kruger.

Things are a bit crowded in the home.  Grandmother is a free spirit, like Jochen, but she must navigate the crowded spaces that belong to someone else, namely, her son-in-law Wolf.

One of the great scenes of this episode involves that challenge.  In a tightly choreographed physical farce, Grandma attempts to enter their only bathroom, first waiting for Jochen, and then getting sneakily beat out by Wolf.  Grandma is outside the bathroom trying to get in.  She complains to her daughter and claims Kathe sides with her husband.  Then she gets Wolf back so that he is outside the bathroom trying to get in.  He complains to his wife and claims Kathe sides with her mother.

The camera glides back and forth between the hallway and the kitchen at one end, as Grandma and Wolf move back and forth between the hallway and the kitchen at the other end.  The action also dips into Jochen's bedroom.  It is a small, humorous, and effective Noises Off kind of moment.

Today is Grandma's birthday.  She turns 60.  And they are here for her.  So she would like things to go well.

They are indulging in a bottle of Napoleon Schaumwein.  Champagne.  Birthday bubbly.

Wolf and Kathe and Grandmother Kruger sit around the table, along with Jochen's sister Monika, her husband Harald, their daughter Sylvia, Aunt Klara, and Jochen's best friend Manfred Muller, whom Sylvia refers to as "Uncle Manfred."

Jochen walks by holding the champagne bottle.

He pops the cork and it explodes onto Aunt Klara's new dress.  The one she just bought yesterday for 8 marks 40.  She stands and slaps the tall Jochen.

My good dress!

He responds: The good bubbly!  One doesn't do that, Aunt Klara.

Both Grandma and Wolf tease her.

Sylvia laughs at their jokes and her father Harald slaps her.

Forty seconds in and already two slaps.  We are in a Fassbinder film.

Sylvia leaves the room.  Aunt Klara sides with Harald.  "A little slap has never harmed anyone."  And we can see that they have their own bond as outsiders in this family.  Not relaxed as the others are.  Uptight.

Manfred goes to check on Sylvia.  She calls him "Uncle Manfred."  Hint One.  She says she loves him better than her own father.  Hint Two.  He tells her she should not say that, as it will make her father sad.  However, when he emerges from the room, he shares a private wink across the room with Monika.  Hint Three.  And we wonder if the seeds of a future relationship have already been planted.  We will learn later that the pretty brown-eyed Monika is afraid of the dumpy and irritable Harald.  We do not know if there is anything to these three hints.  They might not be hints at all.  Monika might never go with Manfred.  But she is not happy with Harald.

Grandma puts on her pink wig.  She has Jochen put on a record, and she stands and dances with him.  Then she has Harald and Klara, right for each other, dance together.  Wolf stands to give a toast but forgets his words and feels humiliated.

Grandma goes to the kitchen to find another bottle of wine--and most likely to get out of the room.

Then she sends Jochen on an errand that will change his life.

Forever.

Go get two more bottles of bubbly.  He goes to the automat.  To get the bubbly.  And when he arrives he meets Marion.  Who is trying to get pickles.  He teases her that she must be pregnant.  Because pregnant women want pickles at 9:30 at night.

His face lights up when he learns that she is not pregnant.  And not attached to anyone.

They "argue" and make up, exchanging banter, and both know what they are doing.

They fall for each other.  Immediately.  And he takes her home to introduce her to the family.

He forgot the bubbly but at least he brought home some pickles.

And a new girlfriend.

Grandma gets it.  Not knowing Marion, she immediately calls her Gabi and welcomes her into the home.  She tells the disapproving Aunt Klara that she asked Gabi to get the pickles for her.

Jochen and Marion will work towards becoming boyfriend and girlfriend.

Their relationship will go through bumps along the way but get stronger.

She will encourage him and help him with ideas for how to solve problems at the factory.

The mini-series was filmed in 16mm color by Fassbinder mainstay Dietrich Lohmann.  He keeps the camera mostly still, except for the occasional crash zoom to a character's extreme close-up--a Fassbinder staple.  We often look at faces, and other body parts, through other objects, such as the plastic flowers that cover the table.

There are gorgeous romantic shots of Jochen and Marion in the field (with plastic flowers, but we do not think about that in real time) and in the home.

Look what Fassbinder can do when he has money and the restraints of assignment.

Gottfried John, who plays Jochen is tall and large and gangly, with long limbs and large hands and a large face.  As he dances with his Grandma, his legs seem to go on forever.  One imagines him as Richard Kiel playing Jaws in the James Bond Series.  Then one discovers that twenty-three years after this show John did in fact play a Bond villain, as Colonel Ourumov in Goldeneye (1995).

Although Fassbinder uses this series to deliver his economic agenda, he does so in a humanizing way, and he seems, for a moment, to have a positive and hopeful outlook on life.  Perhaps he tapered his feelings in this work-for-hire for a wide television audience.

And he affirms fidelity in relationships.

Imagine in what other Fassbinder film do you expect to hear one person say to another, without irony--

I love you from here to the North Pole.

And mean it.


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But I send you forth into my vineyards as laborers.  Go and do what I have instructed you to do.  You shall then receive your wages.

The Apostle Paul proclaimed, in his First Epistle to Timothy, that the laborer is worthy of his wage.

Lord, our God, give him eternal peace, and let eternal light shine upon him.  Let him rest in your peace.  Amen.

May God's blessing fill your soul.  The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  May the Lord eternal bring joy to your heart and grant you peace.  You are dust, and to dust you shall return.  Though the Lord, you shall rise to eternal life.  Be marked with the sign of the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Under this sign he has delivered you.  Amen.

These are the words of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.  Written by him.  Spoken by the priest who lays to rest a foreman caught in the middle of a power struggle at the factory where Jochen Epp works.

Jochen has contributed to the struggle.  Partly by inventing a new device which makes their work more efficient and will enable them to meet their quota ahead of schedule.  And partly by participating in a strike-threat that has restored the performance bonuses they were originally promised but which were going to be eliminated upon the implementation of his invention.  Jochen himself was initially rewarded a 1,560-mark bonus for his invention--which he immediately spent on a night out with his workmates--but this in turn cost the others their 1,400-mark performance bonus--which initially turned Jochen into the scapegoat.

The problem with the strike-threat is that it is not a work stoppage but the actual destruction of company property with an adverse material effect on their bottom line.  Fassbinder has Marion refer to the elimination of their bonuses as "immoral," but he does not treat the expensive scrapping of material as unethical.


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(The deer in the painting is spewing river water into Aunt Klara's ear.)

