Why does Herr Kusters run amok?

Losing one’s mind at work and beating a one-percenter to death amidst rumors of impending layoffs is pretty grim even for Fassbinder. Although it fits in nicely with his disillusionment trajectory. And it does get right to the heart of the people and how they’re treated. What they’re capable of. In Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) it serves as the inciting incident in this tradwife domestic melodrama that’s eventually overshadowed by its media-political ultimately anarchist satire. Overall the film’s got its share of problems and never quite seems to work because its ideas get in the way of its emotion or accessible meaning. In other words it’s a mess.

     Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven violates a cardinal rule of screenwriting, which is in order to have an audience care or invest in a protagonist, said protagonist must actively pursue a goal or overcome an obstacle-conflict. Not that there’s such a thing as rules. But clearly in this case this is possibly an example of why the work suffers. FRAU KÜSTERS (Brigitte Mira) getting exploited by the media then German Communist Party then anarchist group after her husband’s murder-suicide at his work are what drive the plot and all indicative of her not taking action but the action happening to her. And what’s the point of it all? In other words it’s a mess.
     Okay there is the ways this aftermath affects her kids that’s pretty good. For one just because anytime Fassbinder has a middle-aged or older parent with adult kids they’re always pieces of shit and that in itself is always funny the way he does it. So after Hermann Küsters’ death HELENE (Irm Hermann slay) has her whiny whipped husband (Frau Küsters’ son) move out because as Helene says, she's disgraced because the paper printed her picture in conjunction with her factory murderer late father in law. 
     But the real treat is the same inciting incident that causes one child to leave brings one back into Frau Küsters’ home. CORINNA COREN (Ingrid Caven) is really the only thing this movie’s got going for it if you ask me. As soon as Corinna hears of this scandalous incident and arrives, the journalist who’s made his way into Frau Küsters home to get the scoop all to himself (Gottfried John) points his camera at Corinna and she’s instantly this thirsty wanton slut opportunist who shamelessly exploits this window to advance her career for everything it’s worth. Why do I love this kind of soulless bloodsucker in Fassbinder? 
     Corinna is presciently timelessly then and now relevant as a depiction of a one-track mind narcissistic ambitious talentless sociopath desperate for the limelight. Is it too harsh to call her a slut? Well if the way her tit is always falling out tells you anything then no. The bit about how right in front of her mom when Corinna tells the interviewer that her late father never let her go to college and her mom interjects “you never wanted to go to college,” is perfect. Crafting your own narrative is nothing new for show people. And although the timing is cringe that’s what makes it so funny. Right after her father has died she decides is the perfect moment to launch her pr moves. Okay yes I feel sad and empathy for the Corinna character more than anyone else in the film though. She’s a bit one-dimensional but aren’t we all?
     When Corinna gets her first show performing at a third-rate cabaret and she invites her mother and brother you have to see it coming way too soon that it’s gonna be way awkward sad humiliating. And it is. Billed as the Daughter of the Factory Murderer in front of an audience that includes her family is the final nail in the coffin of this sad story. Or it should have been. The whole final act with the communists and anarchists goes nowhere. And every time I rewatch Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven I’m never able to process or adapt to the ending. The footage is missing. Spoiler alert. And you get a series of text exposition and some stills as a conclusion. It’s so weird. If it was supposed to be one of those distancing Brechtian effect devices and the point was supposed to be a fuck you to us the audience then it worked.

The entrepreneur and the lottery queen

The lottery could be a metaphor for commercial or escapist movies. Most people know the odds of winning are impossible. But this doesn’t stop those who play from spending their money on tickets because they have hope. I’m not talking about the people who enjoy watching Hollywood movies as entertainment, but those who buy into the dream of rising to the ranks of the rich and famous and beautiful, successful careers, falling madly in love. The people who buy into a life beyond their own that would make them happy. The people’s hope for better.

     Fox and His Friends (1975, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) takes the standard rags to riches premise and somehow shows having it all while draining it of any semblance of joy or happiness. On target for Fassbinder’s disillusionment trajectory. And don’t think it’s a morality story to make you think about what your goals are and reflect on if they are really worth pursuing. That would be didactic. Fassbinder’s art is to take what we invest hope in and show how much it sucks. And God bless him for it. 
     The one aspect of Fox and His Friends which thus far separates it from any of Fassbinder’s other films is character. Because it has an antagonist we hate. An antagonist with no redeeming qualities whatsoever and who is exceedingly despicable, aggravating, obnoxiously loathsome. And this antagonist as the object of desire represents the attainment of both utter sexual indulgence and acceptance by someone of a higher social order as means of entry into that better life. It all comes down to earthly pleasures. Lust, vanity, ego, materialism. This is what everybody wants? Elsewhere in Fassbinder’s films we sympathize with flawed characters. Except not this time. Not with this villain.
     The protagonist is FOX (played by Fassbinder). Never before in one of Fassbinder’s films has there been a character as laidback, confident, resourceful, and cool for being completely down on their luck. Fox is a carny by trade. But moreover he’s a hustler. With the distinction here being that he’s not the kind of hustler who takes advantage of anyone so much as he lets himself be taken advantage of by others to get by. And this last nuance gets to the emotional core of Fassbinder’s cinema. Fox is the good guy.
 
