I hate terms like revisionist western and neo noir. Annoying. The American Soldier (1970, Rainer Werner Fassbinder) takes a mood we’re familiar with and updates it. That of the post war Hollywood movies where a soldier returns from the war and finds life is now different. That’s an effective ingredient cinematically—a part of our brains respond to that pathway premise priming us to feel alienated, doomed in fact.
The American Soldier is one of those films each viewer should through intuition take away their own meaning. Not to be dissected. But I defy convention. So here’s my take. The American was born in Germany and went to serve in Vietnam fighting in the United States Army, so he’s not really American. His name is Ricky Di Rezzori, played by Karl Scheydt. Also known as THE KILLER. The protagonist. Unlike the veterans returning home from WWII, The Killer doesn’t feel alienated upon returning to his hometown, in this case Munich. But I think conveniently the film wants us to think he does. Yet he his doomed for another reason.
The antagonist is a cop named JAN. Jan doesn’t kill. He contracts The Killer to carry out hits. Jan embodies a repressed sexuality. He represents the mainstream commercial film industry along with aspects of society at large as well. Guilt eats the soul. There’s also a hypocrisy aspect to his witch hunt. The broad beats of the plot are as follows: Assignment 1 Jan has The Killer eliminate the gypsy TONY EL QUITANO, Assignment 2 Jan has The Killer eliminate MAGDALENA FULLER, and Assignment 3 Jan has The Killer eliminate ROSA VON PRAUHEIM.
Fassbinder always identifies with and portrays the outsider as having the courage and integrity to be themselves, which results in them being doomed to suffer the crushing close minded intolerance of the status quo. First Tony El Quitano must die because he’s gay. There’s something so sad about the way The Killer executes that poor weak defenseless creature. Jan’s a cop. His chief asks him to bring El Quitano in for questioning, but part of Jan’s secret plans are to kill El Quitano, why? Jan’s either closet or homophobic.
Fassbinder always identifies with and portrays the outsider as having the courage and integrity to be themselves, which results in them being doomed to suffer the crushing close minded intolerance of the status quo. First Tony El Quitano must die because he’s gay. There’s something so sad about the way The Killer executes that poor weak defenseless creature. Jan’s a cop. His chief asks him to bring El Quitano in for questioning, but part of Jan’s secret plans are to kill El Quitano, why? Jan’s either closet or homophobic.
But before El Quitano dies he says The Killer doesn’t have long to live. And when The Killer and FRANZ WALSCH visit their old housing complex, MRS. LANG has this look in her stare when they leave telegraphing to us they’re doomed. So we must ask ourselves what links The Killer with the outsider? Another question to ask is why does Jan send his girl Rosa to the hotel when The Killer orders a whore? Jan’s cleaning house and nothing more. He’s threatened by what he deems immoral sex acts. And covering his tracks.
Yet it would be oversimplifying to think of Jan as the moral police. The opening scene is telling. Has there ever been a more fitting image of Fassbinder’s objective thematic style than pornographic playing cards? I keep saying. People need money and what they have to do for it; people need love and what they have to do for it. Sex is currency, money is currency. But when Jan wins the pot the other cop says “you’ll ruin me with that sort of thing,” Jan replies “You didn’t have to play.”
The third act we get some hint of backstory about The Killer’s character. The way he goes in for a kiss on the mouth of the woman who’s referred to as his mother. And the passion jealousy anger the Kurt Raab gay character projects, supposedly The Killer’s brother. Finally, that line The Killer lets float “My father lives in a different world. It wasn’t my scene.” It turns out The American Solider is a poker game of immoral sexual appetites.
