In a year with 13 moons

Movie
Original title	In a year with 13 moons
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1978
length	119 minutes
Age rating	FSK 18
Rod
Director	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
script	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
production	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
music	Peer Raben u. a.
camera	Rainer Werner Fassbinder
cut	Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Juliane Lorenz
occupation
Volker Spengler : Elvira Weishaupt Ingrid Caven : the red Zora Gottfried John : Anton Saitz Elisabeth Trissenaar : Irene Eva Mattes : Marie-Ann Günther Kaufmann : Chauffeur Lieselotte Pempeit : Sister Gudrun Isolde Barth : Sybille Karl Scheydt : Christoph Hacker Walter Bockmayer : Soul Frieda Peter Kollek : Drunkards Bob Dorsay : Tramp Gerhard Zwerenz : Burghard Hauser Janoz Bermez : Oscar Pleitgen Günther Holzapfel : employee Ursula Lillig : cleaning lady

In a year with 13 moons is a film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1978. Volker Spengler plays the leading role as Elvira Weishaupt.

content

The film tells the last five days in the life of Elvira Weishaupt, a transsexual who is not at peace with herself or with others. He became a woman out of love for a man. But love was only one-sided, as is so often the case in Fassbinder's films, and so Elvira does not find happiness in her new existence either. She seeks refuge with previously familiar people. When she met only rejection, ridicule and contempt, her life ended tragically.

criticism

“Desert polemics stand next to poetic sensitivity, colportage next to literary cross-references to Döblin and Schopenhauer; Shock images contrast with sentimental idylls. One of the most intimate Fassbinder films that shakes up with its radical subjectivity. "

- film service

Remarks

Explanation of the film title: The opening credits read “Every 7th year is a year of the moon in which a particularly large number of people suffer from depression. But if a lunar year is also a year with 13 new moons, like in 1978, personal tragedies will ensue. "

The film can also be seen as Fassbinder's reckoning with Frankfurt, which from his point of view increasingly became the prototype of a socially cold city dominated by money in the 1970s.

Fassbinder is the only one specifically named in the opening credits for the idea, script, production, equipment, editing, camera and direction, although z. B. Juliane Lorenz edited the film.

In a year with 13 moons , one of the most personal and necessary films by Fassbinder comes from a private situation. In May 1978 Armin Meier took his own life after Fassbinder separated from him. Fassbinder was plagued by feelings of guilt and self-doubt; he processed this personal crisis with the film.

literature

• Hermes, Manfred: Germany hysterize. Fassbinder, Alexanderplatz . b_books Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-933557-75-9
• Silverman, Kaja : Male Subjectivity at the Margins . Routledge Press, New York 1992, ISBN 978-0415904186

Web links

• In a Year of 13 Moons in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• In a year with 13 moons ( memento from July 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), film and background information, Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, Berlin
• In a year with 13 moons at Filmportal.de