The plot of Fox and His Friends is structured in the form of a narrative that for us to watch is slow torture. Fox’s friends tell him he’ll draw the short end of the stick. And a plot device which proves most effective is that say you find yourself involved with a woman who really gets your rocks off. And you can’t get enough. Yet you find that she’s rotten and only using you. There’s no genuine affection. Just animal craving. And as she dismantles your dignity gradually and deliberately you begin to lose your sense of self. Why don’t you get out before it’s too late? That’s what’s most compelling about Fox and His Friends. 
     When Fox says “And besides I don’t have much time left anyway,” that’s when this whole anti-fairytale becomes existential. It’s saying in life you can have it all. But once you get it what else is left after all it will have taken out of you, taken from you, except to wander off and die somewhere od’ing on pills face down in some underground station?
 
Other random observations of some stuff I fancy in the film are for one the bickering. That shift from good sex in a relationship can make you overlook and accept anything to gradual diminishing returns and the ugly overlap into neverending petty arguments escalating stress between two people codependent too stupid to admit they hate each other. EUGEN (Harry Bär) with his lying selfish belittling arrogance because he knows he has the upper hand is revolting but is so well designed as to build into a terrifying plausibility particularly by way of all his little condescending ways of correcting Franz. The scene where the couple order in the French restaurant is the hardest to watch. And the “If you’re looking for the sugar tongs they’re in the sugar bowl,” line at the family dinner which sends Franz into a rage tossing the sugar cubes on the floor both have so much emotional stimulation into audience anger using such ordinary material is the height of Fassbinder’s talents.
     And the breakup scene night exterior the way its high contrast color cinematography is so bold it looks like a million dollar 80s music video is too cool in its boldness. That red wall in the background at first. And the way Karl-Heinz Böhm is just silently there as chaperone intermediary in case Franz flips out and gets violent is such an effective component. 
     Finally I guess there’s the way KLAUS (Karl Scheydt) gets out on parole and instead of being this respite in Franz’s suffering he subtly is shown to have arranged some illegal smuggling partnership with UNCLE MAX. Kicking Franz literally when he’s down is also kicking us while we’re down. No honor among friends. Fox and His Friends is cruel. And among all Fassbinder’s other films that’s saying a lot. Although it also might be his most simple, straightforward, most accomplished narrative. And when Franz is lying there and Klaus and Uncle Max leave him for dead, the chilling finality mortality void of it all just when it seems too much Fassbinder gives us that whimsical carnival sideshow music and somehow that little twist is as if to say hey it’s life but it’s not a big deal. Commiserating becomes a celebration. Wait a minute I’m happy through all this? How is that possible? I don’t recall any catharsis? Don’t sweat the technique.

An artifice calculated to inspire fear

Fassbinder marriage doesn’t work period prestige costume drama. Effi Briest (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is the life story of this character played by Schygulla that follows her from getting married off to INSTETTEN (Wofgang Schenck) when she’s 17 through something like 8 years later to her deathbed. She has an affair with this dude MAJOR CRAMPUS (Ulli Lommel) about a year into her marriage and hides it. So the whole entire long ass movie is a morality piece that’s always and only ever about this what comes to be looked at as minor indiscretion.

     At first when bon vivant Crampus moves in to exploit Instetten the privy counselor’s traveling for work leaving his home unprotected you think what a piece of shit. And kind of hate the Effi character for cheating on her husband. But in Effi Briest you have to look at it from the other side. Instetten tells his new bride that there’s the ghost of a Chinese man who used to work at the plantation at good old Kessin, taking advantage of Effi having mentioned that she hears noises upstairs like footsteps when she’s trying to go to sleep at night. Instetten uses fear to control Effi. He tells her as long as she isn’t fucking anyone else behind his back she doesn’t have to worry about the ghost doing her harm. Good one. 
     I’ve kept pointing out the symbolism in Fassbinder’s films linking those desperately chasing their desires chasing love like gamblers, but Instetten comes right out and says that’s what Crampus is doing. Yet Effi in some ways still acts like a child. And from the beginning she enters into her new married life in fear. Like a child approaches life, a mix of fear and curiosity. She seems an easy mark for the hustler. A really cool scene occurs when the married couple have trouble with their carriage and Maj. Crampus shows up to give Effi a ride home. It becomes so gothic. It’s night time in the dead of night in a forest and when Effi hops in she tells a story about an old widow desperate to avoid enemy detection praying for protection and God’s wall, a snow covering her home to safely hide her. We can hear owls while she’s telling the tale, but also we see Instetten with the broken down wagon and there’s this shot where it freeze frames on him along with Effi reciting God’s Wall. Like he’s the ghost.
     One other thing that complicates our judgement of who’s right or wrong is a scene between Effi and her servant ROSWITHA. So Effi way earlier sees this registrar widow funeral and remembers the woman’s servant was this big “simple looking” woman that she opportunistically scoops up for her own. Roswitha’s Catholic and it seems everybody likes her and is glad Emmi hires her. But way later Effi sees Roswitha flirting with KRUSE the groom-groundskeeper dude (who’s married to this woman who works in the kitchen and has a pet black hen) she gives her so much shit. Too much. As in how can Effi be such a hypocrite?
 
