The American soldier
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The American soldier |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1970 |
| length | 80 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| script | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| production | antiteater |
| music | Peer Raben , Rainer Werner Fassbinder, song "So Much Tenderness" by Fassbinder / Raben, sung by Günther Kaufmann |
| camera | Dietrich Lohmann |
| cut | Thea Eymèsz |
| occupation | |
| |
| chronology | |
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← Predecessor |
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The American soldier is the eighth game and feature-length film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder , who with love is colder than death and Gods of the Plague , a gangster film - trilogy forms. After 15 days of shooting, it premiered on October 9, 1970 at the Mannheim Film Week. It is considered the work of New German Cinema .
action
The story of Richard and Franz is told based on the model of American gangster films in the style of film noir . After several years in the USA and as a soldier in the Vietnam War, Richard returns to Munich, where he meets his old friend Franz. Ricky is supposed to carry out murders for the Munich police in order to "improve" their crime statistics. Ricky's first victim is a gypsy, his second a woman who deals in porn magazines and information, her boyfriend is also killed. The fourth victim is Rosa, lover and accomplice of one of the police officers. When Richard visits his mother and brother, he is ordered to kill them too. The fifth dead person in the film is the maid of the hotel Richard lives in. She stabs herself with a knife after learning on the phone that their relationship has ended. Rosa and Richard watch. The final showdown takes place at the main train station: distracted by the arrival of Richard's mother and brother, Richard and Franz are shot by the police. The long shot of her death is accompanied by the song "So Much Tenderness" (sung by Günther Kaufmann ).
Background and production notes
During the shooting, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Ingrid Caven got married . In 1972 the couple separated again after almost two years of marriage. In an interview, the director Fassbinder said in retrospect:
“When we were married, nothing worked anymore. No more conversation was possible, nothing at all. And it drove me to white heat when she registered as Ingrid Fassbinder somewhere in a hotel [...] "
“Getting married was something very stupid. We shouldn't have married. We got along much better before and after than during the time we were married. "
Fassbinder had initially planned to cast the "American soldier" with Günther Kaufmann in the lead role; However, since there were personal tensions between director Fassbinder and main actor Kaufmann during the course of the shooting, the scenes that had already been shot could not be used, and Fassbinder switched. In this dispute, she got married with fellow actor Ingrid Caven. These unused film scenes were shown publicly for the first time in Annekatrin Hendel 's feature documentary Fassbinder from 2015.
In the role of the maid, Margarethe von Trotta tells in a monologue about the love between the guest worker Ali and the cleaning lady Emmi, which ends tragically. Emmi is murdered, Ali flees. The working title of this film "All Turks are called Ali" became Fear Eats Soul , which received the Critics' Prize at the 1974 Cannes Film Festival . This monologue, as a short version, is an anticipation of this film.
In a conversation with Joachim von Mengershausen, Fassbinder gives information about the crime film as a genre :
“I like to watch crime films and I believe that others like to see crime films too. I also want to say something. [...] I took a crime story because it's easy to tell crime stories. And I'm in favor of doing very simple things. But they still have to be beautiful. [...] I don't know, I think they're all crime stories. I think the normal oppression of people is also criminal. I could almost go as far as to say that there is nothing else you can do but crime films. One would have to declare everything as criminal. "
Reviews
The compilation of the reviews deals primarily with the models of “The American Soldier”, generally with the genre gangster film against the background of debates and discussions between the films and their directors during the era of New German Cinema.
