The Life Cinematic: Wes Anderson and French New Wave Theory-Mitch

At last!, a new blog post. This is my research/paper/thing with logic errors riddled throughout that was used in the Midwest Film and Television Conference, held this year at Notre Dame.

            The films of Wes Anderson, Bottle Rocket (1996), Rushmore(1997), The Royal Tennenbaums (2002),The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), and Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) are deeply personal films that revolve around the recurring themes of Fatherhood, coming-of-age, and Wes Anderson himself. In particular, Rushmore, whose protagonist, Max Fischer (played energetically by then-newcomer Jason Schwartzman), is analogous to Anderson’s own coming-of-age. The film is the narrative of Max, who excels at extra-curricular activities (such as directing plays, like an adaptation of Serpico) while failing in academics. Max is kicked out of his prestigious prep school (from where the film takes its name) after falling in love with a teacher and befriending a wealthy steel magnate., leading to his attendance  at a public school This film as well as his others, due to their personal nature, are films that would have been championed by the critics of the French Film Journal, Cahiers du Cinema and, in particular, Francois Truffaut, whose own film The 400 Blows (1959) spawned the film movement known as the French New Wave and itself told the extremely person coming-of-age story of the director. Because of the authorial as well as personal nature that these films share with their directors, the film criticism practice known as The Auteur Theory, despite its problematic nature, must be used in order, not only to uncover the similarities of these films but also to position Wes Anderson as the cinematic descendant of French New Wave Theory, which itself was born out of Francois Truffaut’s canonical essay within Cahiers du Cinema, “A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”. Using, primarily, Rushmore and Truffaut’s The 400 Blow (to exemplify the French New Wave) it becomes evident that Anderson’s films are a continuation of French New Wave Theory.

            It is important to distinguish the auteur theory from French New Wave theory, despite their similar origins. Scholars Michael Allen and Anne E. Lincoln, in “Critical Discourse and the Cultural Consecration of American Films”, criticize the auteur theory (the predominant discourse over the past several decades [887]. They admit, albeit with vehemence, that the criticism is “accessible” and convenient” (876), yet they also claim that, because it privileges “certain directors” (such as Anderson and Truffaut) it glosses over the contributions of other directors (878). Critic Andrew Sarris, in “The Auteur Theory and The Perils of Pauline” argues against criticism of the theory, which does have the possibility of dismissing “hundreds of directors” (27) by claiming that the auteur theory was never meant as an “occult ritual” and that it offers a “depth (noticing an established pattern with a particular film maker” and is an efficient way to discuss the cinema.  He does admit, however, that without the necessary research and analysis, that the critics using the auteur theory become just “straight forward plot reviews” (28). So too, with Anderson’s films we can notice a trend, and in the case for this argument, that trend is the use of la camera-stylo, translated as “camera as pen”, a theory that Truffaut called for, and which I consider the “French New Wave Theory”. The French New Wave was born out of Truffaut’s call for directors to be the author of their films. He was displeased with the system of French Cinema that gave preference to the screenwriters who adapted their screenplays from literature. He believed this to be a “process of equivalence” and argues that “an adaptation [is only of value] when written by a man of the cinema”(229). What this process of equivalence did was create films that were simply visual re-tellings of novels and stories that were better suited for literature. With “men of cinema”, films could become in and of themselves, their own form of literature. Personal, interesting, and true. Wes Anderson is a man of the cinema, and it is evidenced within Rushmore. David Orgeron establishes Anderson as a user of la camera-stylo, only changing it (in humor) to la camera-crayola, in his article, “La-Camera Crayola: Authorship Comes of Age in the Cinema of Wes Anderson”, in which he argues that Anderson uses la camera-stylo (French New Wave Theory) to populate his films with self-representation. However, what is lacking is not Anderson’s  connection to the French New Wave (almost any auteur can be connected), but the trajectory from Truffaut to Anderson and the apt comparisons between Rushmore and The 400 Blows as cinematic literature.

