If you were to examine the morality in Das Kaffeehaus (1970, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) what would you get? Among its ensemble, characters can be grouped into either those in anguish, or those who accept the status quo as is. Yet who is it that suffers the most?
Hans Hirschmüller as TRAPPOLO the servant and married couple Günther Kaufmann as FLAMINIO ARDENTI, his wife Ingrid Caven as PLACIDA face tragic fates, and as is typical in Fassbinder’s films, they’re outsiders. In Trappolo’s case, he’s stuck in the past, how different his time spent in the New World was, discovering gold in Arizona. But not here. Not anymore. Venice is a crooked game where (to repeat myself yet again) Fassbinder lays out an infrastructure based on sex, love, and money as the necessary objects people need and will do anything to get; along the way this can include borrowing, lending, stealing, and swindling. Trappolo invests his life savings in the stock market and loses it to the broker before he even gets the chance to play.
Flaminio Ardenti is in hiding under the alias COUNT LEANDER and initially under this false identity is doing pretty good for himself here in Venice. That is until his wife, who’s “on his tail like the devil” catches up with him. In Fassbinder it’s the anguish that sticks with me. Their fate is powerful. They’re staged like buried corpses. Screaming their devotion to one another feels like marriage is decay, being buried alive, which ironically is something along what Leander accuses the whore LISAURA (Hanna Schygulla) of.
But through all the backstabbing and maneuvering Lisaura lands on her feet, happy to go back to DON MARZIO (Kurt Raab), and he happy to get his old whore back, which is what he wanted more than anything this entire time. Das Kaffeehaus has its focus on institutions. The dude who owns the coffee shop and the dude who owns the gambling house call the shots. But the twist is the gambling house is rigged, except because the proprietor RIDOLFO (Wilhelm Rabenbauer) is in debt to the city of Venice they publicly admit they won’t arrest him until he pays off what he owes them. This stuff is rich. Fassbinder sees the worst in society. And life is a free market where the currency is human desire.
EUGENIO (Harry Bär) seems like the central protagonist. Is this one of the only times we see a happy ending in Fassbinder? In the opening of the play Don Marzio mentions to Eugenio, who has a severe gambling problem, that he might get his wife to work as a hostess in the gambling hall for extra cash, to which Eugenio defiantly opposes. But what happened between then and the end where he pimps his wife VITTORIA (Margit Carstensen) to PANDOLFO, owner of the gambling house? Eugenio and Vittoria walk away gleefully truly happy living off the hopes that with the money they’re making from her having sex with the old dude one day they might have enough to buy the casino. Oh wait I guess the real tragedy is that they think that could actually happen. This one is tricky though. Because for the moment and foreseeable future all three of them are happy. It’s the morality of de Sade’s Justine. The wicked are rewarded and the virtuous are punished.
The dialogue in Das Kaffeehaus is delivered at a constant pace, unlike in Fassbinder’s films. Because there are no sets and characters never leave the stage, there are even times when different scenes nearly overlap. Or cross cut (in the same shot) at the very least. It makes me miss his weird long pauses slow delivery style. Lucky for me there’s plenty more of that to come.
Flaminio Ardenti is in hiding under the alias COUNT LEANDER and initially under this false identity is doing pretty good for himself here in Venice. That is until his wife, who’s “on his tail like the devil” catches up with him. In Fassbinder it’s the anguish that sticks with me. Their fate is powerful. They’re staged like buried corpses. Screaming their devotion to one another feels like marriage is decay, being buried alive, which ironically is something along what Leander accuses the whore LISAURA (Hanna Schygulla) of.
But through all the backstabbing and maneuvering Lisaura lands on her feet, happy to go back to DON MARZIO (Kurt Raab), and he happy to get his old whore back, which is what he wanted more than anything this entire time. Das Kaffeehaus has its focus on institutions. The dude who owns the coffee shop and the dude who owns the gambling house call the shots. But the twist is the gambling house is rigged, except because the proprietor RIDOLFO (Wilhelm Rabenbauer) is in debt to the city of Venice they publicly admit they won’t arrest him until he pays off what he owes them. This stuff is rich. Fassbinder sees the worst in society. And life is a free market where the currency is human desire.
EUGENIO (Harry Bär) seems like the central protagonist. Is this one of the only times we see a happy ending in Fassbinder? In the opening of the play Don Marzio mentions to Eugenio, who has a severe gambling problem, that he might get his wife to work as a hostess in the gambling hall for extra cash, to which Eugenio defiantly opposes. But what happened between then and the end where he pimps his wife VITTORIA (Margit Carstensen) to PANDOLFO, owner of the gambling house? Eugenio and Vittoria walk away gleefully truly happy living off the hopes that with the money they’re making from her having sex with the old dude one day they might have enough to buy the casino. Oh wait I guess the real tragedy is that they think that could actually happen. This one is tricky though. Because for the moment and foreseeable future all three of them are happy. It’s the morality of de Sade’s Justine. The wicked are rewarded and the virtuous are punished.
The dialogue in Das Kaffeehaus is delivered at a constant pace, unlike in Fassbinder’s films. Because there are no sets and characters never leave the stage, there are even times when different scenes nearly overlap. Or cross cut (in the same shot) at the very least. It makes me miss his weird long pauses slow delivery style. Lucky for me there’s plenty more of that to come.
There's also this comedic device that never gets old where anytime money is mentioned someone nearby converts the dollar figure into marks. And every time it's instantaneous. And every character gets a turn. They all do it deadpan. Just emphasizes the importance of money in a very funny way.
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