Grandma Kruger (Luise Ullrich)
sister Monika (Renate Roland)
brother-in-law Harald (Kurt Raab)
father Wolf Epp (Wolfried Lier)
mother Kathe Epp (Anita Bucher)
aunt Klara (Christine Oesterlein)
"uncle" Manfred Muller (Wolfgang Zerlett)

A child should be able to laugh.
   But not at adults.
Then what else does she have to laugh at?

There's many a slip twixt cup and lip.

You see?  That's what people die of.  Of not being able to do what they want to do. - Grandma.

And I love you from here to the North Pole.

Speeches are really just for the dead.

Everyone loves to hear something nice.

That was a beautiful speech.  There were so many things I could imagine that you wanted to say.

We have to drink to that.

It seems women do rule the world after all.

For today is a day full of smiles and joy.  Even if you have no clue what joy is, Klara.

534 - Beware of a Holy Whore, Germany, 1971. Dir. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

Thursday, December 6, 2018

534 - Beware of a Holy Whore, Germany, 1971.  Dir. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

Hochmut Kommt vor dem Fall
Pride goes before a fall.

And I say to you that I am weary to death of depicting humanity without partaking of humanity. - Thomas Mann.

You know, the only thing I accept is despair. - Sascha, the Production Manager.  Played by Fassbinder.

If I can't smash something, I might as well be dead. - Jeff, the Director.  Played by Lou Castel.

Sometimes I could kill you; sometimes I could tear your clothes off. - Manfred, the Producer.  Played by Karl Scheydt.


In Fellini's 8 1/2 (1963), Marcello Mastroianni's character Guido, a director, cannot make a film because of internal angst and marital problems.

In Godard's Contempt (1963), Michel Picoli's character Paul Javal, a screenwriter, cannot write a film because of internal angst and marital problems.

In Antonioni's film Identification of a Woman (1982), Tomas Millan's character Niccolo, a director, cannot make a film because he is still searching for the right woman to star in it.  And to be his muse to inspire him.

In Werner Rainer Fassbinder's film Beware of the Holy Whore (1971), Lou Castel's character Jeff, a director, Karl Sheydt's character Manfred, the producer, and Fassbinder's character Sascha, the production manager, cannot make the film because they have no MONEY.

Fassbinder cuts to the chase.

Writer's block?  What writer's block?  I can make films as fast as I can breathe.  Now if only I could breathe faster.  The only thing that stops a film from getting made is good old-fashioned money.

This is not to say that the director Jeff is without internal angst and marital problems.  Indeed, he has more of that than the other three combined.  It is just that personal problems are not going to get in the way of his making his movie.

Money will.

And politics might.

And the stupidity of others--according to Jeff--may.

But it will not be because of him.

He has shown up, by helicopter in fact, to the coast of Spain, and he knows exactly what he wants.  And he has the temerity to yell at people to get it.  Or do whatever else it takes.

Fassbinder fans can see that he is having fun at his own expense.  Making fun of his own persona.  And the events of the previous film shoot for Whity.  Apparently, there was some drama.

At least Fassbinder knows just what to do with drama:  Put it into your next feature film.

This is not a movie about making a movie.  This is a movie about waiting around waiting to make a movie.

At 1:40.51 of our movie, they finally film their first take.  An extra, playing a butler, walks down the stairs and opens the door.  Eddie Constantine enters with a gun drawn.  The woman appears at the top of the stairs.  Constantine marches up the stairs.  He strikes the woman on the back of the head.  She falls forward.  He stands.  The statue of St. Francis stands behind them in the corner, watching over the murder.  We hear a woman singing opera music.  We cannot hear but can tell that they call cut.  The woman stands up delightedly and hugs and kisses him.

It's going to be wonderful.

He has rediscovered something that has been forgotten.  Time.

The director slowly looks up

I guess I won't be content until I know he's been completely destroyed.


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Wee Willy the Gangster.

Goofy wants to be a children's nurse.

It must have been a shock for the poor little girl to find out she's a crook.

When I came back from a high once, I knew what it was like in the womb.

The oldest form of life is socialism.

533 - The American Soldier, Germany, 1970. Dr. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

533 - The American Soldier, Germany, 1970.  Dr. Werner Rainer Fassbinder.

There was an elephant in Belgium.  Everyone loved it, especially the kids.  But it became quieter and quieter.  And one day, it attacked its keeper.  It trampled him to death and smashed up the elephant house.  It broke through an iron door and trumpeted terribly.  The police came, and the fire department, and shot the elephant dead.  The vet said it had been lonely.

Richard von Rezori is talking to Rosa von Praunheim.

Or to put it more simply, Ricky is talking to Rosa as they stroll down a gravel path along the lake.

Maybe it is one of these lakes: Speichersee, Ammersee, Worthersee, Pilsensee Fischbach, Starnberger See.

They are in Munich.

And he is sharing his heart with her.

Ricky wears a gray fedora with a black band, a cream-colored double-breasted suit with a white shirt and a colored tie, with creased slacks, folded cuffs, and black shoes.

Rosa wears a ground-length floral-print dress.  Her blonde hair covers her sleeved shoulders.  She is barefoot.

The sage grass ruffles in the breeze.  Dead sapling stumps thrust up from the water, cut off before reaching their prime.  A moth flits behind them.

He walks with his toes pointed out, his arms at his side, his back erect but his shoulders slumped, his head tilted down.  His brim covers his eyes.

She walks as if one with the earth, her feet used to the gravel, lifting them for the stalks.  She pulls at a stem in her hands.  Until she is done with it and tosses it away and picks another one.

She looks down and up and out and back.  She observes the trail and the tall grass and the water and the horizon.  And the stem in her hands.

He observes nothing but the ground in front of him as he inhabits his story.

And their relationship.

This is the most important moment of his life, and the one in which it will change, if it will change.

Everything is on the line.

He asks her to come to Japan with him.

She says, Yes.

He says Japan is beautiful.  He says they will meet on Friday at the station.

The Hauptbahnhof.

She finally turns and looks at him.  And says, Okay.

We can see that Ricky means it.  And that he loves her.

And that he intends to take her to Japan.  And to start a new life.  Away from Munich.  And the rest of Germany.  And America.  And Vietnam.

Maybe he discovered Japan when he was in Vietnam.  Maybe it represented the one place where he could take a woman, if he ever were to love a woman, to get away from the only life he knows.

As a killer.

It is clear the story that Ricky tells to Rosa, the one about the elephant, is about himself.  That he is a wild animal.  That he is loved.  Or was loved.  By everyone.  Especially the kids.  But got lonely.

