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Newsletter March 2018

The US screenings of Fassbinder’s working-class TV series EIGHT HOURS DON’T MAKE A DAY have been a great success, attracting enthusiastic reviews in the press. The New York Times, for instance, writes: “Once again, here is a work that […] makes Mr. Fassbinder look more inventive than just about any filmmaker working today. […] The new restoration, from the original 16-millimeter film, probably represents the best it’s ever looked, given its original airing on tube television. […] This so-called ‘family series,’ an ensemble portrait of an extended clan in a West German city, is also a complete surprise — funnier, more humane and more optimistic than anything in the Fassbinder canon.” The entire article is available on the New York Times’ website: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/13/movies/eight-hours-dont-make-a-day-review-rainer-fassbinder.html

The New Yorker also published a review
(https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/19/rainer-werner-fassbinders-rare-tv-series) in which the film critic Richard Brody describes EIGHT HOURS DON’T MAKE A DAY as “one of Fassbinder’s most unusual and self-revealing projects […]. Fassbinder fills the series with the details of ordinary troubles—poverty, lack of affordable housing, casual racism, hostile bosses—but in lieu of a blanket denunciation of an implacable system he offers a vision of practical possibilities for local change at work, in the community, and at home.”

The magazine published by the home cinema label Criterion Collection also includes a short press review which provides a more comprehensive impression of the positive resonance of the screenings in the US media (see: https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/5465-a-rare-fassbinder-melodrama-makes-its-theatrical-premiere). Criterion will be releasing Fassbinder’s series for the American market on DVD and Blu-ray in October 2018.

We would like to remind our readers once again of the complete Fassbinder retrospective taking place from 11 April to 13 Mai in the Cinémathèque française (the full program of screenings can be found at: http://www.cinematheque.fr/cycle/rainer-werner-fassbinder-439.html). EIGHT HOURS DON’T MAKE A DAY will be screened as part of the retrospective as well as in selected French cinemas. In addition Carlotta Films is releasing the series in France on DVD and Blu-ray on 25 April (more information at:
http://www.carlottavod.com/huit-heures-ne-font-pas-un-jour)

The final book written by the cultural theorist Mark Fisher is now available in German. In his essay Fisher explores two singular “affects,” the weird and the eerie. Closely connected and yet separate, they both question the relationship between the interior and exterior worlds, attach themselves to the peculiar and the unknown, oppress without arousing fear, simultaneously fascinating and unsettling.” One of the chapters is titled “Simulations and Unworlding: Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Philip K. Dick” and deals with RWF’s two-part science fiction television film WORLD ON A WIRE. “The Weird and the Eerie” can be purchased in German (“Das Seltsame und das Gespenstische”), among other places, on the publisher’s website: https://edition-tiamat.de/das-seltsame-und-das-gespenstische/

In conclusion we would like to congratulate Hark Bohm, who is being awarded the Special Award for Outstanding Contributions to German Cinema at this year’s German Film Awards. Like his brother Marquard, Bohm acted in several Fassbinder films and has himself worked as a director, his most well-known work being NORDSEE IST MORDSEE (The North Sea is a Murderous Sea). He also worked as a scriptwriter on Fatih Akin’s two most recent films. The award ceremony will take place on 26 April.

We wish our friends and readers a pleasant start to spring and a relaxing Easter holiday. We will return in April again with more news from the world of Rainer Werner Fassbinder.

 

Photo left: ACHT STUNDEN SIND KEIN TAG © Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation

Photo right: Hark Bohm in Lili Marleen © Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation

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