Like I said this thing is Effi’s life story. It’s long. But it really is mostly moral ramifications of her hooking up with Crampus. That and what society forces everyone to do here. A big Fassbinder theme. The tragedy is when Instetten gets a promotion along with a required move to Berlin, Effi is glad to now have a convenient reason to break it off with Crampus. Plus she really wasn’t that into him anyway. But when Instetten seven years later finds their love letters hidden in a sewing machine he’s gotta kill that dude. 
     The conversation between Instetten and WÜLLERSDORF (Karlheinz Böhm) though is truly sublime best part of the film. Could you stay with a woman who cheated on you because you love her is turned into this in depth debate between these two guys and the way they present it and ultimately confront their conclusion is thrilling, but more so the cinematic flourish wherein before they even get to the end there are shots of the carriage traveling to the duel dissolving in and out. This is the argument in effect that society makes us follow its laws. And it’s pretty compelling fun.
     The last part of Effi Briest is this long her losing everything trying to reconcile the question she asks herself of is she entirely to blame or not? It turns into her deathbed last thing in her life kind of scene. And my problem leading up to this for one is her parents disown her. They say because of their religious beliefs and because society will ignore them forevermore if they take Effi in then she’s on her own. But some old doctor tells the parents it’s better if Effi came to stay with them and all of a sudden they’re like okay cool. In terms of dramatic plotting that’s just too easy. Not motivated properly. And I didn’t expect Fassbinder to make that kind of sweet concession to the dying girl but whatever.
 
In the end it’s not about if you think Effi is to blame for all that happened or not. It’s more about seeing society’s effect on everyone in this narrative from the moment this old lawyer who the little girl remembers from visiting her grandfather’s house and asking her mother out long ago. And seeing how marriage doesn’t work. But this time there’s something fond about the way the whole story is told. A willful thoughtful desire to reconcile it all. 
     And I feel for Effi saying Instetten doesn’t know true love. But I also detest that she and Crampus cheated and am kinda with the whole Instetten winning the duel part. But even he admits he ruined his whole life in doing so. The truth I find in it all is it’s not our place to try to make sense of what goes on between someone else’s marriage. Someone else’s life. We do what we think is best at the time.

Death in Rome

Fassbinder marriage doesn’t work melodrama. Martha (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is a gothic black comedy infused satire in which a young woman marries a tall dark stranger who grooms her into his ideal tradwife. To everyone’s horror.
     Straightforward looking at Martha you could see it as this thriller about the contrast between how a marriage looks from the outside against the emotional reality of its interior private goings on. But then there’s also another way of looking at it like a metaphor for how there’s two kinds of movies: art and industry. Art is European. Industry is Hollywood. Martha is an art film. Helmut is commercial product popcorn movies. Bombastic as that camera move when they first meet a 360° around the two as each of them rotate on their own axes for maximum gratuitous Hollywood desperate ploy attention grab film grammar. Helmut is a control freak. He asserts his will over the weak. The narrative becomes that which is of Helmut’s nature: oppressive. Nothing more than sex and violence to sell box office. External conflict. But the money to live in mansions and vacation in exotic locales. 
     Helmut is a sex maniac who gets turned on by violence. When Martha’s mom o.d.’s he’s ready to fuck. When Martha asks him to rub suntan lotion on her he forbids it so he can later have rough lobster sunburn sex with her. No doubt killing her black cat Blackie’s also aphrodisiac. 
 
But there’s yet another dimension to the subject matter that’s as a way for the working class to indulge their disdain for the rich and those people who place to much emphasis on conforming to an ideal society prizes above all else—superficial material surface prominence. After their honeymoon Helmut ignores Martha wanting to live in her parents’ old house and buys this huge mansion that Martha remarks asking wasn’t there a murder there. This isn’t foreshadowing as much as it’s a way of saying the last people who could afford that house committed a murder because they can and will do it again.
     Another dirty little joke is when Helmut’s away to punish Martha with his absence and she walks around in a slip with her hair greasy tangled and dark circles under her eyes she’s heroin chic looking like a junkie as parallel to what an abusive relationship is like. But like a drug addict do you ever wonder why doesn’t she ever just leave Helmut? I’ve always loved the idea of comparing relationships to substance abuse. Could this be the first time a movie did so?
     This film is the most conventional narrative Fassbinder has dabbled in. Which is what leads me to suspect most of its significance is below its surface. When Martha winds up in a wheelchair do you feel like she’s victim to a tragic fate at Helmut’s hands? I don’t. I think she belongs in that wheelchair. And I think she believes she does too. Yet I don’t see anything wrong with that. The heart wants what it wants.