Because maybe actually he was not loved by absolutely everyone.  Maybe he was not loved by at least one person.  His father.  The American.  The American soldier.  The true American soldier.  Who met Ricky's mother while in Germany and then returned home.  And left him.

Alone.

He seems to want to share this story with her.  About the elephant.  Before it is too late.

Before the police have to come.  And the fire department.  And shoot him dead.

If only someone can love him.  And help him no longer to be lonely.  Then maybe he can escape this caged life and the death that will come of it.

If only.

It is too bad that they are entangled in this web already.  That she is the girlfriend of Ricky's boss.  The man who hired him to be a contract killer.  The man who is the leader of the corrupt cops.  Who won at poker in the beginning of the movie, and who sent his own girlfriend to the killer when he first came to town, simply so that the killer could have a girl that the cop could trust.  So that if he blabbed his mouth to the girl, it would not be a stranger who might then go and tell the police.

Or maybe what is really too bad is that the corrupt cop, Ricky's boss, Rosa's boyfriend, has to walk in on her while she is packing for the station.  And ask her what she is doing.  And demand to know the answer.  So that she is forced to say, "I'm leaving you."  And that she likes him.  The killer?  Yes.

So that the corrupt cop gives his employee Ricky one last job to do.  The name and address of which is someone Ricky does not recognize.  Until he arrives at the address.  And is greeted at the door by someone he never expected.  And enters and sits on the couch, stalling, to orient himself to his new situation.

He looks around.

He realizes it.

He resigns himself.

He drinks straight from his bottle of Ballentine's to steel himself.

Is this your apartment?

Yes.

Are you _____?

Yes.

She comes to him.  Sits.  Looks him in the eyes.  Says his name.  Her face flush with love.  As if to ask, What is going on?

He fixes his face.  Removes all flush.  Hides behind his mask.

She stands.  Confused.  Walks around behind him.  Looks back.  He rationalizes.  Takes a another swig.  No.  A deep drink.

He stands.  Walks around.  Approaches her.  She goes to him.  Reaches up to him.  Takes his cheeks in her hands.  Kisses him.

He kisses her.

Retrieves his gun from his breast pocket.

Does his job.

He drives his 1962 Chevy Impala to the pay phone on the wet cobbled streets.  The man tailing him parks behind him.  Ricky places a phone call.  Talks to his friend Franz.  Franz Walsch.  Yes, that Franz.  The character who has been in every one of Fassbinder's movies so far.  Played twice by Harry Baer.  And twice now by Fassbinder himself.  Ricky tells him he will be leaving from the train station tonight.  That there might be trouble.  And that he would like Franz to meet him there in about an hour to help him.  Ricky exits the phone booth, gets in his Impala, and drives away.

The man tailing Ricky calls Ricky's mother.  Tells her what he overheard.  Ricky will be leaving from the train station tonight.  In about an hour.  And she might want to meet him there in order to help him.  The man tailing Ricky was not hired by the corrupt cop, but by Ricky's mother herself.  She loves him.  She wants to help him.

If there is love in this movie, or the appeal for it, then it is in these moments.  The rest of the time it is hidden.  Behind layers of toughness and affectation.  Laughing.  Mocking.  Violence.  And open cruelty.

People treat one another in shockingly brutal ways.

Sometimes for hire.

Sometimes for pleasure.

On the surface, Fassbinder is celebrating the American crime dramas of the 1930s and 40s.  As they were repurposed by the French New Wave of the early 1960s.  And now, in the early 1970s, this arbiter of the New German Cinema is making something uniquely German.

While one could go through and identify the many allusions in this film to its film noir predecessors, it also stands separately from them and becomes something different.  Fassbinder is more influenced by Jean-Luc Godard than the American directors, and he subverts the crime drama genre--on the one hand pushing audaciously beyond the bounds any American film might have observed, even if it had been without the Hays code, and on the other hand moving into self-aware parody.

It is Fassbinder's fourth film, and his cinematographer Dietrich Lohmann has found his stride.  The compositions and lighting are sophisticated and artful.  And the casting is the best he has had so far.  It is nice to see in a Fassbinder picture a suit worn by a man and not a boy.  Speaking of which, our boy, Ulli Lommel, who played, read played, Bruno in Fassbinder's first film Love is Colder than Death (1969), does return here as Zigeuner, the gypsy, in a fascinating smaller supporting role.  Margarethe von Trotta also returns, this time as Zimmermadchen, a Chambermaid who serves Ricky at the hotel, and who delivers her own story towards the camera while strangely sitting on the bed inhabited by Ricky and Rosa.

This is not a mainstream movie by any means, and Fassbinder's continued expression of violence towards women comes across as troubling, especially in light of today's sensibilities.  But it is also the most advanced display so far of his rapidly developing gifts.

As he has now released four films.  In 16 months.

And one quietly wonders if in Ricky, who was speaking lines written by Fassbinder, that perhaps Fassbinder was speaking of himself.  His feeling like an elephant.  Who was loved.  But who destroyed.  And who was ultimately killed.

Because he was lonely.

532 - Gods of the Plague, Germany, 1970. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Tuesday, December 3, 2018

532 - Gods of the Plague, Germany, 1970.  Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

We herewith commit your body, Franz Walsch, to consecrated earth,
For from dust you come and to dust you shall return.
May the Day of Judgment hold no horrors for you.
Therefore, let us pray for his poor soul that it may be cleansed in purgatory,
For the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who leads the lost sheep back to the way of God
and cleanses us of all our sins.  Amen.

Johanna Reiher stands in the foreground.

Marguerethe stands in the background, next to a third woman in mourning.

Three crosses rise from large tombstones, one above each of the women's heads.

Marguerethe, the brunette with sensible straight hair, stands in repose and grieves internally.

Johanna, the blonde with big hair, weeps openly.

I loved him so much!

That is quite a statement since she had told the police officer when and where he would be holding up the supermarket.  So that the police could be there waiting for him when he arrived.

But then this film is a kind of sequel to Fassbinder's first film, Love is Colder than Death (1969), and as such it is a continuation of Fassbinder's appropriation of Godard's Breathless (1960).

In Love is Colder than Death, Franz Walsch was being interrogated by the police for two murders.  He was part of a threesome along with Johanna and Bruno.  When Johanna grew jealous of Bruno and contributed to his getting killed at the botched grocery hold-up, she told Franz in the get-away car that she called the police.

Now in Gods of the Plague there has been another threesome at another botched grocery hold-up, again because Johanna grew jealous and tipped off the police.

But this time she is not a part of the threesome.  So she is even more jealous.

How did we get here?

Stadelheim Prison.  Munich.

Franz Walsch is released from prison.