“THE AMERICAN SOLDIER is among the gangster films that most clearly reveals his role models: The white suits from the gangster films of the thirties; Ricky is like Paul Muni from Hawks' Scarface ; the incestuous relationships between brothers known from Hawks. "
“This second generation was undoubtedly also influenced by the Nouvelle Vague , albeit less by their own films than by their rediscovery of those Hollywood directors who had developed and preserved their own signature there - especially John Ford , Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock . Quotations, down to the smallest gestures, motifs and behavioral patterns from the American action cinema determined the first feature films by German directors Klaus Lemke ( 48 hours to Acapulco ; 1967), Rudolf Thome detectives; 1968), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (love is colder than death; 1969) or Roland Klick ( Deadlock ; 1970). [...] The people are as interchangeable as the elements of the story. Content and form tend towards identity - this is the naive kind of dream of a pure film that only stands for itself. It is significant that, from today's perspective, these works were more like finger exercises for their directors; Lemke, Thome and especially Fassbinder have found new themes and forms. "
“Fassbinder's fixed topic, the conditions of oppression and violence in love relationships, was not limited to a narrow framework of subjects. He shot petty bourgeois and family dramas such as WHY IS MR.R. AMOK? (1969), DEALER OF THE FOUR SEASONS (1971); In KATZELMACHER (1969) and ANGST ESSEN SEELE AUF (1973) he described outsiders who because of their aura of greater sensuality have no chance within a fixed social group and who experience its sadism; he shot gangster melodramas, LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH (1969), GODS OF THE PLAGUE (1969), THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (1971) and films based on models by Franz Xaver Kroetz and Marieluise Fleißer , contributions to the new German Heimatfilm , WILDWECHSEL (1972) and PIONEERS IN INGOLSTADT (1970); Fassbinder described the sadomasochistic side of emotions in many films; he also portrayed it in homosexual and lesbian relationships, for example in WARNING OF A HOLY WHORE (1970), PETRA VON KANT'S BITTER TEARS (1972), RIGHT OF THE FIST OF FREEDOM (1974), SATANSBRATEN (1976), and made them grotesque . "
“Fassbinder questions the behavior of his protagonists, especially through genre scenes, whereby the camera (Dietrich Lohmann) constantly observes facial expressions and gestures so long that the actions themselves appear stylized - as an artificial effort to create an individual expression. With Fassbinder, the gangster game is driven into the imitation of the imitation of the imitation. Walsh about Tuttle / Wise / Fuller about Melville : the killer as in THIS GUN HIRE about LE SAMURAI, the interrogation as in ODDS AGAINST TOMORROW about LE DOULOS, the treachery as in HOUSE OF BAMBOO about LE CERCLE ROUGE; and all together a new conclusion from Walsh's WHITE HEAT. A gangster film of the third kind, but in a cunning way. The genre does not define what is allowed in terms of action and feeling, but acting and feeling define the genre in a completely new way. "
"The third part of Fassbinder's gangster trilogy. Said to have been shot in ten days, SOLDIER is the story of an American Viet Nam vet of German descent who returns to his native Munich as a hired killer. […] Though not for all tastes, Fassbinder's films are cynical examinations of traditional Hollywood styles. His films have strong elements of parody and the freshness of his vision will be among the most lasting influences of the New German Cinema. AMERICAN SOLDIER is one of Fassbinder's earliest films (he made more than 40 before he dies tragically in 1983 at the age of 37), is not as strong or as developed as his later masterpieces, but it is well worth seeing. "
“The third part of Fassbinder's gangster trilogy. According to information, shot in ten days, The American Soldier is the story of an American Vietnam veteran from Germany who is hired as a contract killer in his hometown. Not to everyone's taste, but Fassbinder's films are cynical investigations in traditional Hollywood style. His films have effectively used, strong stylistic elements of parody and the novelty of his point of view represent the longest-lasting influences of the New German Cinema. The American Soldier is one of Fassbinder's earliest films (he left behind more than 40 before he tragically died at the age of 37 died), not quite as impressive or mature as the more recent masterpieces, but equally worth seeing. "
“There are various reasons why Fassbinder or Wenders approached the traditional American genres, and they differ from those who brought Schlöndorff , Hauff or Petersen to filming literature or filmmaking according to a given standard. For example, Lemke's 48 Hours to Acapulco (1967) was an influence for Fassbinder, not so much because of his subject (a poor Munich crook gets caught up in something he can't handle) but because of Lemke's attitude towards his characters for Fassbinder should be typical. The secret was to take the characters' self-image seriously, because the director is ready to recognize as reality and inner truth what mere fantasies or characters are - e.g. B. in love is colder than death or the American soldier . Fassbinder wrote: '… the heroes act like gangsters, but at the same time they act as they imagine gangsters to act. The American models shine through; Lemke tried hard not to adapt them. ' […] One could say that German filmmakers were sensitized to a new form of realism through their preoccupation with genre films , which not only had to do with a new attitude towards the protagonist, but also with a new approach to the cinematic era. "
"Because Fassbinder, the epitome of the angry young man, had taken on the competition with others from the start: with the gangster films from Schwabing dreaming of American role models, as they were made by Klaus Lemke with 48 HOURS TO ACAPULCO or Rudolf Thome with DETEKTIVE - filmmakers, who, unlike Fassbinder, could be sure of the backing of the German film critics right from the start.
