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.

This town ain't got no hat-size no how

The key to interpreting Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973, Sam Peckinpah) is the line of dialogue spoken by Garrett: “This country’s gettin’ old and I plan to grow old with it.” I mean duh. But what makes the film so compelling is how the Garrett character embodies, let’s say this mythical restructuring shift depiction of America growing up; and that in doing so, it seems he’s encumbered with the sole task of getting rid of the Kid; yet throughout the entire course of the narrative Garrett does everything he can to prolong its completion. Because Garrett’s got morals. And he knows once he goes through with it, he’ll lose that part of himself. But he goes through with it anyway. And it’s at that final decisive moment that he suddenly realizes he loses all of himself.
     Garrett’s conflict is so profound because he thinks he’s doing what needs to be done according to the law. Although in Peckinpah’s film, the US government establishes a law that’s not about justice, but about the interests of power elites who’ve bought the control to protect their own interests—and of course there’s nothing subtle about Peckinpah’s coda crawl he wants to link this corruption to the present. And in the legend this elegy mourns, it’s of course that much more emotional with the added father-son dynamic Peckinpah imbues it with. 
     Garrett’s stubborn willful ignorance or denial about the whole thing is his fatal flaw. When he’s in Lemuel’s (Chill Wills) saloon, we see this emphasized when the proprietor confronts Garrett with this painful truth, to which an angered Garrett defensively berates Lemuel because his “eyes ain’t seen nothin’ but the bad side of news since he been in this territory,” then goes on to literally pull the wool over Lemuel’s eyes. Was this darker side of Garrett always there, or did it emerge out of necessity? And by Garrett I mean American justice. Recall the vitriol in Garrett’s spite over the capitalist motivated politicians and power wielding business men like Gov Wallace and Chisum early on.
     But James Coburn as Garrett is the best part of the movie. His moral deterioration and cool detached bitter condescension above everyone else is handled perfectly through the performance. And his blackhat costumes throughout with that cigar clenched in his jaws, as stylish as they are, and as much as they fit a stock villain, can’t make us feel like he’s the real bad guy here. Or is he? It’s metaphorical.
 
And what about Billy the Kid? In contrast to Garrett, every scene the Kid’s in he’s only ever either fucking or killing by the end of it. But in all of the Kid’s scenes, we see him smile. Billy only kills to live. Pat only kills to enforce the law. The irony is that the only time we feel a sense of justice, like they had it coming, is when Billy murders someone. 
     Notice how every time Billy sleeps with a Mexican woman, it’s sweet and tender. But once Garrett puts on the badge he treats his wife like shit. And while in the scene where Garret has sex with every prostitute in the house in that montage, although equally sweet and tender, he will later lock all six of them in that same room and then throw them in jail. These moral ambiguities allow for a more nuanced comparison. Also, when the Kid tells that dude he’s trading his brown horse for the buckskin, in that quick scene, the disappointment conveyed here really hits home that the Kid isn’t always all good. 
     I’d always felt like the Kid has a reluctance proportionate to Garrett’s. But he doesn’t. How could I have missed that for so long? The Kid is often nudged towards goin’ off to Mexico if he doesn’t want to die by staying in the US. But after the murder of Paco, the Kid vows to go after Chisum. There’s no way that can be taken as a realistic endeavor. But I’m also not sure it’s as overt as a deathdrive. Maybe the clue lies in the Kid’s outstretched Christ sacrifice arms pose he enacts both times Garrett catches him.
 
Recently I’ve been asking myself what movies really stay with me after they’re over. And that’s when I came across rediscovering Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. After watching it 4 or 5 times in the past few weeks, I’d realized that as a whole it really makes me feel that it has this tone of overwhelming inevitable loss. And I can’t get enough of it. Every death is significant.
     How could the Slim Pickens death not move you? (I only watch Peckinpah’s final preview cut, and I like seeing that scene without Bob Dylan’s “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” which isn’t to say I don’t think that it’s a great song.) Recently I’ve also been wondering if I tend to process movies more rationally than emotionally. So the death scene of the character played by Elisha Cook, Jr has stuck with me more and more because of the words from his soliloquy: “I’m tired. Tired of looking for yellow rocks. Tired of trying not to look at your ugly face. Tired of seein’ the land get crowded. Tired of bein’ snake-bitten, sunstruck, waiting to be killed.” Such gloom. 
     Finally, it’s PETE MAXWELL who ultimately really depression knocks me down. Pete seems to be this symbol of tradition. When Billy shows up at Pete’s place, the way Pete instantly goes into nostalgia storytelling mode, while Billy and the lady he’s with walk out on him still talking is poignant; even more so in that Pat sneaks in, and is also known by Pete, and that Pat takes advantage of that to sit and wait for the Kid to walk in and gun him down. That bond. It’s like it links them. Because they both know Pete = they both value enjoying life/enjoying the company of a good friend/a good conversation/enjoying the moment. Until it’s gone.