What I said earlier about Jan representing the mainstream commercial film industry along with aspects of society at large I base on the final shootout in the underground train station. Fassbinder himself plays Franz, is gay, and comes to The Killer’s rescue, which can be read as The Killer isn’t necessarily gay but he’s friends with Franz because they grew up together and he has nothing to hide. (Yet he also takes from women what he wants physically then discards them. We must ask ourselves again is that immoral or an objective way of life? Much less the weird thing with his mother and brother?) Franz saves The Killer from death by Jan. Almost. That Jan wins is conservative values maintaining their brand of normalcy.
We know they’re hypocrites though. They’re at the poker table playing with the same stakes. But for them winning is preserving their private life. Think about that one quick scene when the three cops are leaving the chief’s office and there’s that random woman in anguish yelling at the precinct cop she’s pregnant with his baby while he shrugs off any sense of moral responsibility.
So many people in this Munich walk away destitute from the poker tables. How many random characters are just passed out drunk somewhere? The chambermaid who commits hara-kiri because Pierre left her. The American Soldier is another powerful allegory about human need that Fassbinder expressionistically refracts through the crime genre. No one walks away happy this time. No one survives except the antagonist. And Fassbinder is really pushing the boundaries of what's deemed acceptable if he expects us to sympathize with The Killer.
Yet it would be oversimplifying to think of Jan as the moral police. The opening scene is telling. Has there ever been a more fitting image of Fassbinder’s objective thematic style than pornographic playing cards? I keep saying. People need money and what they have to do for it; people need love and what they have to do for it. Sex is currency, money is currency. But when Jan wins the pot the other cop says “you’ll ruin me with that sort of thing,” Jan replies “You didn’t have to play.”
The third act we get some hint of backstory about The Killer’s character. The way he goes in for a kiss on the mouth of the woman who’s referred to as his mother. And the passion jealousy anger the Kurt Raab gay character projects, supposedly The Killer’s brother. Finally, that line The Killer lets float “My father lives in a different world. It wasn’t my scene.” It turns out The American Solider is a poker game of immoral sexual appetites.
What I said earlier about Jan representing the mainstream commercial film industry along with aspects of society at large I base on the final shootout in the underground train station. Fassbinder himself plays Franz, is gay, and comes to The Killer’s rescue, which can be read as The Killer isn’t necessarily gay but he’s friends with Franz because they grew up together and he has nothing to hide. (Yet he also takes from women what he wants physically then discards them. We must ask ourselves again is that immoral or an objective way of life? Much less the weird thing with his mother and brother?) Franz saves The Killer from death by Jan. Almost. That Jan wins is conservative values maintaining their brand of normalcy.
We know they’re hypocrites though. They’re at the poker table playing with the same stakes. But for them winning is preserving their private life. Think about that one quick scene when the three cops are leaving the chief’s office and there’s that random woman in anguish yelling at the precinct cop she’s pregnant with his baby while he shrugs off any sense of moral responsibility.
So many people in this Munich walk away destitute from the poker tables. How many random characters are just passed out drunk somewhere? The chambermaid who commits hara-kiri because Pierre left her. The American Soldier is another powerful allegory about human need that Fassbinder expressionistically refracts through the crime genre. No one walks away happy this time. No one survives except the antagonist. And Fassbinder is really pushing the boundaries of what's deemed acceptable if he expects us to sympathize with The Killer.
The crucial plot point to ultimately understand The American Soldier is that The Killer says he has to get rid of Rosa because in his line he can't afford to have any witnesses. So what's he hiding? The tragedy of the film isn't that Jan used The Killer to carry out his evil schemes. It's that The Killer learned to kill by America. The Killer represents tough. That's why Fassbinder befriends him, because Fassbinder makes movies about brutality. Jan coerces The Killer because he's too weak to go after all those he despises. Jan is fear. Jan is threatened by the outsider. The outsider belongs to Fassbinder, and he learned tough from American cinema. The saddest thing is the tough American hero after Vietnam is nothing more than a mercenary pawn.That final shot of the queer brother (melodrama incarnate) dryhumping his dead body convulsing in a tantrum breakdown for 5 minutes without cutting is the end of an era.
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