     MARTHA (Carstensen) is on a vacation in Rome with her father who chides her for being too emotionally needy-clingy. Later her mom calls her a revolting horrible old spinster. And when HELMUT (Karlheinz Böhm) picks her up she’s a virgin who looks like she has bad b.o. Society tells young women they’re nothing. But getting married will change all that. There’re two things I can say about this couple as characters. One no matter how psycho Helmut gets and no matter how violent he gets Martha accepts him. Two Helmut doesn’t have any character development. 

19th nervous breakdown

The crowning jewel in Fassbinder’s illustrious filmography just so happens to occur at precisely the midpoint of all his films, his 19th. Ali Fear Eats the Soul (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) has always been my favorite. Its opening credits contain a warning: Happiness Isn’t Always Fun. This film speaks to a certain temperament. Gloomy, lonely, introspective, tender souls who are sensitive and capable of great affection yet ultimately wary of admitting to themselves that they need anybody other than themselves to find happiness. Ali Fear Eats the Soul for me says if you are lonely and want someone to be in love with it may happen. And then all of a sudden you’re empty again. And alone again. And it hurts as bad as ever. Is this type of loneliness a greater symptom of some pre-existing condition? Is it harmful? Or is it merely a convenient deflection to avoid other more important emotional puzzles?

     Still whittling away tinkering with my conception of Fassbinder’s style, Ali Fear Eats the Soul is upper echelon what I wanna call his own: marriage never works melodrama. The most effective aspect of the film however is how its act structure deceives us, leading us to think the impending conflict will be society’s cold prejudice, but foments a second half where that entire obstacle diminishes before our eyes, brilliantly poising us to ask ourselves now what conflict will arise in its place? This is big. I’m obsessed with this. This notion that what seem to be your biggest problems in life really aren’t. I know Emmi says time heals all wounds. But it’s more than that.
     Ali Fear Eats the Soul made me cry so much the first time I saw 20 years ago. And I still do. It’s that rarest of cinema tearjerkers though because have you ever asked yourselves of all the times you’ve cried in a movie how many times is it because of something tragic? It’s hardly ever because of something sweet, but it happens—as Sirk has taught us. Ali Fear Eats the Soul is eloquently framed. Each setup is precise, nothing is wasted. And images are paintings. The beginning is something else. (That’s where all the scenes that make me cry occur.) When Emmi walks into the bar and sits down it breaks me down because she’s old. These kind of romantic fantasies in Hollywood movies aren’t for us. Because they’re not for us in real life either. (I only saw this once I got old of course.) Old age withers our looks and looks are the currency of attraction. But our feelings are still fresh and strong as ever. When Emmi orders a Coke it cleanses our cynicism awash with suggestions of youth, innocence (who walks into a bar and doesn’t order alcohol? people too cool to drink yes but what I meant is teens), and nostalgia. 
     When Emmi wakes up the morning after and she looks in the mirror it’s not guilt she sees when looking at her own reflection, it’s that she’s old. And this might be Fassbinder’s greatest, final, definitive example among all of his many depictions of desire being the source of doom. But to stop at that would be limiting Fassbinder’s reach. Emmi gets to experience bliss with Ali. She gets to have it all. When Ali invites his friends over and they’re playing board games listening to music is one of the purest moments of goodness—it’s that simple yet that elusive. Just like it is for all of us. Before it’s gone that is. Emmi’s happiness takes us through to the midpoint of the narrative, as in life. So what’s left? As brutal as the scene when Emmi’s coworkers ignore her on their lunch break and move to sit somewhere else leaving her alone on the staircase is, this film is about more than that. (Although what a great shot.)
 