Take care, kid.
   Yeah.
See you next time around.
   There won't be a next time for me.

That statement would be known as foreshadowing.

0:56 - 1:35 - Tracking Shot.  Franz walks past the brick wall.

Franz enters a cafe, orders a coffee, and asks to use the phone.  The Cafe Owner places a phone on the counter and goes to make his coffee.  She watches him with longing.

The espresso machine arm moves up as a correlative expression of the arousal in her eyes.

Her profile fills the left side of the screen in an extreme close-up.  He stands behind the counter on the right side of the screen talking on the phone.  Single vanishing point perspective.

Fassbinder has more money with his third film, and his camera work and production values show it.  He is using the same cinematographer, Dietrich Lohmann, and Dietrich Lohmann is getting better.  And probably has more gear with which to work.  There will be plenty of perspective in this film.

He asks an employer over the phone if Johanna Reiher still works there.  Just released from prison and she is the first person he calls.  He reads them this number to call back when they get her.  63 64 07.  (What?)  07.  Then he hangs up and waits.

He puts money in the jukebox and orders up a song.

He puts money in a slot machine and starts it.  But he sees the Cafe Owner and walks away before the slot machine settles on its numbers.  It produces a WIN.  20-80-80, 80-80-20.  In diagonal cross section.  But he is not there to see it.

(Harry Baer wrote in 2007 that they filmed 76 takes until the slot machine gave them the results they wanted.)

The Cafe Owner dances with Franz to Ray Charles singing "Here We Go Again."

And if you watch the film again, you might think that this is the best shot at love he is going to get.  This slow dance with a stranger.

The phone rings back before the end of the song, before the end of the dance, and he finds out that Johanna is singing at The Lola Montez.

This is the first of several allusions to other filmmakers that Fassbinder will make in this film.  They are a bit thin and obvious, but perhaps in his time at his age they seemed fun.

Lola Montez was a real person who lived in the 19th century and achieved fame as a Spanish dancer.  She was Irish.  Lola Montes was a 1955 French film loosely based on her life and directed by Max Ophuls.

It was our 94th film to review, on Tuesday, April 4, 2017.
https://realbillbillions.blogspot.com/2017/04/094-lola-montes-1955-france-dir-max.html

Franz meets up with Johanna.  He hears her sing in the club.  And the next allusion comes right away, from Johanna's singing Marlene Dietrich to her standing next to a Dietrich poster backstage.  (Another one will come with the name Schlondorff on the door of the room where Franz will find his brother's body.  Margarethe von Trotta, who plays Margarethe, was married to director Volker Schlondorff, who cast Fassbinder as the lead in his film Baal, which was released the same year as this one.)

They go out together afterwards.  He might be happy to see her but neither she nor we can tell.  It seems he is trying to do his best impression of Meursault from Albert Camus' The Stranger.  28 years later.

He will hook up with Johanna and then hook up with Magdalena and then hook up with Margarethe and then hook up with Gunther.  And if you connect with him and walk a mile in his shoes, then you might sympathize with his lonely, fruitless quest.

But when the movie is over, you might also find yourself saying to Johanna, Girl, you could do better.

Part of it is that Harry Baer, Fassbinder's sometime Assistant Director, does not have the presence or charisma that someone like Orson Welles has in Touch of Evil (1958), which would make someone like Marlene Dietrich herself say upon his death, "He was some kind of a man."  Nor does he have the star-making magnitude of Jean-Paul Belmondo in Breathless (1960).  Of course, it does not help that Baer is playing Walsch in exactly the opposite manner--absent, without charisma, life, or energy.  Or that he treats Johanna, and Margarethe after her, so shockingly poorly.  And though Fassbinder appears to have cast Baer over himself to play the role in order to get a thinner, more handsome leading man, well, maybe a little charisma, life, and energy might have helped.  And maybe a little affection underneath the tough (or blank) exterior.  At least if you are trying to remake parts of Touch of Evil and Breathless on a poor man's budget.  Or maybe a classic thriller just does not come off as well after being mixed with 20th century existential posturing.  This Franz Walsch is not some kind of a man.  He is fine as it goes, and we believe that people would love him and grieve over his death, for sure.  But you might just find yourself pulling for Johanna to move on with her life afterwards.

And yes, I am saying that Fassbinder's first works are derivative of his heroes.  He has a case of anxiety of influence.  Harold Bloom's book by that name would come out just three years later, in 1973.  (Did Bloom himself steal his ideas from T.S. Eliot?)  But then, so what, right?  Fassbinder will go on to make his own way in spades.  He needed to get started somewhere.

We are told that the German trailer for this film stated the following:

Capitalism is the plague.
Criminals are its gods.

OK.

These films work better without making explicit their Marxist underpinnings.  If Walsch thinks he is justified in his bad behavior because other people are making money in a free market economy, well, no, he is not.

Gunther at least gives us a moment of poetry in his final moment, after his overwrought bloody lumbering from the grocery store to seek revenge.

Life is very precious.  Even right now.


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Here We Go Again.  Ray Charles.
Don Lanier, Russell Steagall.

Here we go again.
The phone will ring again.
I'll be her fool again.
One more time.

I've been there before
And I'll try it again
But any fool knows
That there's no way to win

Here we go again.
She'll break my heart again.
I'll play the part again.
One more time.


Blond hair, dark-blue eyes
I see wherever I may be
And a silly little childlike smile
Haunts my reverie
My blond baby
Do not forget me
My little baby
Don't do that to me
You've no idea
What you mean to me
For in your soul
You're still a baby
My little baby
Listen to me
In my dreams
There's only you
Hear my yearning
Speak to you
My blond baby
Do not forget me


Karl Valentin, Liesl Karlstadt
Klapphornverse Maskenball der Tiere Wo die Alpenrosen bluhn

