Apr
30
2008
0

Berlin Alexanderplatz – Liebe ist tod.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder is one of the greatest film directors the world has ever known. He directed his first feature at 24, and by the time of his death at 37 he had directed over 40 films. I’ve seen a little more than half of these and have yet to see a poor film. Some are better than others, many more are masterpieces, but each and every Fassbinder film is an example of a film director working above his peers with a perfect mastery of his craft.

A common theme in Fassbinder’s work is that of a person being crushed by the world around them. His protagonists can not live up to the expectations of society, and find their only recourse is a descent into depression, madness or suicide (often all three). It is not entirely the fault of “the cruel world” in a Fassbinder film however. If one looks deeper at a Fassbinder character it becomes clear that their own personal weakness and poor decisions have contributed just as much to their downfall.

So when I finally got a chance to see Fassbinder’s epic 15 and half hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz (a film based on Alexander Doblin’s novel that Fassbinder cites as the single most influential work of art in his life) it ended up being incredibly similar to his other films despite being an adaptation. Fassbinder himself said that he went back and reviewed all of his films before making Berlin Alexanderplatz, and in doing so realized how similar they all were to the central themes in Doblin’s novel, more than he had even meant for them to be. I can’t imagine any other director being able to tell this story as effectively since Fassbinder had pretty much been making films based on the book his entire life in preparation for this one film.
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Written by Isley Unruh in: Cinema |
Apr
14
2008
1

The Lord of the Rings, the lost chapters III: A Well Connected Party.

The fantasy fiction community was once again rocked when more previously unreleased sections of The Lord of the Rings were discovered. This “grail” of a literary find amounted to a new lost segment cut out of the original manuscript by censors. Years of suppression by the Tolkien estate followed, but the wait for this new lost section is finally over! This new section takes place immediately after the Ent-led sacking of Isengard in the third to last page of the chapter “The Road to Isengard” for those of you that want to print this out and staple it into your copies of the book. I have started this monumental find with a section from the book as published in bold for context. Enjoy!

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Written by Isley Unruh in: Humor,Lord of the Rings,The Lost Chapters |
Apr
01
2008
0

Robert Bresson’s Sacred Cinema of Minimalism

I rarely use the word sacred, but I think it is an apt descriptor for a director that embodies the loftiest aspects of the human spirit as does Robert (more…)

Written by Isley Unruh in: Humor |

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