The reveal of the narrative’s ulterior moral in the second half consists of two phases. First, even though Ali Fear Eats the Soul seems like it’s about society’s hatred of Arabic immigrants, and their close-minded disapproval of this age-gap relationship, it’s not really. The masterful subtle shift whereby that conflict resolves on its own—as Emmi even says let’s go on a trip and when we come back everything will be different. Why? How? The narrative is winking at us. This is a movie it doesn’t matter how. But it really wants us to know it’s actually the same in our own lives.
     So what changes? For one it’s money. The racist supermarket owner’s wife nudges him to venture a reconciliation with Emmi because she was such a good customer. The status quo. Life is too powerful a threshing machine to care about our petty problems. When we think others are our oppressors it’s time for an ego death. No one cares that much. And now that they don’t have to constantly anguish over how no one will let them be happy because life isn’t fair, what’s next for them? To work on their relationship on their own. Which doesn’t’ go well. Man Emmi really should have just made him couscous. But that’s how it starts. Some tiny little thing builds into an argument and then all is lost. Romance withers.
     And the second reveal is people aren’t evil, they’re just bored. When the new cleaning lady Yolanda suffers the social exile in place of Emmi at work, thus allowing her to return to the fold, we see that it’s in their nature to shit talk. People don’t hate other people because they’re bad, they project their aggression onto other targets because they’re ugly and lack something better to give them a sense of purpose. But this type of ugly is relative. Subjective. Part of what it means to be human. Pushing Ali away sends him on a self destructive plummet to seek rock bottom.
     Why does Ali fuck the barmaid? Because he’s desperate for something he can’t quite understand. It’s his emptiness. Depression. He leaves home and goes to her place because she’s easy. And once she lets him in he sleeps all day and into the night because that’s depression sleep. When she gets off her night shift and wants sex, he undresses and then just wants to embrace. He’s not lonely like he thinks he is. He’s not looking for someone or warmth or affection. He’s lonely because life has let him down. He perpetuates a cycle of his own design as a way of inferiority confirmation. Why does he ridicule Emmi along with the others calling her his Moroccan grandma? Because he’s sick of his life. Everything. The scene where at the bar Ali goes into the bathroom and keeps hitting himself in the face as he looks in the mirror at his own reflection says it all. It sounds weird when you put it into words. But seeing it is to witness the sublime. It conveys emotions that aren’t meant for words.
     What sticks with me is the way the slight disharmony between the married couple has such drastic consequences. The stuff of life. And the way they are revealed to be on their own inevitable paths. The final scene stripping away everything but the very essence of each of them. Ali’s illness. Emmi’s longsuffering attentive care. That is there entire identity defined in the simplest way possible.The beauty of their kindness and intimacy. Yet still having found each other. I can’t help but see this as a sweet romance, thinking back on them. After their marriage going to that place that Hitler used to eat and ordering off a fancy menu for the first time is adorable. Power of the melodrama. The waiter doesn’t judge them. Nor do we. And this is all that heaven allows.

A doll's house

What do you feel when you watch this? I feel like NORA (Carstensen) has got it all. She’s beautiful, young, has a nice home, family, decorating the Christmas tree and her husband is getting a new promotion as a bank manager. And Nora likes to shop, spend money. But when a trip to Italy she paid for to save her husband’s life earlier comes back to threaten her quaint life, she gets defensive and shifts the blame onto her dead father and husband. And leaves her marriage. Because she resents TORVALD treating her like she’s a possession? No. Because as a woman she’s powerless.

     Nora Helmer (1974, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is like the perfect material for Fassbinder. Nora is constantly trying to assess the situation she’s found herself in and do her best to gain the life she wants. But the paradox is she feels like it’s all fake. Like playing house. The artifice of domestic melodrama. Where the feelings are the only thing that’s real. Is this the problem with women?
     At times I can see how someone would take Nora’s side. The whole dramatic conflict is the result of her saving Torvald’s life. She has sacrificed to be a good mother, loyal wife. She’s getting ready to look her best for the ball with Torvald. And I wanted to see this as an argument against the oppressive nature of a woman’s place in the home, but I missed it. And lest I sound like a misogynist for lacking fempathy, what’s so bad about Torvald?
     Nora is misguided, self-justified, and gets on my nerves. She says finally that neither her dead father nor her husband ever loved her. I don’t know man. I don’t believe anything she says. I think Nora took advantage of Torvald when he was a lawyer to get her dad out of some shady business dealings and then took advantage of her dad by forging his signature (over his dead body) to have him stand surety against her 4800k loan. Her dancing was exceedingly naturalistic is a way of saying women are conniving ambitious selfish fickle snakes. I mean not in real life of course just in the context of this fun little drama.
     And we don’t know what KRISTINE said to KROGSTAD to get him to mail Torvald back the promissory note, but I feel like the real point is that in life things that often seem overwhelmingly bleak usually get resolved and the storm passes. Back to normal. But what about DR RANK? So he had a whoring syphilis dad whom because of he now is dying and has a crooked spine. Which could mean this film doesn’t exclusively hate women or anything. What else? This motif of parents morally poisoning the children? Except no, Rank has physically inherited his father’s disease, not morally. Is this to say that Torvald’s accusations against Krogstad aren’t entirely plausible? Does it matter?
     Because despite all Torvald’s moral condemnation against Nora, what harm does he actually do her because of it? What’s important however is Nora’s indignant resentment of his moralizing. I think she’s the poison. And when Nora threatens suicide, not only does Torvald laugh it off as a joke, but throws in that her father used to say the same things. Are we supposed to hate Torvald? I love that there’s this dark suicide talk and he lightheartedly calls her bluff. I see Fassbinder’s film here as yet another of his examples of dismantling the institution of marriage to show how it can’t work. And how everyone who tries to use this couple for their own personal benefit are trampled upon and left for dead. Back to it’s all business. And everyone loses in the end. The couple don’t lose their finances, health, reputation in society, no none of that. Nora leaves because of some illegal money scam she got into behind Torvald’s back that he finds out about, even though she ends up off the hook for it. It’s like she leaves because she’s exposed as being the fake. And that’s the kind of tragic irony that ultimately I can find that I care about her through.