            If Truffaut called for directors to be the authors of their work, then one can assume that expressions or techniques for writing can be transferred to not only writing a screenplay, but to directing a film. Truffaut, on the television show, Cineastes de notre temps, said that when one is writing they often think of people or places they know. He later claimed that it was easier to orient himself and to shoot in familiar streets (Cineastes de notre temps). In keeping with that, in Rushmore, Anderson shot the film at his prep school in Austin, Texas, where he, like Max would put on extravagant plays while being a horrid student. Noted Scholar, Virgina Wexman cites various examples of further French New Wave filmmaking norms such as “episodic plot, improvised dialogue, handheld camera work, jumpy editing, grainy images shot on location with available light, and ubiquitous references to American Culture—especially Hollywood Movies” (122). Anderson employs similar techniques, in the same vein that an author (to further the director-as-author theme) would look upon James Joyce to write stream-of-consciousness prose. Although, unlike Truffaut, Anderson carefully plans out each image (he creates detailed storyboards for every scene). He does, however, allow for improvisation, particularly from Stalwart Bill Murray (whom played the steel magnante Herman Blume in Rushmore). For example, after Max cuts Blume’s break line (after his relationship with Miss Cross, the teacher Max is in love with [played by Olivia Williams] is uncovered), Murray drove the car like a Camaro. After Murray spontaneously started peeling across the parking lot, Anderson yelled to the crew to start filming. All Anderson had originally planned was for Murray to back the car up and come flying across the screen (Winters, New York Times). Likewise, there are numerous references throughout the film to American films. Orgeron provides examples when he writes, “The birthday party itself is evidence of Blume’s desperate self-perception. Like Mike Nichols’ The Graduate (1967), with its extended poolside coming-of-age metaphors, Anderson treats the space iconically” (48). As well, Max stages plays that can be seen as homages to American Cinema, such as his rendition of Serpico and the play that ends the film, Heaven and Hell which plays similarly to war epics such as Oliver Stone’s Platoon (1986) or the aptly titled Heaven and Hell (1993).

            Similar to the critics at Cahiers, Anderson is a cinephile. In addition to Max’s plays, his films are rife with cinematic references.  Consider this: at the 1999 MTV movie awards, Anderson directed a number of shorts featuring the “Max Fischer Players” (The actors who worked on Max’s plays). They recreated a number of films that came out in 1999. Those films, Armageddon, Out of Sight, and The Truman Show featured very bankable actors, directors, and writers. Anderson, however, used his troupe of non-professional actors to recreate the films featuring Andersons own crayloa-esque sense of artificiality.  Anderson, in difference the those films, was a not the sort of profitable director such as Michael Bay nor did he feature bankable actors such as Jim Carrey. Rushmore did however, feature Bill Murray, a comedic actor whose more low-key turn as Herman Blume was a drastic departure from his typecast, and Jason Shwartzman, who despite coming from the cinematic family of Coppolas, was a musician and a then non-actor.

            Together, Anderson and Schwartzman crafted the American equivalent to Truffaut’s 400 Blows protagonist, Antoine Doinel (played by then non-actor, Jean Pierre-Leaud. Like Anderson and Schwartzman’s Max, Antoine is a conglomeration of actor and director. Both characters feature auto-biographical elements. Like Truffaut’s Doinel and many male protagonists in the French New Wave, Max is irrepressibly romantic, fiercely individualistic, and often misunderstood by the world surrounding them.

            Take, for instance, the opening scene of Rushmore.  Max is asked by his geometry teacher to try solving “the hardest geometry problem in the world”. Max puts down a newspaper asking, “Sorry, did someone say my name?”(Rushmore). This is our introduction to Max, a close-up of the back of his head with the business section of a newspaper filling the screen. Clearly, he is not interested in what his peers are doing. The class laughs at his quip (he imagines himself quite charming) and he proceeds to solve the problem effortlessly (quickly, all while holding a tea cup).  It is revealed, however, that he is only dreaming whilst asleep during his school’s chapel session.

            Similarly, Truffaut’s, Doinel has a similar delusion. After his mother offers a monetary reward for a good essay grade, he begins to read Balzac. Like Max, the things that interest Antoine are not the norm for his age. There is a shot of him reading, smoking, and laying of the couch followed by a cut to the book he is reading—all while a voiceover allows us into his mind, reciting the words on the page for us to hear. As the voiceover reads a movement that is particularly inspiring to Antoine, we see him in a close-up. Antoine is holding a cigarette in his right hand, and as he raises it to the muses he exclaims, “Eureka, I have found it!” (The 400  Blows). The scene dissolves, as Antoine posts a picture of a Balzac on the wall of a small cupboard. He lights a candle, sets up a shrine to Balzac, believing he is the answer to his quest for the perfect essay. After turning the essay in, however, the teacher berates Antoine for plagiarism. Both Antoine and Max are dreamers, reflecting the nature of their personalities as similar to that of their directors. These events are shot in stylistically different fashions, both Anderson’s and Truffaut’s “representatives” on screen are dreamers, idealists, and romantics. They live in a reality governed by their own ambitions which is misunderstood by the institutions of the “real” world.

