Brecht wrote his first version of Baal at 20 (!) in response to another play. It was both a deliberate indulgence in the then- current expressionistic romantic hero worship of German theater (written, he claimed, because he knew it would make money) and a vicious comic mocking of it. Baal, a drunken, horrible SOB, is also a poet capable of moments of beautiful, startling images.
Brecht reworked the play but I don't know if he ever resolved his contradictory attitudes about his character. He's vulgar and horrible, yet yet an artist capable holding life, death, beauty and vulgarity in a single image. We are not meant to admire him, but we cannot ignore his flashes of vulgar, cruel brilliance.
How do you capture the contradictory tension in a film? It begins with the right actor, and Fassbinder is brilliant. His affinity for and understanding of Brecht is astounding. (Had he lived, he might have equaled Brecht's accomplishment through his own films.) He never for a moment softens Baal as weaker actors might have.
Filming in a straightforward realistic manner would have encouraged hero worshipping and invited sympathy, as it always does. The hand held camera, the jump quality, the setting, the music for the songs all brilliant reinforce the currents of comic, vulgar, venal horror and beauty. It's raggedness knocks us off balance - and it's what the play demands.
Baal was a brilliant start to Brecht's career, and it is great in moments. (He wrote a dozen greater plays at least.) The film isn't entriely successful either, but it is a vital, occasionally brilliant attempt to explore Brecht's complex, contradictory protagonist. Absolutely worth watching if you are fascinated by Fassbinder, Brecht or the New German cinema of the 70s and 80s.
Brecht reworked the play but I don't know if he ever resolved his contradictory attitudes about his character. He's vulgar and horrible, yet yet an artist capable holding life, death, beauty and vulgarity in a single image. We are not meant to admire him, but we cannot ignore his flashes of vulgar, cruel brilliance.
How do you capture the contradictory tension in a film? It begins with the right actor, and Fassbinder is brilliant. His affinity for and understanding of Brecht is astounding. (Had he lived, he might have equaled Brecht's accomplishment through his own films.) He never for a moment softens Baal as weaker actors might have.
Filming in a straightforward realistic manner would have encouraged hero worshipping and invited sympathy, as it always does. The hand held camera, the jump quality, the setting, the music for the songs all brilliant reinforce the currents of comic, vulgar, venal horror and beauty. It's raggedness knocks us off balance - and it's what the play demands.
Baal was a brilliant start to Brecht's career, and it is great in moments. (He wrote a dozen greater plays at least.) The film isn't entriely successful either, but it is a vital, occasionally brilliant attempt to explore Brecht's complex, contradictory protagonist. Absolutely worth watching if you are fascinated by Fassbinder, Brecht or the New German cinema of the 70s and 80s.