By Gary Morris
Few filmmakers lived their private lives more publicly than Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982), and few have had those lives so relentlessly linked to their artistic output. Starting at age 21, this self-created enfant terrible made over 40 films in 15 years along with numerous plays and TV dramas, but he still managed to become a well-known habitue of New York’s leather bars in the ’70s, easily recognized and often photographed in his trademark leather jacket, dirty jeans, and perpetual scowl. His films were a fixture in art houses of the time, but his personal life, always well publicized, was riddled with gossip and scandal. Disgruntled actors recounted elaborate tales of his violent ways. Some, like the long-suffering Irm Hermann, claimed physical abuse. Writer Robert Katz quotes her: “He couldn’t conceive of my refusing him, and he tried everything. He almost beat me to death on the streets of Bochum …” Fassbinder’s name was frequently in the papers, sometimes in interviews bitterly denouncing his country: “Better a street-sweeper in Mexico than a filmmaker in Germany!” More notorious was the matter of his suicidal lovers: one hanged himself in jail after a murderous rampage, another was found dead in Fassbinder’s apartment. His repertory company was a volatile, literal extended family that included his mother and a seemingly endless string of former, present, and future male lovers, lovelorn women, and even a pair of frustrated wives, Ingrid Caven and Juliane Lorenz. Addicted to booze and drugs (particularly whiskey, Valium, and cocaine, which killed him), Fassbinder left this world in the same way as many of his cinematic creations: overworked, overwrought, and finally overdosed on life. more…