            Truffaut was in conference with the French New Wave as he filmed the world as seen by Antoine.  Care-free jazz plays non-diegetically throughout the film. The Camera roams with Antoine, displaying his romantic pirouetting throughout Paris. Anderson, in contrast, uses a much heavier camera than that of the French New Wave directors and his shots tend to be still and, if they are moving, they are likely a tracking shot. This is evidence of the precision of Anderson’s vision. He is in control, similar to how Dignan, in Bottle Rocket, refuses any lee-way in his robbery or escape plans, which like Anderson, he storyboarded.

            Truffaut utilized montage to show how Antoine filled his day when he skipped a day of school. The events included  going to the theatre and seeing his mother kiss another man. Max, however, is the owner of both the punctuality award as well as the perfect attendance award, but similliary he too is a poor student. Learning in the class room is useless to Max, as he doesn’t yearn for academic achievements (he is pleased when he receives a C+ on a test). Orgeron states,

            A montage present a series of staged tableaux of Max’s extracurricular activities, often      with max occupying the center of the frame. The whimsical presentation of these       activities indicates Max’s winning and heroic view of himself. More than narcissistic,           however, Max’s self-perception is colored by a desire, similar to Dignan’s to present and          preserve himself in a certain light: the fact that the montage begins on an opening             yearbook—Max is, not surprisingly, editor in chief—suggests the memorializing effects    of Max’s imagination (47-48)

Here, we can get a glimpse to how Anderson wants us, as the viewer, to see him. He is aware of the “cinematic creator as a construct” (Orgeron 42). Max is the author of his life and the protagonist of his narrative, presenting himself as such. To keep with French New Wave Traditions of episodic plots, the film is structured as segments, spanning September to December, with each month being unveiled as a heavy and dark red theatre curtain is drawn back.  This brings attention to the non-continuity editing. It is as though Anderson is allowing us to see into his mind which just happens to be on the screen.

            This is best exemplified after the opening of Max’s play, Serpico. The play is incredibly serious, extravagant, and vulgar. There is a large train set built as a background. It is completely unlike other plays performed for high school, similar to how an Anderson film is uniquely his own creation. There is meta-mis-en-scene: the acting styles of the actors are overly dramatic-but is that the acting style of the actors, or another creation of the director—this lends itself to the seriousness that Max’s views himself as well his plays. He gets into an argument with one of his actors over a missed line. After saying that “every line matters”, and before being punched he yells, “Don’t fuck with my play!” (Rushmore). Max sees this as an intrusion of his artistic integrity and one can see why Anderson’s films seem so deliberate. At the end of the play, Max walks on Screen in a slightly Low-angle shot, emphasizing how, in his reality, he is heroic.  The scene is in slow motion (a recurring technique in Anderson’s films) , Max is holding his directors flowers, and the crowd is cheering. This over-the-top cheering could be questioned as to whether it is diegetic or non-diegetic; is it the actual cheering or only the cheering that Max can hear.  This also reflects as to how Anderson views the role of the director. If one takes Max to be himself, an auteur, then we can the importance of the auteur. Serpico is “his play” (even though it is an adaptation).  This could hearken back to the origin of the auteur theory. Truffaut, didn’t necessarily have a problem with adaptations of literature; rather, it is whether it is cinematic or simply a rehashing—a visual rereading of the novel. The over-the-top play could, be examined along with his last play, Heaven and Earth. The violent and vulgar nature is amped up with Max’s latter work.

            This “created creator” is important to Truffaut as well. Orgeron states, “Truffaut’s own self-mythologization is critical here as well and, as a staggering number of biographically centered publications demonstrating the unprecedented allure of the post-Hollywood auteur not as ‘structure’ but as subjective and (perhaps) knowable ‘reality’”(42). Truffaut and the French New Wave made personal films, attempting to portray reality and truth as they saw it. There is a shot from Antoine’s point-of-view as he rode a spinning ride when he skipped school. Truffaut was attempting to film the reality from Antoine’s mindset, and hereinto, his own.