Vanished into thin air

When a Fassbinder film is plot driven you know you’re in trouble. There’re hardly enough metaphysical ideas in World on a Wire (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) to sustain its 3 hour runtime, but as one of those arthouse movies that try to pull you into its mechanics like genre films do it will probably satisfy a few followers. Not me.

     FRED STILLER is technical director of cybertechnics corporation IKZ, a software company sanctioned by the state to develop Simulacron 1. Major plot twist Fred isn’t real nor is the world he lives in, it’s just another simulation. Throw in some elementary existentialism like if I can think doesn’t that mean I’m real, or does it not? and you’ve got the extent to what this movie has to offer. It’s tedious. The whole first half is so aggravating because they keep building, milking this huge reveal which everyone can tell minutes into this thing is that they’re living in a simulation and not real.
     Maybe I’m part of the problem though. I don’t really care for animals. But I wouldn’t want anyone to hurt them. On the other hand however in movies I don’t at all care for robots or whatever. I don’t watch any Blade Runner cuts after 1982 because Deckard isn’t a replikant. He’s a paid assassin. And no I don’t feel bad when he kills Nexus-6. Oh boo hoo I’m 6ft tall blond attractive and in peak physical condition please tell me who made me and when I’m going to die, they’re so obnoxious. In World on a Wire there’s a twist ending where Fred is brought into Simulacron 3, which is what we know as reality, through having his consciousness switched with the computer programmer who designed Simulacron 2 and happens to look just like him and share the same name, so he can live happily ever after with EVE VOLLMER, who saved him.
     When a Fassbinder film has a happy ending you know you’re in trouble. Applying a doom tone he’s most adept at, Fassbinder easily attributes this narrative with a foreboding, alienating sense of fear and despair. And if you want to stretch you can go and find more of your own interpretations like the philosophical ones: the programmer getting enormous pleasure from Fred’s fear and despair could be people’s perception of fate as cruel and meaningless; to the religious like the Devil’s tactics to get Christians to kill, steal, and destroy. Fassbinder’s films are full of Christian iconography. Broad moral themes like these are too flexible. For Eve to switch Fred with the megalomaniac programmer it could be read as either existential replacing the world before you with one that more closely corresponds to your desires or spiritually as her replacing Satan with Christ through salvation.
 
But the material is too vague. Placing the responsibility on the audience of projecting their own meaning onto it is asking too much in this instance. What drives World on a Wire is a projection, or as they call it a bundle of electronic circuits, realizing that their world isn’t real and then being deleted from the program lest they risk corrupting the rest of the world. That’s enough source of external conflict to keep the plot going.
     In Fassbinder’s hands Simulacron 2 feels all too human. And when I said I don’t have empathy for robots, it’s not that Fassbinder’s getting me to care about an artificial reality, it’s that he gets me to generate an emotional connection with a counterfeit world that simultaneously gets you to ask yourself how real is your real world? Or doesn’t it all feel fake sometimes? Which yes goes all the way back to Plato. And yes any idiot can see the parallels between cinema and cyberspace as added levels of the, what World on a Wire calls, the aboves and belows.
     Okay Simulacron 2 is rad. The scene where Fred approaches a stranger on the street and asks her for a light then inexplicably a ton of bricks fall from the sky crushing her and all you see is her scalp and other bits in the rubble, including a lighter that he uses to light a cigarette and then puts back is pretty audacious delight fun. And near the end that nightclub singer the soldiers execute in the snow, when she refuses the blindfold to apply lipstick to her reflection in that saber and they leave her face down lying dead is the most moving moment in the film yet also the furthest removed from what’s considered reality.
     No okay and there are some rad social commentary blips too. Like that GLORIA FROMM secretary, the way she’s this sex industry convenience with no soul who later has this dialogue scene where she asks herself if she should leave the man she’s with or why she’s with him. And despite having said it’s for money and sex, when she asks these questions aloud she’s bewildered by them. That moment gets more closer to the human conflict of the internal world than any other. It’s profound. It sticks with me. I identify. I think. It gets me to ask questions about do any of us ever really know if what we’re doing when it comes to matters of the heart is what we should be doing? Hmm maybe this movie doesn’t totally suck as bad as I’d thought.
       And the funniest society program bit is after HAHN’S car plunges into the bay (oh and seriously too fun is Fassbinder getting the shot of him submerged underwater and that fish swimming by it too good) and the mob of normies all in unison like zombies yell at Fred “murderer.” It’s like people don’t think for themselves as much as they form their beliefs and values based on what everybody else in society says. They’re removed from what Fred actually did wrong. All they know is to chant the word murderer because they’ve been made to. Not too far off from people today.