All creatures, great and small,
gathered for a grand masked ball.
The turtle from a turtle race
played trumpet at a hurtling pace.
The chameleon, chameleon
puffed on a bulky bombardon.
And all the lice, the little lice,
they made a noise that wasn't nice.
The bumblebees, the bumblebees
banged on bombastic tympanies.
The eel, the eel
performed a slithering reel.
The leopard, with a spotted scarf,
was waiting for his better half.
The flamingo, the flamingo
was looking for some place to go.
The mule, the stubborn mule
was sprawling in a vast fauteuil.
The water's mirror showed the swan
that he was looking rather wan.
And the hippo, hippopotamus
behaved badly like a lot of us.
The pig, who wasn't very fine--
(Do you want some ravioli?)
The buffalo, the buffalo
bawls to the goose a gruff "Hello!"
While the spotted salamander
slides down to the veranda.
The fly, the fly
stands outside in the pantry.
A parrot who could count to three
squawked "Pretty Polly" constantly.
The storks, the storks
were camouflaged as hawks.
The wolves, a pack of twelve,
had sheepishly disguised themselves.
The bugs, even the little bug,
began to dance a jitterbug.
And when it danced, the eagle
did something very regal.
The fleas, the fleas
hopped in the air with ease.
Then suddenly the hall was still.
They all sat down to eat their fill.
The raven and the stork
ate soup with just a fork.
The giraffe, the giraffe,
ate chocolate wafer with cafe.
(Like a schnapps?)
And the serpent, for a change,
tried to eat a blood orange.
The lizard, oh, the lizard
had pork crackling in its gizzard.
The gnu, the gnu,
had eaten quite enough, he knew.
The aurochs, who was soon replete,
asked who would like the rest to eat.
The dromedary chewed at length
on caviar to give him strength.
The snipe was but a snipe,
though clearly not a guttersnipe.
The llama, the llama,
finished off with a banana.
That this was just a nonsense song,
was something we knew all along.


Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte.
Charlotte, don't you cry.
Hush, hush, sweet Charlotte.

He loves you till he dies.

And every night after he shall die

Yes, every night when he's gone

The wind will sing to you its lullaby

Sweet Charlotte was loved by John.

He held two roses within his hand
Two roses he gave to you
The red one tells you of his passion
The white one of his love so true
And every night after he shall go
Yes, every night when he's gone
The wind will sing to you its lullaby
Sweet Charlotte was loved by John.

531 - Katzelmacher, Germany, 1969. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Monday, December 3, 2018

531 - Katzelmacher, Germany, 1969.  Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Es ist besser neue Fehler zu machen als die alten bis zur allgemeinen Bewusstlosigkeit zu konstituieren. - Yaak Karsunke.

It is better to make new mistakes than to make the old ones unconsciously.  [Google translate]
It is better to make new mistakes than to perpetuate the old ones to the point of unconsciousness.  [The movie's subtitles]

For Marie Luise Fleisser.

An apartment building can get claustrophobic.  Especially when everyone knows everyone.  And spends time together.  Out front.  In the restaurant.  In the parking lot.  At the park.

And in each other's rooms.

And gossips about it.

They lean against the railing and stare forward.  They sit against the wall and stare forward.  Occasionally someone looks at a 90-degree angle to the others, but otherwise they look straight ahead.  Except during hook-ups, when the camera is low to the floor.  And they begin to undress without emotion.  Except for sudden flashes of anger.

The people live in Munich.  Five men.  Five women.  They are young and have plenty of time on their hands.  They drink.  They smoke.  They play cards.  They sleep together.  They strike each other.  They sit.  They talk.  They gossip.

Munich itself can get claustrophobic.  Especially when a foreigner arrives and disrupts things.

Jorgos arrives.  Jorgos is from Greece.  Jorgos disrupts things.

Elisabeth manages the place.

So she can let Jorgos move in if she wants to.  And she can put him in Paul's room while the empty room is being painted.  Whether Paul likes it or not.  If she wants to.

Jorgos is a katzelmacher.  Meaning something like a troublemaker.  A kind of carpetbagger.  He is a foreigner coming into this country to work.  And he needs to leave.

And to exacerbate things, Paul reports his attributes from having seen him in his room.  And Gunda speaks of his prowess in the park.  So Marie develops a thing for him.  And the others just want him gone.

And they will let him know it.

In a manner similar to the way in which Paul wanted to get rid of Helga's baby.

In a world (a microcosm, no, more like an enclosed bucket) where violence is the only expression, not to mention the only action, that these otherwise emotionless, actionless people ever show.

Katzelmacher explores themes of angst and ennui, economics and sex, misogyny and xenophobia.  One senses the influence of Sartre and Camus at one end, Godard and Bergman at the other.  One can see Fassbinder's burgeoning talent hard at work.  One recognizes the early faces of several Fassbinder company members and senses their future work eager to be born.

The film is structured in a stylistically formal manner.  It is shot in black and white.  The walls are white, and the furniture and clothing is white, cream, or light.

The camera sits on a tripod and stays static during interior and exterior shots of pairs or groups of people standing, leaning, or sitting with their backs to the wall facing forward.  They rarely look one another in the eyes.  Occasionally, someone will sit at a right angle to the others, facing in.

A refrain shot occurs where the camera dollies backwards with a pair of people, often arms entwined, walking steadily forward.

Throughout the film people speak and act with little to no affect, with occasional bursts of shocking violence and anger.

Nearly everything happens, or does not happen, on the sidewalk or in the rooms or in the restaurant.  With Marie and Jorgos in the park.

One can feel the turmoil exploding in society in 1969.  And inside of Fassbinder.

And in this unsettling, underplayed story, one can see his talent.


*                              *                              *                              *


Your wife?
No understand.

And what about love?
Not for me.  It makes you old.

I like you.  I'll never leave you.
Don't understand.  Boom Boom.
It's over now.

And then I'll go to the army.  It's better than working and having ideas that never come to anything, and nothing changes.

And in Summer he's taking me to Greece.
What about his wife?
That doesn't matter.  Everything's different in Greece.


*                              *                              *                              *

Hanna Schygulla with Rainer Werner Fassbinder

     Johanna in Love is Colder Than Death

     Marie in Katzelmacher

     Lisaura in Das Kaffeehaus

     Johanna in The Niklashausen Journey

     Johanna in Gods of the Plague

     Hanna in Rio des Mortes

     Hanna in Whitey

     Hanna in Beware of a Holy Whore

     Berta in Pioneers in Ingolstadt

     Anna in The Merchant of Four Seasons

     Karin in The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant

     Luisa Mauer in Breman Freedom

     Effi in Effi Briest

     Irmgard in Acht Stunden sind kein Tag

     Doctor in Jail Bait

     Maria in The Marriage of Maria Braun

     Susanne in The Third Generation

     Willie in Lili Marleen

     Eva in Berlin Alexanderplatz

530 - Love is Colder Than Death, Germany, 1969. Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Sunday, December 2, 2018

530 - Love is Colder Than Death, Germany, 1969.  Dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

Liebe ist kalter als der Tod.

Where were you at 6:00?
  In bed.
Alone?
  Was I ever alone in bed?
In jail, you were.

The Kommissar--that's Commissioner to us--is interrogating Franz.

There seem to have been a couple of murders, and Franz seems to have been involved in them.

But he denies it.