            The reality of Anderson’s characters is a mindset that desire control, the type of control Max yearns for in his productions.  Their’s reality is a “created one”. The directors of the French New Wave attempted to create a “truth of reality” with their film techniques. They would create an intimacy with their characters by filming with the camera in the bed with the actors. The directors wanted to be in an intimate space, as though the more distance the camera had the more possibilities for falsity could manifest. Take for instance Jean-luc Godard’s Breathless (1960), for which Truffaut wrote a scenario. There is a moment in which Michael and Patricia (Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg) are driving carefree throughout Paris. The camera is in the car with them (coincidentally, this is where the jump-cut was discovered, through this breezy and spontaneous filmmaking). There is an intimacy between director and actor and the director’s presence is felt throughout the film, as though the camera is simply a tool for narration. While Anderson uses different techniques, essentially he is attempting to do the same thing: construct a reality. Max’s reality is created through his own ambitions and imagination. Anderson and Max view the world through slow motion, while every other inhabitant is in a uniform speed. Anderson is attempting to create what the French New Wave created; only, his reality is storyboarded and highly stylized.

            The character’s that inhabit Anderson’s films are themselves auteurs. They write their own reality and are incredibly difficult personas. Orgeron claims that the characters who reside in the films of Anderson are “self-centered, narcissistic, and at times pathological[…]Anderson’s narratives, however, converge to redeem these characters around a pair of changed perceptions. His authors must learn to acknowledge their ‘readers’ and their ‘readers’ must learn to read differently” (55-56). The Cahiers group were attempting, themselves, to change the way filmgoers viewed films. They were tired of the films that the French Film System was producing (an emphasis on the script as opposed to the cinematic elements), so they took it upon themselves to change perceptions of films. They wanted films that were exciting, personal, and true. Wexman writes, “There is documentary and there is theater; but that ultimately, at the highest level, they are one and the same. Through documentary realism we arrive at the structure of theaters, and through theatrical imagination and fiction we arrive at the reality of life” (236). Rushmore is similar in narrative to many French New Wave films, but it is in the approach where they differ, as well as converge.

            Max is kicked out of Rushmore (the prep-school) when he begins to construct a massive aquarium to win the heart of the Miss Cross (funded by Herman Blume). He doesn’t check with anybody or get the plan approved, because in his reality—he is the ultimate authority. He ends up at Grover High School, a public institution where he ultimately decides to “make a go of it” (as Blume puts it). Truffaut’s, Antoine, as well as many other French New Wave males, is obstracized because of his failure to conform to his parents’ as well as his school’s ideals. He decides to run away and “make a go of it” in the gritty streets of Paris where he meets the “real world” , sleeping in a factory and washing in a public fountain. Both characters are kicked out of institutions for refusing to be anything outside of their personal whimsical ideals. Yet, Rushmore is highly constructed while The 400 Blows and other French New Wave films are more breezy and carefree.

            To make their films personal, French New Wave directors would often create their own cinematic counterparts.  They used actors who could channel and mesh with their own personalities like Jean-Paul Belmondo (for Godard) and Jean-Pierre Leaud (Truffaut). The French New Wave directors would often work with each other, exampled Truffaut providing the scenario for Godard’s Breathless. Anderson’s cinematic system is similarly insular. He has a stable of actors and cohorts he rotates and utilizes. He has the same core actors (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Angelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman, etc). He produced his Life Aquatic co-writers, Noah Baumbach, 2004 film, The Squid and the Whale.   Even as he cycles through his “usual suspects” (Owen Wilson, for example, co-wrote Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royal Tennenbaums) it is Anderson’s singular vision that unifies and identifies his film. Under the direction of Anderson, it as though all of his cast and crew become embodied by Wes Anderson. They are the letters that form his words (to continue the author as director theme).

            While Wes Anderson continues to be identified as an auteur and the author of his own work, he continues to make work that are completely his own, because he is a man of the cinema (For instance, his 2009 offering, Fantastic Mr. Fox, while behind an adaptation of Roald Dahl’s novel and being in a different genre [animation] still features many of the Anderson staples that populate his work. He is a man of cinema, afterall). His films would be those that were championed by the Cahiers critics. They are personal, unique, and occasionally utilizes the same techniques as those of the French New Wave. Anderson is the cinematic descendant fo the French New Wave. Through his uniqueness, he is carrying the theoretical torch that was lit by the French New Wave.

