Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (The Marriage of Maria Braun / Veronika Voss / Lola) - Criterion Collection
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Rainer Werner FassbinderBrand: Image Entertainment
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: German (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Black & White, Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 339 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-09-30
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Criterion
Movie Reviews of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (The Marriage of Maria Braun / Veronika Voss / Lola) - Criterion Collection
Movie Review: Fassbinder's remarkable women: the BRD Trilogy.
Summary: 5 Stars
Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a genius. In his BRD (Bundesrepublik Deutschland) Trilogy, his objective was to chronicle the history of postwar Germany in a series of films told through the eyes of three truly memorable women. Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss, and Lola earned him the worldwide acclaim he deserved for his artistic genius in film.
1. The Marriage of Maria Braun (BRD 1) (1979).
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun) is the first in Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy. It is perhaps his best-known film, arguably Fassbinder's greatest masterpiece, and one of the finest movies ever made. Fassbinder made the film near the end of his dazzling career. It opens with a close-up camera shot of Hitler's picture being blown off of a wall during the Allied bombing of Berlin in the last days of World War II. In the ensuing chaos and falling bombs, Maria (Hanna Schygull, who starred in 20 Fassbinder films) marries Hermann Braun (Klaus L?witsch) in a rushed wedding ceremony. The couple spend only a "half a day and a whole night" together before Hermann returns to the war. After she is later told that Hermann has been killed, Maria begins working in a bar patrronized by American soldiers, where she becomes the lover of a black soldier she calls "Mr. Bill" (George Byrd). When Hermann unexpectedly returns home, he finds Maria and the soldier naked in bed. Maria hits the soldier over the head with a bottle, killing him. Hermann takes the blame for the crime and is sentenced to prison. Maria then meets a French businessman, Karl Oswald (Ivan Desny), and becomes his lover. Unbeknownst to Maria, Oswald visits Hermann in prison and promises to leave him his company upon his death if Hermann agrees to stay away from Maria upon his release from prison. What happens to Maria and her husband in the final scene continues to be the subject of endless discussion. The Marriage of Maria Braun is a remarkable portrait of an ambitious woman who uses her sexuality as a means of achieving success. Hanna Schygulla's performance as Maria is radiant.
There should have been another Maria Braun in Fassbinder's career, but he died three years after making this film, alone in a room, naked on a mattress, watching "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" on television, consuming alcohol and cocaine.
2. Veronika Voss (BRD 2) (1982).
This was Fassbinder's next-to-last film before ending his life. (He died June 10, 1982 in Munich of a fatal overdose of drugs and alcohol.) Filmed in black and white, Veronika Voss (Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss, which means The Longing of Veronika Voss) is the second in Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy. Set in 1955 Munich, and loosely based on the career of actress Sybille Schmitz, the film tells the story of beautiful Veronika Voss (Rosel Zech), a once-popular, 1940s UFA film star (think of Marlene Dietrich) who is now a morphine addict struggling to get work. Though she dreams of returning to stardom, her life is a nightmare. She begins a love affair with a sports reporter named Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate). He discovers that she is enslaved to a corrupt svengali-like neurologist named Dr. Marianne Katz (Annemarie D?ringer). Katz is a sadist who keeps Veronika addicted to opiates. Krohn attempts to expose Dr. Katz by sending her a patient (Cornelia Froboess) pretending to be rich and in need of psychiatric care. Katz kills that woman. The film ends on a bleak, cheerless note. Ironically, Veronika's final act in the film becomes the director's final act in life.
3. Lola (BRD 3) (1981).
Maria Braun is about the ascent to success. Veronika Voss is about the descent into drugs and suicide. Fassbinder's last film, Lola, returns to the ascent to success storyline. Shot in vibrant colors, Lola is the third in his BRD Trilogy. Set in 1955 post-World War II West Germany, the film tells the story of a beautiful and seductive seductive cabaret singer-prostitute woman named Lola (Barbara Sukowa), who like Maria Braun, finds prosperity through her sexual gifts. Shuckert (Mario Adorf), a corrupt, local construction businessman is one of her many clients. By contrast, Von Bohm (Armin Mueller-Stahl), a new building commissioner with traditional "family values" falls in love with Lola, hoping to marry her, unaware that she is a prostitute. Shukert and Lola have a young daughter Marie, whom Shuckert supports, but refuses to recognize as his child. Because Lola is ambitious to become part of the respectable upper-middle-class, wanting only money, property, and love, she schemes to seduce Von Bohm into marrying her so that she and Marie can live happily ever after.