Some unpleasant business

 

Domestic melodrama is what Fassbinder handles best. His are unusually bleak. And they’re less lavish feminine affluent furnished colorful floral affairs than they are kitchen sink realism working class dives, hovels. Which is their charm. Another Fassbinder masterpiece Jail Bait (1973, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) is a doomed young lovers up against smalltown disapproving society, mainly the girl’s parents, cynical unsentimental narrative that is at its most provocative when you consider the moral dichotomy HANNI (Eva Mattes) embodies.
     On the one hand Hanni is a child. Her bedroom is littered with plush toys and dolls. She’s 14. When the biker FRANZ BERMEIER (Harry Baer) picks her up, he and his two friends have this ugly disturbing discussion behind her back where they kick around ideas about turning her out, and objectifying her critiquing her body. It’s sad. And on the other hand Hanni is a femme fatale bad girl sociopath who manipulates everyone around her according to ulterior motives constantly in flux based on her whims. She’s impulsive. She’s confused. She never had time to grow up so she becomes this creature of survival. We’re never really sure if she’s to blame or merely a victim of a really crumby set of life choices to choose from and people who either treat her unfairly oppressive or exploit her.
 
This movie feels dangerous—in maybe not necessarily a cool way—because of the way it deals with statutory rape. Hanni’s constantly defiantly letting people know she’s not stupid when it comes to sex. Losing her virginity in the literal roll in the hay with Franz scene involves her dispassionately consensual, but quickly losing interest and declines Franz’s offer of having a post-coital cigarette in favor of jumping off the loft into the hay. She’s still a kid. She still plays. And this uncomfortable contradictory character nature ultimately will serve as the final shot of the movie with her presumably on her way to do a life sentence in prison carelessly playing hopscotch on her way there.
     Dispassionate sex is my new definition of Fassbinder’s morality. There’s no romance. Sex out of boredom. It could even apply to all of us. Or call it some nature mandated compulsion if that’s too harsh. There’s also that great moment when Hanni’s mom is having their first sex talk and there’s maybe this ominous premonition that subtly suggests a parallel between getting hit by a car while riding a bike and the potential dangers of casual sex. The moral dichotomy returns in the way Hanni’s parents react to what they think happened and what really happened between she and Franz.
     When Hanni tells her mom she practices birth control, she does so in this brazen way that is surely meant to shock and hurt her. But then she gets pregnant shortly thereafter and you have to wonder was she even making that up? Her emotions guide her. And the relationships she has with her parents and Franz are tumultuous. 
 
Fassbinder’s transposition or appropriation of tropes from the crime genre he adapts into his mumblecore romances make their way into Jail Bait as Hanni resorting to the motives of a stock femme fatale. She only let Franz fuck her so she can get him to kill her father. She orchestrates it all. She gets the gun. She goads him into it. 
     And this is one of the film’s greatest jokes. When she’s got Franz right where she wants him he tells her he’ll murder her dad because guns are “men’s business.” Then when Hanni sets up her dad to walk into his execution site out at Miller’s Crossing he tells her he’s going to have a face to face talk about the pregnancy with Franz because it’s “men’s business.” The fact that women’s rights are decided by men is the target of the satire here. They think they’re in control. They think it’s their decisions that matter. But Hanni played them both to her own ends. And then she not only miscarries, but blames the baby on everything that went wrong.
     And if you might be predisposed to revile Hanni’s actions, it’s not that easy. Because she’s 14. Is she a sociopath or not grown up enough yet to make decisions? That’s what makes her such a compelling character. But Franz isn’t innocent either. He’s not entirely the victim. Like that quick shot at the river where they’re laying by the banks and he does the knife stabbing between your fingers thing on his pregnant wife's stomach. Whoa. Talk about symbolism. Birth or abortion as game of chance.
     All of the wasteland sets paint the emotional landscape of the world these characters inhabit. The abandoned brick building where they rendezvous after Franz is paroled. The rugged seaside cargo ships traffic through constantly as they’re sprawled out in bliss. The deceptively corrupt subtext below the glossy surface of first love. At times it’s even a comedy of romance genre subversion. The pillow talk convo where Hanni tells Franz her dad mentioned castrating him. In this traditional setting where lovers are at their most vulnerable she tells her man it would be funny if he were castrated because then he’d be worthless cause all he is is a sex organ to her. Gender swap objectification, is that feminist?
 
Jail Bait shares a lot in common with Fassbinder’s The Merchant of Four Seasons (and begrudgingly I’ll mention the complete tonal opposite Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day) through their use of domestic melodrama as arena where characters are brutally destroyed invariably emotionally, spiritually, or physically and doomed, brought down by their own seemingly healthy, fair desires anyone has the right to. And of course plenty of zoom lens throttle.
     But again, what’s up with all the Christian iconography in the homes? Is Fassbinder saying they are hypocrites because of their moral weakness? Or is he saying the tragedy is that while trying to lead a good life just how hard is it to persevere? In Jail Bait when Franz is with Hanni after they’ve slept together for the last time his crucifix hanging from his necklace is so big it’s kinda ridiculous. And for all Hanni’s father’s hope to have a Christian household, he sure seems to love Hitler more than God. Oh yeah I left out part of what he said about Franz. It was that because of what he did to his daughter he belongs either in a concentration camp (if Hitler were still around) or castrated.
 
