Fassbinder made more than 40 films before dying at 37
Rainer Werner Fassbinder often skipped rehearsals and kept the first take. Working that fast with a loyal troupe, he could finish four or five low-budget films a year, and in barely fifteen years he became a driving force of the New German Cinema, mixing Hollywood melodrama with sharp social criticism.
He was born on 31 May 1945 in Bad Wörishofen, three weeks after American troops occupied the town. At his mother's wish he later gave 1946 as his birth year, to present himself as a child of the post-war era; the truth came out shortly before he died. His parents divorced in 1951, and his mother, Liselotte Pempeit, a translator, often sent him to the cinema while she worked. He later said he watched at least one film a day, sometimes four.
School went badly, with repeated escapes from boarding school, and the Berlin Film School rejected him. Theatre became his route in. He trained at the Fridl-Leonhard Studio in Munich, where he met Hanna Schygulla, and in 1967 joined the Munich Action-Theatre, taking charge within two months. When it collapsed in May 1968 it re-formed as the Anti-Theater under his direction, a troupe that lived and performed together. He made 20 films each with Schygulla and Irm Hermann.
His first feature, the gangster picture Love Is Colder Than Death, came in 1969. The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) gave him a home success, and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) made his name abroad. His biggest hit was The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), tracing one woman's rise and fall after the war. He took cues from Brecht's alienation effect and from Jean-Luc Godard, and named Visconti's The Damned his favourite film. Early on he centred migrant workers, prisoners and gay people.
He also wrote, edited, designed and acted, often signing edits as Franz Walsh, and appeared in 19 of his own films. The television series Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) was among his late works. He died on 10 June 1982 from a mix of cocaine and barbiturates, and his death is often taken to mark the close of the New German Cinema period.
Source: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