Nashville (1975)-Mitchell

Director Robert Altman’s Nashville (1975) is a buffet of Americana, a long smorgasbord of American variety. The film, in its 160 minute running time, tells the narratives of 24 characters including: from country music superstars, a BBC reporter, an apolitical folk-rock music trio, a man working on a political campaign, to a gospel singer and devoted mother/wife who is has an affair with a member of the apolitical folk-rock trio. That is just a sample. Yet, this film with its variety is a catalog of American Culture. There is a scene of a traffic jam in which these (and the other) characters, as they leave the airport heading towards Nashville, converge. Throughout the film, there is an ominous (albeit, gentlemanly and southern)  voice coming from the speakers of a “campaign van” belonging to the campaign of Reform Party candidate, Hal Phillip Walker. Throughout the film, the campaign pervades the scenes, either through the campaign slogans coming from the van or the dealings of John Triplette, who works for the campaign. In looking not only at Altman’s motifs as an auteur (overlapping dialogue) but also historical implications, Altman using the campaign to show how political messages (finely crafted) have become part of the social consciousness of the time.

 In working with Altman’s films as historical documents, we must take an interdisciplinary approach. Altman’s films may exude a reflection of the ideology of that moment in history, but Altman is first and foremost an auteur, or author of his film.  Kenneth Hey discusses the challenges of working with films (in general) as historical documents. He says,

 First, as an historical document, film has contextual connections with the contemporary world. The people who make a film bring to the project their own interests and attitudes, and these various perspectives, when added to the collaborative process forge a product which resonates in some way with society.  Second, as a work of art, film requires textual analysis similar to drama, photography, painting, and music. But as an aesthetic object which combines different artistic media into a single experience, film requires an analytical method which considers all contributing disciplines. Finally, as an art historical object, film stands at the intersection of ongoing traditions in the medium’s own history and of theoretical interests alive at the time the film is made. To single out one feature of the film is […] is to sacrifice the film for something less.[1]

Therefore, in looking at Altman’s film’s we must look at his motifs (aesthetics), the context of society at the time, Altman’s own perspective as an auteur , and mash them all up together. Nashville is a film with so much complexity that it would be difficult to write anything about it without leaving out major themes, characters, or artistic choices.  However, in focusing in one convergence of aesthetics (overlapping dialogue) and historical implications (the campaign of Hal Phillip Walker) we can see at least an instance in which Altman is attempting to show how political messages, slogan, and spin have become a daily part of our communal and social consciousness.

Altman, as an auteur, is known for his use of overlapping dialogue, in which conversations occur simultaneously. Altman’s camera moves from conversation to conversation, putting one into the forefront of the screen and using the others as background (or, perhaps white) noise. The campaign van of Walker slinks through Nashville, the scenes, and the characters lives, proclaiming slogans that call for changing the national anthem “back to something people could understand” or to do away with the electoral college or “funny notions that have developed in American Poltics.  These slogans are in the background, they are they soundtrack (interesting for a film that takes place around country music). If we take the overlapping dialogue as analogous to social consciousness then the background (the Hal Phillip Walker Campaign Slogans) would therefore be the subconscious.

To put the film in an historical context, the film was produced in 1975. Dating from  1960 to the year the film was produced, American society had dealt with (or been dealt blows by):  The Kennedy assassination(1963), the televised assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald (1963), the Warren Commision (1964), the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr (1968), the assassination of Robert Kennedy (1968)  the Vietnam War (1959-1975), the Cold War (1945),  and Watergate (Nixon resigned in 1974). Throughout all these traumas Americans became skeptical of the White House. The White House in those 15 years was shaky and untrustworthy, a place where deceit was the foundation of the building. Washington had to consistently defend itself and try to control the message and the spin. To imagine the amount of time politicians had to appear on television or issue statements dealing with the massive turmoil, fear, and distrust (political slogans such as the infamous Lyndon Johnson ad against Barry Goldwater which included the slogan, “”Vote for President Johnson on November 3. The stakes are too high for you to stay home.”)

