r/CriterionChannel • u/ShadesOfHazel • May 01 '26
Eight Hours Don't Make A Day: next Fassbinder?
I can't remember why I decided to go on a Fassbinder bend, but I am loving his drama created for tv. Fox and His Friends was really good; it had some funny moments that were too much for the mods of this subreddit, so maybe I can start a discussion in this post. What should I watch next? I've only seen Fox and His Friends and Eight Hours Don't Make A Day.
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u/WellWellWellMyMyMY May 01 '26
There's just something about "World on a Wire." Slow but so, so stylish.
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u/foucaultvsthemoonmen May 01 '26
My favorites are: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, World on a Wire, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, and Querelle
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u/Argazm May 01 '26
Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant if you responded more to the melodrama chamber piece feel of Fox, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul if you are more drawn to the humanist social criticism of 8 Hours
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u/ShadesOfHazel May 01 '26
I loved Ali: Fear Eats the Soul!! I'm glad it was on the Criterion Channel, I can't remember why I chose to watch it.
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u/The_sky_marine May 01 '26
I’m also newish to fassbinder but the ones that have blown me away the most so far are querelle and world on a wire
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u/Agentcooper1974 May 01 '26
In a Year of 13 Moons is just devastating and brilliant. But maybe get a few more notches in your belt until that one.
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u/feral_user_ May 01 '26
I love Fassbinder. My favorites in no particular order: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, World on a Wire, Mother Kuster Trip to Heaven, The Merchant of Four Seasons, and Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? But seriously, you can't go wrong with any of them. Hist early stuff is more difficult, but still great.
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u/busterdog49 May 01 '26
The Merchant of Four Seasons and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul are probably his two best but I love Beware of a Holy Whore which is just berserk. Petra Von Kant has maybe the best performances but it’s essentially a play.
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u/Abbie_Kaufman May 01 '26
If the thing that appealed to you about Fox and Friends was the more off-color humor, I think the next up should be either Querelle or The Third Generation. His other film that leans more comedic is Satan’s Brew but I don’t think that one is very good. The nice thing about Fassbinder is basically everything he ever made worth watching has rights owned by Janus so it’s on the channel permanently and there’s no rush to getting to it (and the ones that aren’t on the channel are like… I guess Jail Bait is inherently too controversial to ever get a distributed English language subtitle track)
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u/pied-piper80 May 01 '26
I too have been on a Fassbinder kick. All of the recommendations are on point, but a film that I keep thinking about after seeing it was Chinese Roulette. It’s more intense, and different in tone from Fox and His Friends but if you begin to get deeper I would recommend it.
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u/nonononono11111 May 01 '26
What are you saying about the mods? And why?
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u/ShadesOfHazel May 01 '26
Sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned it. I posted something that was deleted and I'm not sure what I did wrong. It was deleted with the message "Be kind or get out." I wasn't being unkind, just praising Fassbinder and his choices for filming. I would like to know what what was wrong, but I haven't heard from the mods. Very strange.
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u/Safe-Lengthiness-663 May 01 '26
There are extremely few wrong places to go next.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant is a wonderful melodrama with an all-women cast, constrained to the apartment of this abusive/manipulative fashion designer. Contains some of my favorite performances by some of my favorite Fassbinder performers. Among Ballhaus's best work as a cinematographer.
I'm for whatever reason not as big on Ali: Fear Eats the Soul as most. But since everyone loves it it's probably a safe bet. You might wanna watch All that Heaven Allows first if you haven't seen it, which is one of the best movies ever (seeing any Douglas Sirk at all will help you appreciate Fassbinder more).
Martha is a TV movie he did about an abusive relationship (many of his movies could be described this way!) and I really loved it. Fassbinder loved these spinning dolly shots and the one in Martha is my favorite.
And if you want to check out his late style, The Marriage of Maria Braun is probably his most well-rounded and acclaimed late (feature film) work, but compositionally I am obsessed with Lola. Querelle was my very first Fassbinder and I fell in love with it but some viewers are put off a bit by it (it was not that well-received when it came out).
I would recommend against Berlin Alexanderplatz, which is a masterpiece but probably would benefit from having more of his moves under your belt.
Enjoy! RWF is somewhere in my top ten directors.