So Jail Bait may be up there with Fassbinder’s bleakest work. And I love it for that. But there’s such tenderness the way the solo piano pieces accompany so many of the scenes. Fassbinder cares about these characters. And I do too. I identify with them. They’re trying. Except they just happen to be doing such a poor job at it.

Pen15 Club: Making a Pen Loop for Your Crummy Work Steno Pad

At work, I generally carry a steno pad, one of those top-bound bad-paper, 6" by 9" jobs that most office supply closets seem to be full of (except at my office, the last couple years, during which stretch admin has refused to buy these anymore for some reason). They are the platonic ideal of a thing to use at work that's ... fine. Basically fine. They take a bit of a beating and tend to get used up before they get worn out, they're easy to hold and use one-handed, standing, etc., they're ... fine.

One lackful area, howevs, is that they're not THAT that easy to attach a pen to. Some folk'll stuff one into the spiral ring binding up top, but I don't, and won't. But what I will do is mess around with duct tape to make a satisfactory-to-me solution, which I shall detail below.

A Process for Creating a Pen Loop

1. First, gather your tools. You will need:
1. A steno pad
2. A roll of duct tape
3. A scissors
4. The pens you will want to use with that steno pad—I show here three favorite work pens: Bic Re'Nu; Zebra bLen 3C; Pilot Precise V5

5. A binder clip
6. A clean, well-lighted place and a flat surface on which to work (with enough gravity to hold your items on the surface without you having to worry about it)
2. Second, select the girthiest pen you will use with this notebook—in my case, this will be the bLen, but if you want to futureproof this part, a Sharpie or MarksALot might be the thing to reach for
3. Third, get yourself a length of duct tape and wrap it sticky side out around the pen a couple times and cut it off cleanly, using a scissors

4. Fourth, put the pen in the binder clip and set it aside. This is so the sticky tube of duct tape doesn't touch anything and therefore doesn't stick to anything you don't want it to stick to
5. Fifth, starting on the inside back cover of the steno pad, about where you'd like the pen loop to be, run a single strip of duct tape horizontally across the inside, then the outside, of the cover, leaving enough of a strip to not quite make it all the way across the inside cover a second time

6. Sixth: the tricky part. With the strip of duct tape lying sticky-side up, carefully line up the sticky-side-out tube of duct tape you made earlier with that strip, and place it about a pen width away from the edge of the back cover of the steno pad
   This is tricky, because the stickiest substances in the world are the two pieces of sticky-side duct tape, when they contact each other, and if the two pieces touch when they are in the wrong spot or orientation, you will be irritated and may have to make another tube
   Leaving the pen in the tube will help you manipulate and position it

7. Seventh: Cut off the strip of tape, if you have not already, leaving enough to cover all the sticky-side tape remaining, and smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles or w/e
8. You now have a duct tape pen loop that will not leave (much) duct tape residue on your pen! Great job!

NOTE: This will only work with pens that have clips. If you have a pen without a clip and want to try this approach it won't work. I don't know of an approach that WILL work. Maybe there's a way to attach a clipless pen to a work steno pad; I don't know. Frankly, I don't want to know. It's a market we could do without.

Pen15 Club: On the Tip Tip

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a straight-up great pen for using is the Caran d'Ache 849. A couple of years back, I had casually mentioned this well-understood fact to Noodles, even going so far as to show a photograph of a particularly handsome model I had seen, and then roughly June 1, 2022 I was presented with one! It's a great writer, it looks super cool, it fits my hands well, and its "Goliath"* refill (a) seems to be willing to last forever and (b) puts down my current favorite shade of blue. None of that is what I'm here to talk about today.

What I'm here to talk about today is the fact that the Caran d'Ache 849 is a retractable ballpoint, a retractable ballpoint that will will, in my experience, on occasion "stick" a bit when being activated, such that the tip sticks out a tiny bit farther than normal.

(A close-up shot showing the Caran d'Ache 849 tip extruded extraly.)

The reason this is to me notable is that I think this— what, perhaps just over 2 millimeter—difference actually improves the way the pen writes, noticeably! Having that extra bit of tip length is just a tiny bit more comfortable for me, given the way I hold my pen, where my notebook usually is (lap more often than desk), and probably other factors I have not yet identified. At this point, when I click it and it sticks like that, I try not to retract the tip, because I prefer it like this.

Anyway, I love this pen inordinately, and hope every reader will enjoy my small contribution to its lore. You can find more lore at The Gentleman Stationer, and even buy yourself one there if you dare want to be as cool as Noodles.

* lol