Of course, Fassbinder was far less interested than his colleagues in playing with Hollywood's set pieces, with quotations and topoi. His gangsters, regardless of their Hollywood props, are more real and, above all, more localized characters, average little crooks who see crime as the only way out of the bleak narrowness of their existence. "
“ The American Soldier is Fassbinder's technically most successful film to date, and you can tell that the director mastered his craft better and better and became increasingly confident. Nevertheless, the response to this film in Germany, which, like the previous Fassbinder films, tells a story about cold feelings, buried emotions and hopelessness, was rather low. However, it was far more popular abroad. Thus became the American soldier as the favorite film of Bob Dylan , he was carried to an absolute Cooper fan. "
"A chilled underworld drama, laid out as a hermetic, artificial game in a closed society that proceeds according to the rules of American gangster films."
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jürgen Trimborn: A day is a year is a life. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The biography. Berlin 2012, p. 129 f.
- ↑ Thomas Elsaesser: The New German Film. Munich 1994, p. 183.
- ^ Wilhelm Roth: Annotated filmography. In: Peter W. Jansen (Ed.): Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Frankfurt am Main, 1992, p. 141 f.
- ↑ www.fassbinderfoundation.de
- ^ Wolfgang Limmer: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Filmmakers. Reinbek near Hamburg 1981, p. 80 f.
- ↑ Jürgen Trimborn: A day is a year is a life. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The biography. Berlin 2012, p. 167.
- ↑ www.realfictionfilme.de: Fassbinder . Documentary, 2015.
- ↑ Michael Töteberg: Love, an instrument of oppression. In: Ders .: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Reinbek near Hamburg, 2002. p. 78.
- ↑ Michael Töteberg (Ed.): Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The anarchy of the imagination. Conversations and interviews. Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 30 f.
- ^ Wilhelm Roth: Annotated filmography. In: Peter W. Jansen (Ed.) U. a .: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Frankfurt am Main 1992, p. 143.
- ^ Hans Günther Pflaum, Hans Helmut Prinzler: Film in the Federal Republic of Germany. Bonn 1992, p. 17 f.
- ^ Claudia Lenssen: Film of the Seventies. In: Wolfgang Jacobson (ed.) U. a .: History of German film. Stuttgart 1993, p. 271.
- ^ Norbert Grob: Film of the sixties. In: Wolfgang Jacobson (ed.) U. a .: History of German film. Stuttgart 1993, p. 245 f.
- ↑ a b Jay Robert Nash (publ.): The Motion Picture Guide. Chicago 1985. Article: The American Soldier.
- ↑ Thomas Elsaesser: A matter of attitude: Wenders versus Kluge. In: Ders .: The New German Film. Munich 1994, p. 185 f.
- ^ Hans Günther Pflaum: Learning processes of an autodidact. In: Ders .: Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Pictures and documents. Munich 1992, p. 16 f.
- ↑ Jürgen Trimborn: A day is a year is a life. Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The biography. Berlin 2012, p. 165.