Earlier, his reputation for ruthlessness attracted the attention of the Syndicate, so they tried to recruit him, resorting even to torture to win his loyalty.  (Have you ever known torture to win your loyalty?)  But he insisted that he worked only alone.  So they sent Bruno to eliminate him, only to have Franz turn Bruno over to his own side and make him his personal friend.

Bruno is in fact waiting in the car outside the police station right now.  Which he states is risky.

The Commissioner grills Franz about the murder of the Turk and the Waitress, and he wants to know where Franz has hidden the gun.

Franz, for his part, will not answer him.  He does not wish to implicate himself for his crimes.  Or, according to him, for someone else's crimes.

He leaves without a confession.  Bruno drives him home.  To where they are staying.  They rejoin Johanna.  Franz's girlfriend.  Franz's employee.  Franz shares Johanna with others for money.  He has tried to share her with Bruno, only to have her laugh at Bruno.  Bruno does not arouse her interest.

This former couple, now a trio, spend time idly.  They hang out, pimping, shoplifting for groceries, planning heists, exchanging information over pinball, and committing random acts of malfeasance.

Their actions will escalate, and it will all come to a head in a robbery gone wrong.

This might sound like a compelling story, but it is certainly one better told than seen in this film.

It is Rainer Werner Fassbinder's first film, and it looks like it.  In fact, it looks like a student film, with the first scene's taking place on a stage with actors who appear to be improvising at rehearsal.

It is not always clear who people are supposed to be, as they are playing roles for which they might not be suited.  Ulli Lommel, who plays Bruno, looks like a kid wearing oversized clothes borrowed from his father's closet.  A young student with unrealistic dreams of being Alain Delon in Le Samourai.  In over his head for the role.

Fassbinder looks like Fassbinder, as always, and it is not clear that he is supposed to be a tough guy.  Or a pimp.  Or a murderer.  He rather moves about as if the director is filling in for an actor who failed to show up for the shoot..

The guns look like toy guns.  In fact, they probably are.  And when a murder is supposed to happen, we see a person holding a gun; then we cut to a person standing with bug eyes; then we hear a sound; then we see the person double over.  There are no squibs or other evidence that the person has been shot.  He simply keels over while making a face.

If you are a member of the movie-going public, you might demand your money back.

If you are a scholar or Fassbinder enthusiast, you will find the seeds of his aesthetic in first bloom.

If you are an aspiring actor or filmmaker, you may be unequivocally inspired.  You watch and say, "I could do this."

How many student films look just like this?  We feel as if we are at an NYFA or LAFS or USC or Chapman student film Showcase.  And yet, while watching, we know what will come later in Fassbinder's career, even in the same year of 1969.  How many movies and how many good ones and with what variety and at what an astonishingly prolific pace.

Many of the shots are overlit or overexposed, possibly intentionally.  Many of the rooms are bare, probably due to budget constraints.  Sometimes the camera is static.  Then suddenly it moves.

Such as with the sweeping dolly shots in the grocery store with a transcendent score.  Who knew shopping could be so poetic?

Fassbinder dedicated the film to, among others, Claude Chabrol and Eric Rohmer.  Yet it feels like an homage to Jean-Pierre Melville and Jean-Luc Godard, with the ending taken straight from Breathless.

I called the police.


*                              *                              *                              *


For
Claude Chabrol
Eric Rohmer
Jean-Marie Straub
Linio et Cuncho

Okay.  You had to get rid of the Turk.  I can see that.  But why did you have to kill the girl?
   I had nothing to do with it.
Never mind.  I'm saving the best things for later.

The kind of glasses the cop wore when he spoke to Janet Leigh in Psycho

Look.  I might have understood you perfectly.  It's quite simple.  A rival gets murdered.    His brother turns up to avenge his death.  Someone tips him off that you're the killer, so he comes looking for you.  You're afraid to leave your hideout.  After a while, you've had enough, and you think before he gets you, you'll get him.  Let's suppose you shoot him, and not just once.  Now you can go out again, and you get arrested..  It's a nice story.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  Things like that are bound to happen.  You might even be acquitted.  Acting in self-defense.  If it weren't for the girl, Erika Rohmer.

Pretty girl.  Nineteen years old.  She still had a lot to expect from life.

How's Johanna?
   She's fine.
And business?  Is that fine too?
   We went straight.
Apart from too little murders.

So who was with you?
   I'm a gentleman.

Is he dead?
   Yes.
Open the door and throw him out.

Bruno and some other man play pinball.
Bruno plays the Jolly Roger.
I spoke on the phone with Mr. Strauss.  His orders are to get rid of the girl.  It's to be done tomorrow.  If you fire first, we can take advantage of the confusion.

See you in Greece.

529 - Kameradschaft (Comeradeship), Germany, 1931. Dir. G.W. Pabst.

Friday, November 30, 2018

529 - Kameradschaft (Comeradeship), Germany, 1931.  Dir. G.W. Pabst.

Gluck Auf!

Good luck for . . .

The understood object of the preposition is "a new lode."

Good luck for a new lode.

May lodes of ore be opened.

I wish you luck in opening a new lode of ore.

Wittkopp stares into the camera.  He seems to be speaking to us.

We have to go over there, he says.

Wittkopp is a miner.  A natural born leader.  He mines coal.  He has a sly look in his eyes.  He is talking to a fellow German miner who is approaching, on his way out the door.

The fellow miner, now showered and dressed in clean clothes, salutes him.  He intends to leave.  To go home for the day.

Dann gluck auf, he says.  Then good luck for.

He keeps walking.  Wittkopp stops him.

Don't go just yet.

What is it?

You're on the rescue team.

What?

We are in Germany.  On the border of France.  The French mine has just had an accident.  600 men are trapped.  The German miners are talking about it as they wash up at the end of the day.

It was originally one mine.  Until the German-French border got moved as a result of the war.  And the new border was drawn right through the mine.

Have you ever gone skiing at Heavenly?  Above Tahoe.  While skiing, you may be in California or you may be in Nevada, and you might not know in which state you are at any given moment.

It would have been the same kind of situation in the mine except that the government authorities placed an iron gate in the tunnel on the boundary line.

With a clear marking on the cross beam 2,500 feet below the earth's surface.

On the French side.  Frontiere 1919.
On the German side.  Grenze 1919.

So there is now a French mine and a German mine.

And the French have been having trouble with their fires.  Gas has been escaping, so that when they detonate dynamite, the fires flare up.  The Germans have been feeling the heat on their end.

And then the accident came today.  The fires caused cave-ins.  And the Frenchmen are trapped.

