I know it shouldn't seem so. Europeans had already cut their teeth on this most American of genres and in many respects bested the yanks at their own game. And it is not as if Fassbinder wasn't already beholden to the grandiosity Hollywood. For fear of repeating myself (or Fassbinder):
"The best thing I can think of would be to create a union between something as beautiful and powerful and wonderful as Hollywood films and a criticism of the status quo. That's my dream, to make such a German film."Whity would appear to be a fair crack at that: A Hollywood canvas peopled with deconstructed archetypes, all plastered with makeup (blackface and whiteface) to scaffold the social criticism at play.
A you'd expect, this makes for a very odd beast. Whity (played with galling obsequiousness by Günther Kaufmann) is the son of a town patriarch, Nicholson (Ron Randell) by way of the hideously stereotypically made-up, afro'ed, spiritual-singing house cook, Marpessa (Elaine Baker). He's treated like a servant in the house by Nicholson, his new wife Katherine (Katrin Schalke) and his two boys from a previous marriage, the mentally delayed Davy (an almost unrecognisable Harry Baer) and the homo Frank (Ulli Lommel), but he is loyal to them like family. Close family. Very close family, if you get my drift.
Actually, there's barely a person onscreen who doesn't get some affectionate attention from our downtrodden hero. And that's the bulk of the point. Whity, Fassbinder would have us believe, is not only DTF, he's down for oppression. He's got a slight S&M thing going on, even subbing himself in for Davy when the kid is being whipped for spying on his father and step-mother's lovemaking. It is something Whity's confident, saloon singer/sexworker Hanna (Schygulla) calls out explicitly.
Fassbinder doesn't hold back here. There is a grotesquerie at play that doesn't just border on offensive, it openly flaunts its transgression. It's interesting to see that the film, only relatively recently released on accessible media, has drawn direct comparisons with Tarantino's similarly antagonistic Django Unchained. I think Fassbinder's take is more robust. It is certainly more forceful in its theorising. But I also think it goes further in a way that is not necessarily supported in the manner it needs to be. Even now it feels dangerous.
Still, Fassbinder is not one to play it safe. Though his pick-apart approach to racism, specifically American racism, is presented at a comfortable distance, the impact is still profound. He engages with the structural and the generational, in a way that grates when viewed through the blinkered eyes of a 90 minute narrative. The elements are there (one only has to look at the green-tinged "whiteface' makeup caked onto the ruling class to see Fassbinder's intent) but they are inevitably open to misinterpretation, at least until the final showdown. Certainly a conversation starter.
Stepping back from the didactic, technically and in terms of influence Whity marks a shift in Fassbinder's engagement with Hollywood. He's no longer aping from the sidelines. This film is the first to feel big-budgeted (the production clocked in at 680,000 deutschmarks, his most expensive to date) and the first that really signals him toying with his soon to be trademark camerawork and production design. There's a beautiful revolve around Kaufmann late in the piece that may as well be a dry run for The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant. It's great to see those flourishes creeping in.
So, we're well on the way to greatness now... There's only one film standing between this and his Sirkian breakthrough.
Next up: Beware of a Holy Whore...
This post contributes to Director Focus: Rainer Werner Fassbinder II.
No comments:
Post a Comment