If we take Altman’s use of overlapping dialogue as analogous to social consciousness (the many conversations society is having at the same time) then we can see that the background noise is political slogans, telling us that we should think and believe a politician. Political slogans are Societies subconscious.  There are a million conversations going on within the American Consciousness and yet pervading all of them as slogans, ads, and attacks from Washington, attempting to spin our thoughts. What is interesting about the Hal Phillip Walker campaign is that his slogans are berating the US government, an institution which he wants to lead. It is as though he is not trying to inform the people of problems, but simply trying to get elected. 

Ultimately, Nashville is a film that has so much variety and difference between the themes and characters and issues that it is a smorgasbord of American Culture, which may actually be an accurate representation of America. The problem, Altman may be suggesting, is that despite the variety of events and lives (a Country Music Festival, Marriage Problems, and Traffic Jams), politics and particular politicians trying to get elected, is what is American Democracy is  truly about.

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[1] Kenneth R Hey “Ambivalence as a Theme in On the Waterfront (1954): An Interdisciplinary Approach to Film Study” PP 159

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974)-Kyle

Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder is a film about an interracial couple in Germany. Fassbinder a German filmmaker made this film in homage to Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Being honest, I have never seen a Fassbinder film before and also have not seen Sirk’s film All That Heaven Allows. The film is an extremely powerful film even in today’s world. Racism that is displayed in this film is still something that filmmakers today don’t touch. Hollywood today hardly ever has a black man and a white woman fall in love or vice versa. Fassbinder has an older German woman who works as a cleaning lady fall in love with an Arab man who works on cars. The Arab man is probably twenty years younger than the German woman. Not knowing the political ideas coming out of Germany at the time I believe it is easy to see, according to Fassbinder that the German people were still racist when it came to Arabs. What is so powerful in this film is how this couple realized that their love is greater than their friends see and they fight for it throughout the film. Meeting at a bar early on in the film until the end the couple has to continue to fight for their love. Fassbinder has the viewer constantly following them. Dealing with friends of Emmi, the German woman, and dealing with the friends of Ali, the Arab man. The friends of Emmi call the police her on for having what they thought was a loud party and the friends of Ali make fun of him calling Emmi his grandmother, at the time this joke was said Ali does laugh at it. Ali struggles with his relationship because of the age difference. He cheats on Emmi with a German woman bartender a couple times in the film. But in the end for Emmi she doesn’t care as long as they treat each other well when they are together. I believe Emmi knows that she can’t give Ali everything he wants, but she loves his company so she will allow it. This is one of my main problems with this film. The cheating relationship was hard for me to take. Emmi does cry over it, but in the end it is ok for her. I guess she sees more in Ali than I do. Getting over my gripe with this part in the film I still believe the overall message trumps this little downfall for me. The acting from both these characters is great. One thing that is still with me now is the framing of the shots done in this film. The most perfect scene in the film for me deals when Emmi and Ali go out to dinner to celebrate their marriage. They end up going out to an Italian restaurant where Emmi has told us Hitler used to eat. The reason why this scene is powerful is because there is no one else we see at the restaurant besides the waiter. The restaurant is completely empty and Emmi and Ali are in the back room surrounded by isolated tables. The waiter comes over and asks them for their order and they have decided to get the most expensive things on the menu. They are only doing this once so why not splurge. The waiter asks how they want their meat cooked and at first they saw rare until they find out rare means raw and they quickly change to medium. Like ordering food in a high class restaurant Emmi and Ali have no idea what they are doing. They are completely loss and are hoping their love can be enough for them. That is why Fassbinder has nobody else at the restaurant; he wants to completely show the isolation this couple has from the world. No one wants anything to do with them not even their families. The family of Emmi does come around but only when they need her help. The same as the waiter in the restaurant. That is why this scene is so powerful. Fassbinder ends the scene with a long shot of Emmi and Ali setting in their section looking at the camera. The camera position is far enough out where we can see them through a doorway, almost showing that they are trapped in this room. So, looking at the film through that shot one could argue that Emmi and Ali are also trapped by their love; they will continue to stay this way forever. That is why Emmi takes Ali back after all is said and done. Overall this film was outstanding. I have no doubts why Criterion has decided to release this film. This film has opened up the door for me to watch more Fassbinder and more German cinema.

-Kyle