Film Review
At almost the exact midpoint of his short but highly productive
filmmaking career, Rainer Werner Fassbinder delivered what is arguably
his finest and most personal film, one that would be among his biggest
critical successes.
Fontane -
Effi Briest was also a film that marked a turning point in
Fassbinder's career, showing a departure from the fairly modest, often
experimental pieces of the past to the lavish, more mainstream-oriented
productions of the future, which would culminate in his monumental 14
part television series
Berlin
Alexanderplatz (1980). So affected was he by
Theodor Fontane's 19th Century novel
Effi Briest that Fassbinder had
intended to adapt it as his debut feature. Wisely he waited until
he had mastered his craft and secured his reputation as the standard
bearer of New German cinema. Fassbinder's
Effi Briest is one of cinema's most
exquisitely crafted and poignant literary adaptations.
It is here that Fassbinder shows most clearly the great influences from
which he fashioned his own brand of filmmaking. The presence of
the legendary playwright Bertolt Brecht is felt in virtually every shot
and if you want to know precisely what is meant by that oft-repeated
phrase
Brechtian distancing
you have only to watch this film. The artificiality, almost
staginess, that comes from the director's appropriation of this device
has an acute, almost vicious, sense of irony that is so appropriate for
the film. This, along with Jürgen Jürges's
haunting black-and-white photography, emphasises the harsh falseness of the world in which the
heroine lives, a world in which one is compelled to suppress one's own
feelings and live according to a plethora of unwritten dictats.
The sense of repression that Fassbinder conveys in this film is
palpable, almost suffocating.
The other significant influence in Fassbinder's oeuvre was Douglas
Sirk, a German-born filmmaker who is best known for the colourful
melodramas that he made in Hollywood in the 1950s. Sirkian motifs
constantly recur in Fassbinder's films and Sirk, like Fassbinder,
exploited the popular melodrama form to expose the failings of
contemporary society. In
Fontane
- Effi Briest, Fassbinder employs many of the techniques that
Sirk used to great effect in
All That Heaven Allows
(1955). Effi's repression and growing sense of isolation from the
world around her are accentuated through repeated use of mirrors,
window frames and tree branches to contain her in a tight physical
and emotional space. She is a prisoner, enmeshed in a
web of fear and lies, incapable of living a fulfilled life, destined to
be crushed like someone dying from asphyxia. Etiquette demands
that she surrender her individuality and live as society expects her
to, and so she becomes but a shallow reflection of herself, trapped
within the confines of a frame, like a picture on the wall of a dead mausoleum. It is
not hard to see other influences, particularly Jean-Luc Godard
(possibly the cinema's greatest adherent to Brechtian technique) and
Ingmar Bergman (you can hardly avoid noticing the references to
The Seventh Seal and
Cries and Whispers).
Rainer Fassbinder was not only a consummate technician, a great
cinematic artist with an unerring knack of investing a shot with
immediate visceral impact and layers and layers of meaning, but he was
able to get the best out of his performers. This can be seen most
readily in this film through Hanna Schygulla's extraordinary portrayal
of the title character. The austerity of the mise-en-scène
is matched by Schygulla's remarkably controlled performance, which
reveals so much beneath the surface that it is heart-breaking to watch
her character's slow disintegration under the weight of oppression
outside her and the burgeoning guilt within.
Schygulla had worked with Fassbinder on a number of films prior to this
but their relationship was, to say the least, far from cosy. It
was during the making of
Fontane -
Effi Briest that they had their most heated falling out.
At one point Fassbinder was so fed up with his muse's carping over how
to play her part that he screamed at her "I can't stand the sight of
your face any more. You bust my balls!" They would not work
together for four years after this film, their next collaboration being
Die Ehe der Maria Braun (1979).
The tempestuous nature of Fassbinder's relationship with
Schygulla makes it all the more remarkable that together they should
both consistently deliver their best work. Perhaps conflict
is the best engine for creative endeavour...
© James Travers 2010
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Rainer Werner Fassbinder film:
Faustrecht der Freiheit (1975)
Film Synopsis
In 1890, Effi Briest, the seventeen-year-old daughter of well-to-do
parents from a provincial town outside Berlin, is courted by the
wealthy Baron von Instetten. Although he is twenty years her
senior, Effi consents to marry the baron. Naturally, her
ambitious mother approves of the match. But there is no love in
the union and, through boredom, Effi begins a love affair with another
man of her own age, Major Crampas. The affair soon burns itself
out and Effi accompanies her husband to Berlin, where he hopes to
become a minister. Some time later, Instetten discovers the love
letters that Crampas wrote to his wife and sees only one course of
action to save his honour and preserve his place in society. He
challenges his rival to a duel even though Effi has long ceased to love
him. Effi's woes do not end with Crampas's death. Convinced
that he has been dishonoured and betrayed by his wife's conduct, the
baron drives Effi away from him. The worst part of the enforced
separation is that Effi will lose not only contact with her daughter,
but also her love...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.