To the End of the World... and Then a Little Bit Further

Documentary film that deals with four main thematic areas in Fassbinder’s films: The exploitation of love, the human tendency for mutual repression, the resulting loneliness, and powerlessness that leads to an explosion of violence. Fassbinder’s genius lay in his logical and uncompromising combination of these various themes into a harmonious unity, while at the same time creating a very personal self-portrait of himself. All Fassbinder’s films are self-portraits in disguise. His greatness was one of emphasizing the negative, the darker aspects of things. Through his radical use of rigorous subjectivity he was able to be objective, whether in Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun or Effi Briest.

In this film essay, critic Peter Buchka explores the German cinema of the 1920s, ranging from the disquieting images of Fritz Lang's Metropolis to the castrating sexuality of Marlene Dietrich in Die Blaue Engel. The program provides an introduction to Weimar cinema, with Buchka's essay narrated over the images from film clips of 1920s era German films.