Our German miners are standing in the clothes drying area of a great shower room.  There are so many miners that the room is like a train station lobby.  With four-story tall open ceilings.  A vaulted roof.  And skylights across the top.  Hundreds of long chains hang from pulleys from the top of the building, where the men attach their washed, wet clothes and pulley them up to the high ceiling to hang near the skylights and dry.

Hundreds of men can shower at the same time.  Hundreds of sets of clothing can hang from the ceiling at the same time.

Wittkopp is standing at a row of chains, where he has been sending clothing up to dry.  More than 50 chains fill the screen at one time, with him framed behind them.  He is clutching them.  Looking through them.  Appealing to the miner who is trying to go home.

The miner resists.

What are the French to me?

A fellow miner agrees with him.

Think they'd help us?

More join in.  They hold grudges.

We know the French!  From the Ruhr occupation!

(After World War I, The Treaty of Versailles required the Weimar Republic to make reparation payments to France in the (adjusted) hundreds of billions of dollars.  They could not make the payments, so the amount was cut in half.  Yet it was still in the (adjusted) hundreds of billions of dollars.  When they defaulted, France and Belgium occupied the Ruhr Valley in an effort to force their hand.)

Wittkopp stops them.

Boys, what do we care about generals?  A miner is a miner.

A miner is a miner.

This is the theme of the movie.

An old man argues with him.

Do you think the French will pay you a pension if you're hurt over there?

Wittkopp responds.

What about the men down there who can't get out?  Don't they have wives and children?

The men continue to argue.

. . . Till you're trapped down there with no one to help you.

He turns the men around.  Organizes a rescue team.  Wittkopp will get the job done.

Anton.  Fritz.  One after another, they begin to change their minds.  They begin to line up.  They prepare to go.

Not everyone joins them.  "Cowards needn't come."  But plenty do.  Like John Wayne recruiting men in Red River.

The men go to the bosses.  They request gear and transport to go to the French mine.  These are the men who have just gotten off the early shift.  They are supposed to be going home.

The boss asks what this is about.

Wittkopp answers him.

We're volunteering.

Wittkopp will get the job done.

The boss gives them permission and provides them with gear.  The men fill up two large stake-bed trucks and begin their ride to and across the border.

On their way out, their families line the streets.  They know the risk their husbands, fathers, and sons are taking.  The air is sober.  Death is in the air.

A woman runs out with a sack lunch.

Gustav, you haven't eaten yet.

She hands it up to a man on the truck.

Thanks, mother.

Another woman runs alongside the truck holding her toddler by the hand.  Her husband appeals to her.

Anna, half the miners over there are trapped.  We have to go.  They have wives and children too.  Don't cry.  You have to understand.

She does understand.  And she still cries.  She holds their child up to him to hug him, as if, just in case, to say Goodbye.

The trucks move on.

The Germans are marching to France not to attack them but to rescue them.

Last night some German miners crossed the border into France to enjoy a dance hall.  They ordered three beers and three schnapps.  As they tried to say it in French, the French waitress told them she spoke German and took their order in German.  It was a moment to see the two cultures coming together, trying to understand one another.

One of the men, Wilderer, saw a French girl across the room.  Francoise.  She was with her brother Jean and her boyfriend Emile.  She and Emile danced.

Wilderer saw Francoise across the room and wanted to dance with her.  So he walked over and asked her to dance.  She asked Emile to interpret for her.  He told her the man wanted to dance.  She said she was tired and did not feel like dancing anymore.  She tried to tell Wilderer but he could not understand her.  So she told her brother to tell him in German.  He did.

Wilderer heard her say the word German and thought she said she did not want to dance with him because he was German.  He grew insulted.  He wanted to start a row.  His friends stopped him.  They also stopped him from drinking any more.  They exited.

The next morning, this morning, Francoise boarded a train to return to Paris.  As it began moving she found out about the accident at the French mine.  Both Emile and Jean worked there.  She tried to jump off the train but somebody stopped her.  So when it arrived at the next stop, she jumped off, abandoning her suitcase, and found a nun to drive her back to the Thibault mine.

The nun asks if she has family in the mine.  In a poignant answer, she says, "My brother and . . . his friend."  As if she cannot tell the nun that perhaps she is living in sin.

The French miners stand in line to get on the elevator.  The elevator goes deep into the shaft.  They go down to work the rescue.

Jacques, an older miner trapped below, goes through the mine looking for his grandson Georges.  He carries a lantern.  He calls for Georges.  He finds a body.  It is not Georges.  He finds a body.  It is Georges.  He weeps.  But then he hears a heartbeat.  Georges is alive.  Jacques rejoices.

The German miners in their stake-bed trucks, their backs burdened with gear, approach the French border.  The driver slows down.  He will need to stop and show papers and explain his business and unload everyone and allow them to check all the men.  This will take too long.  Every minute counts.  So a miner standing in the truck bed shouts at him.

Don't stop!  Step on it!  Keep going!

He does.  He races through the border.  Breaks the gate arm.

A guard fires his gun into the air.  His colleague stops him.  He tells him they are the German rescue team.  The miners wave back.  The French guards stand in appreciation.

The French rescue team arrives down below.  They wade into the water.  The water comes up to their chests.

At the gates of the French mine--

The wives and families stand above and watch.  Hundreds of them.

Our rescue teams are down there, so there's still hope.

The ambulance comes out.  They have Albert.

Rose, it's your husband.

Rose goes to Albert.  He lies in the ambulance begrimed with soot.  She embraces him.

Francoise goes to Albert.

You were with Jean and Emile.  Please tell me.

He tells her.

They are all down below.  Nothing but bodies.

She rejects his answer.  Maybe he is wrong.  She grows hysterical.

We have to save them.  Let's storm the gates!

Francoise leads the families forward.  Like Joan of Arc.  They storm the gates.

Security is overwhelmed.  He is about to be crushed by the desperate mob.

Call the supervisor.  We have to notify the troops.

Notify the troops!  Francoise hears him.  She hears the word troops.  She thinks they are going to shoot on them.  She rallies the mob even more.

Inside the compound.

Germans.  I can't believe it.

The German rescue team is at your disposal.

Bon Chance!
Gluck Auf!

Wittkopp will get the job done.

Back at the German mine, the second shift is on lunch break.  They wish they could help.

If we didn't have to work, we could meet them halfway.

Kasper decides to go.  They are already deep below the surface, but he remembers that the mines connect underground.  And he knows where.  He was here during the war.

Wilderer is with Kasper.  He has a grudge about last night.  He does not want to go.  Then he does.

Jacques carries Georges.  He makes it up to the stables.  Yes, underground stables.  Horses pull coal carts underground.  And they have stables with stalls and hay where they stay.  Jacques puts Georges in a stall by the large horse.  He pulls down hay to make a pallet on the floor.