The Criterion edition of the BRD Trilogy is rich in extras, featuring new high-definition digital transfers of all three films; "I Don't Just Want You to Love Me," a feature-length documentary of Fassbinder's life and career; "Life Stories: A conversation with R.W. Fassbinder," a rare 45-minute interview with the director; a video interview with Fassbinder cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger; a video conversation between Fassbinder scholar Laurence Kardish and editor Juliane Lorenz; audio commentary on The Marriage of Maria Braun by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and filmmaker Wim Wenders; a video interview with the star of The Marriage of Maria Braun and regular Fassbinder collaborator, Hanna Schygulla; a video interview with Fassbinder scholar Eric Rentschler on The Marriage of Maria Braun; audio commentary on Veronika Voss by Fassbinder scholar Tony Rayns; a new video conversation with Veronika Voss star Rosel Zech and editor Juliane Lorenz; "Dance with Death" (Tanz mit dem Tod), a one-hour portrait of UFA Studios star Sybille Schmitz, Fassbinder's inspiration for the character Veronika Voss; audio commentary on Lola by Fassbinder documentarian, biographer, and friend Christian Braad Thomsen; a new video interview with Lola star Barbara Sukowa; a new video interview with Fassbinder co-screenwriter Peter M?rthesheimer; and new and improved English subtitle translations for all three films.
A highly-recommended Rainer Werner Fassbinder film experience. The BRD Trilogy and the 16-hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz are quintessential Fassbinder.
G. Merritt
More Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (The Marriage of Maria Braun / Veronika Voss / Lola) - Criterion Collection reviews:
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Summary of Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy (The Marriage of Maria Braun / Veronika Voss / Lola) - Criterion Collection
Studio: Image Entertainment Release Date: 09/30/2003 Run time: 337 minutesThere is at least one certifiable masterpiece in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy, and one could argue that all three films qualify for that honor. Conceived as a series of sociopolitical melodramas set during West Germany's "economic miracle" of post-war recovery (roughly 1947-60), these exquisitely crafted films found the prolific Fassbinder (1945-82) near the end of his astounding career and at the height of his creative powers, depicting post-war Germany as a land of repressed memory and surging capitalism, repressively avoiding any connection to the horrors of its Nazi past. Women were Fassbinder's conduit to analyzing the BDR (Bundesrepublik Deutchland) and its effect on the German character, resulting in three of the most remarkable female characters ever committed to film.
As noted in an affectionate commentary track by Fassbinder's friend and fellow director Wim Wenders, The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) is Fassbinder's undisputed masterwork, a critical and box-office triumph that fulfilled Fassbinder's goal of creating a "German Hollywood melodrama" in the tradition of his director-hero, Douglas Sirk. Beautifully shot by Michael Ballhaus (who advanced to brilliant collaborations with Martin Scorsese), it stars Hanna Schygulla in her signature role as a newlywed whose missing husband returns in the mid-'50s, just as she's reinventing herself through opportunism, seduction, and blind ambition--a woman, like Germany, determined to forget her miserable past, with explosively tragic results. "BRD 2" is the wickedly satirical Veronika Voss (1982), filmed in black and white (a stylistic nod to German'y's post-war thrillers) and starring Rosel Zech as a faded film star-turned-morphine addict making futile attempts to revive her career. Set in 1957, Lola ("BRD 3," 1981) is Fassbinder's homage to Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel, and stars Barbara Sukowa as a cabaret singer and prostitute who, like Maria Braun, is for sale to the highest bidder--in this case a straight-laced official (Armin Mueller-Stahl) who discovers the high cost of ignorance.
Taken together, these films form an impressively coherent vision, compassionate and yet brutally honest, unsentimental, and provocatively critical of post-war Germany. In the established tradition of the Criterion Collection, extensive supplements explore the depth of Fassbinder's achievement. Three commentaries, each with their own uniquely personal and/or critical perspective, are among the finest Criterion has ever recorded. Interviews with Schygulla, Zech, Sukowa, and many of Fassbinder's closest collaborators pay latter-day tribute to Fassbinder and his extended family of on- and off-screen talent, while the 96-minute German TV documentary I Don't Just Want You to Love Me explores Fassbinder's tragically curtailed life and work through abundant film clips and interviews. A filmed 1978 interview with Fassbinder himself--at 49 minutes, the longest ever recorded--offers further insight into the psychology and chain-smoking intensity of a man who burned out from drugs and exhaustion at the age of 37. Along with the collected Adventures of Antoine Doinel, the BRD Trilogy is one of the most impressive DVD sets ever released, and a sparkling jewel in Criterion's crown. --Jeff Shannon
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