Focus on R.W. FASSBINDER II: Theatre in Trance (1981)

I was hoping that Fassbinder's documentary, Theatre in Trance, would shed some light on his approach to theatre in the context of the Cologne theatre scene that this film promised to critique. That's not the case here.

Theatre in Trance, or to give the documentary its full name, Theatre in Trance: A film in 14 parts by Rainer Werner Fassbinder on the occasion of the Theatre of the World 1981 in Cologne on the Rhine, amounts to little more than Fassbinder reading tracts of text from 'Theatre and its Double' by theorist Antonin Artaud over images of various performances from the festival. But the theory is too dense to take in, even in Fassbinder's bite sized portions, and the performances too decontextualised. The resulting treatise is so hobbled it is ineffective.

So, no great insight forthcoming.

To be fair, Theatre in Trance may have been more relatable at the time of release. I am not sure how famous the participating companies were back then. In the film's defence, the one part that captured the analogous relationship between Fassbinder's voiceover and the theatrical image was the section focusing on Pina Bausch's Tanztheater Wuppertal. I suppose a contextualising exposure to Bausch's work (through Almodóvar's Hable con ella and Wenders' Pina) enabled me to make the necessary connections.

In the absence of any previous knowledge of the other companies or Artaud's theories of the Theatre of Cruelty, most everything else went over my head. Sorry to end this theatrical interlude on such a low note.

Next up: Love is Colder than Death...

This post contributes to Director Focus: Rainer Werner Fassbinder II.