The three German miners find the iron grate.  Kasper says, "We broke through here during the war.  It's all one pit."

Wilderer hesitates.  If anyone finds out, we'll be fired tomorrow.

Kasper does not care.

You can stay here, sweetheart.

A German rescuer meets a French miner underground.  He announces their intentions to help.
The men shake hands.  Pabst moves in on a close-up on the handshake.  He holds.  It resonates.

The three men arrive at the crossbeam with the steel bar gate.  The one 2,500 feet down.

Then we see elsewhere in the mine Emile pulling up Jean.  They are alive.

Up top at night.  All the women stand silently.  In the dark.  A bell tolls four tolls.  Another bell tolls another two.  4:30 am?

Emile tapes on a pipe with his wrench.

We follow the pipe.  Trace it as far as we can go.  He keeps tapping.  No answer.

The three Germans make their way in.

What a mess!

Remember Tommy Lee Jones' entrance in The Fugitive?  He said, "My, my, my, what a mess."  In 1993.  Kasper says it here in 1930.

The three German men find a white horse in a tunnel.  He will know his own way back to the stable.  They use him.  He leads the way.

They find a man lying still upon the ground.  They check him.  He is dead.

Back at the stable, Jacques works Georges' arms.  Like physical therapy.  Georges awakens.  Opens his eyes.  Sees the horse.  Sees the old man. Smiles.  It's Bijou!  He knows the horse.

The other horse, the white horse, pulls the cart.  Along the tracks.  One of the men talks to him.  The other says the horse does not know German.  The first one says sometimes horses are smarter than humans.

They find the old man.  One of them thinks he is a ghost.  They enter the stable with the other horse.

This is Georges, my grandson.  I found him.

The men speak German.  The man speaks French.  They struggle to understand one another.

As they sit there, the ceiling begins to fall, with water dropping down in torrents.  The horse tries to break free.

They men are now waist-deep in water.

Elsewhere in the mine a man taps, discouraged, getting slower.  Giving up.  A German rescuer finds him.  He sees the German gas mask.  He gets confused.  He thinks he is back in the trenches.  Watching the Germans throw grenades at him.  "Shoot 'em all down!"

We cut to his memory.  A battle scene.  We see a German soldier attacking him in battle.  They fight.
We cut back to the mine.  The French miner has attacked the German miner in the same way as his memory.  Pabst has matched the blocking of the memory on the battlefield to the present reality of the mine.  The French miner rips off the German rescuer's gas mask.  He collapses.  The German miner tries to revive him.  It appears he is dead.

Elsewhere, a cart gets out of control.  It crashes.  It crushes a man.  Two German men pull him out.  Maybe he can be saved.

The three German men swing a wooden beam hanging through a chain at the brick wall until they penetrate it.  Jacques goes through.  He says the air is better in there.  They pass the kid through the wall.

Up top.

The German rescue team comes up the elevator.  All are accounted for.  They think they are finished.  No one is looking for Jacques and Georges, let alone three German miners who came through underground and are not part of the trapped crew or the rescue team.

The heroes may become the victims.

The three men come to a cave-in at the main tunnel.  Large stones.  Blocked.  Jacques tries to speak to them.  They try to speak back.

One of them expresses his despair.

Then we'll just ride this trolley to heaven.

But then they hear the phone ring.

A male operator plugs in lines to try to reach someone down below.  He gives up.

One of the three men finds the phone.  On the other side of a fence.  In a corner.  He calls back.

The operator tells his supervisor it is only bodies down there.  Then he gets the call.

5 men trapped in the railcar room!
They say it in German.  They say it in French.
Oui!  Oui!  Cinq hommes.  Funf Manner.

Up top.

The rescuers learn there are five more men.

On your feet, boys.  There are still men down there.  Let's go!

They go back down.

The German rescue team goes down towards the railcar room.  near the stables.  It is blocked.

In there?  Yes.  In there.

They have their work to do.

Tapping.
The three men hear it.  They tap back.

Georges, you here that?  They're coming for us.
That's right!  They're coming!

Missing insert.
Berliner Tagesblatt, front page, article.
Release of wounded German rescuers from the hospital.

A band is playing.

One of the three Germans tells his story.

What can I say? We were as good as dead.

What do you think I did then?  I got on the phone and told the director, Sir ,at least send some chewing tobacco to our funeral.

A truck arrives bringing rescued men.

Jean.  Emile.  Francoise greets them.

The French speech--

Comrades, we're all united as miners.  That's why you brought me up from down below.  And it's because we're all united that our comrade Kasper tore open the bars in Area 1315.  And because there are only two enemies on our side of the border--gas and war.  We're all united as miners.

We won't say farewell.  Just until we meet again.
Au revoir!
Auf Wiedersehen!

The German speech--

It doesn't matter if you're German or French.  We're all workers, and a miner is a miner.  But why do we only stick together when we're in trouble?  Are we to sit idly by till they fill us with so much hatred that we shoot each other down in another war?  The coal belongs to us all, whether we shovel it on this side or the other.  And if those above us can't come to an agreement, we'll stick together, because we belong together!

Long live our French comrades.
Gluk auf!

We go back to below the mine.  To the underground border.  2,500 feet down.

Frontiere 1919.  Grenze 1919.

The authorities are overseeing the reconstruction of the iron bars.

Everything's in order once again.  Everything must be in order.

That should hold.  You have the paperwork ready?

Yes.

They stamp the papers at the same time.  They salute.  They exit.

We hold on a view of the iron bars.  A cage.

We slowly pull out.

das Ende.

It is 1931, and Pabst has delivered a stirring film to promote harmony between Germany and France.  The story is gripping.  The camera work is accomplished.  The message is moving.

We do not have to fight.  The Germans and the French can get along.

We feel the power of it.  We buy into it.  We believe it.

On May 10, 1940, Adolf Hitler attacked France.  On June 14, the Germans occupied Paris.

Just nine years after this movie was made.


*                              *                              *                              *


German miners came to assist their French counterparts.

Their comrades.

When over 1,200 miners were buried alive.

it's my metier.

A man sets dynamite.  He detonates it.  Everything seems normal.  Until-

The fire comes up the tunnel.


*                              *                              *                              *

On April 14, 1967, the Bee Gees released their single "New York Mining Disaster 1931."  Their first international hit.

It was about the Aberfan Mining Disaster of 1966.  144 people died.

On November 17, 1931, G. W. Pabst released his film Kameradfschaft in Berlin.

It was about the Courrieres Mining Disaster of 1906.  1,200 people died.