Reviews

I just saw this movie and it met my expectations, which were pretty high. I love Philip Glass as much as the next person, and didn't find the score dated. I do have to say though that it seems Reggio watched Werner Herzog's "Heart of Glass" (and to a smaller extent, "Where the Green Ants Dream") and said "I'd like to make a movie like that, just leaving out the dialogue parts". And so he did. The shots of clouds stop motion-seeming to flow like a river are directly lifted from the opening scenes of Heart of Glass. Also, choosing an extremely hypnotic minimalist composer in Philip Glass could be seen as similiar to Herzog's chose of Popul Vu. Of course, "Heart of Glass" came out 15 years earlier and new technology (and budget) have probably allowed Reggio to smooth out the images and make them more techically seamless (Herzog's camera shakes a bit when it zooms over a rocky island in the middle of the ocean, Reggio's is perfectly fluent), but overall they probably achieve the same level of mysticism. One thing though, Koyaanisquatsi is a bit topheavy, placing most of its best images in the first 30 minutes. I know this has to do with the slow destruction of civilization and the opening is meant to be more awesome while the other images of buildings, pollution and dated haircuts are meant to be more dismal, but it does negate the experience a small bit.

I was not expecting a classic film noir along the lines of "Double Indemnity" or "Out of the Past" when I put this movie in, and for awhile, I thought I might have been wrong. Maybe the cover was too cheesy, I'm not sure, but I didn't have extra high hopes for this movie. Then my mood brightened when it actually started to become very entertaining. I wasn't being blown away, but I did start to enjoy the film noir 101 plot. The reviewer who noted MGM's dramatic lighting of Turner is right, it's ridiculous, but it does come with the territory I guess. Other than that, things seemed to be moving in place very smoothly.

Then an odd thing happened. The movie refused to end. It wasn't that the pace was slow, it moved speedily. Something was always happening, and there was plenty of suspense/overblown MGM music blaring out of the speakers at any given moment. But the plot was way too top-heavy. They get caught doing the murder. Okay, time for trial, some final irony, then the movie's over. But it's not! It just kept going. New subplots turned up, bribes, plot twists, double crosses, it just kept happening and happening. It was too much. I was literally standing up sweating by the final scene, wanting it to end so much. The problem was, nothing of any substance was given to the events that kept happening. It was like the screenwriters noted "okay, this happened in the book, but we have to trim it a bit, so we'll make a small 2 minute scene including it in the movie" and suddenly the movie is full of these large occurrences given very brief sketched out screen time. Garfield runs off for a weekend in Tijuana with some random women? What just happened? Things just grew too implausible. I realize that complaining the movie went on too long and claiming that not enough screen time was given to all the events in the second half is hypocritical, but there must have been ways to flesh things out. I haven't read the book, but I suspect it's much better than the movie, just based on other reviewer's comments.

During the final embarassing "what does God make of all this" speech to the priest (hey, I thought film noirs where supposed to be existential!), I happened to look at the video case and glance at the title. Realizing it hadn't been referenced in the movie yet I stared at the screen and muttered "out with it" and in return got some over-reaching ramblings concerning how "he always rings twice, always rings twice" ext. Yikes.

I have to say though, the movie had some very good irony and employed a load of classic film noir tricks (the final outcome must have influenced the Coen Brothers with "The Man Who Wasn't There"), but I can't help believing the book must have been a lot better. I'd chalk this one up for noir completists and Golden Age MGM enthusiasts only.

First off, yes, you're right, this is a godawful movie.

Being a big Fassbinder fan, I rented this with excitement. Fassbinder stars, and he's always fun to watch. It's one of those punk-future-dystopian movies that popped out a bit in the early '80s, always good for some cult fun. It came out at the end of Fassbinder's career, and Fassbinder's whole 12 year filmmaking period only got better and better until his end.

So half way through I thought "what the hell happened? This movie is an atrocity exhibition."

Then I glanced at the cover, and in horror noticed this movie was NOT directed by Fassbinder. He just starred in it in a coked up narcisstic haze. I read he actually wore that leopard outfit he was giving in this movie on and off again in the last few weeks of his life.

Fassbinder was proud of this movie, somehow, and that gives it an odd charm. It's horrendous, but I haven't regretted watching it. There's a scene where Fassbinder climbs to a roof of a building, odd buzzing music is playing and the wind is blowing his hair and he has this perverse smile on his face as he gazes out across the city. There's also the ending where Fassbinder, bloated, in a robe, girates his body against a photo of an astronaut (I'm guessing this is Fassbinder's input, as the exact same ending pretty much is used in Stationmaster's Wife). These two scenes made it worthwhile. Otherwise, mark it off as an awful "Alphaville" rippoff.

I recently watched the DVD of "Whity", Fassbinder's German Western. After seeing it, the fact that all the character's speek German despite the Spanish locations didn't seem out of tune at all with the overall movie.

For the record the commentary on the DVD is one of the greatest I've heard. However, Ulli Lommel and Michael Ballhaus both agree that this is Fassbinder's 5th movie. That would mean this amazingly photographed, sweeping epic--which boasts by far the best production designs of any of Fassbinder's first movies--followed the crude looking excruciating black comedy "Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?" I find this a bit hard to believe. Judging by the fact that Lommel and Ballhaus make a few factual mistakes (this was not the first Fassbinder movie with Günther Kaufmann, "Gods of the Plague" was), maybe they're a bit off. My guess is probably number 8 or 9. If it is number 5, that's amazing.

Anyhow, this is easily the most polished of Fassbinder's first movies. It's also probably up there with "The American Soldier" in terms of perverse bizarreness. You'll find lots of flaggelating, KKK, incestual undertones, homoerotism, prostitutes, bleached eyebrows and eyelashes, bad hair, greenish-white cakey makeup, and some severe mental retardation all in these frames. The odd thing is, none of it seems to be played for laughs, which only adds to the perversity. Fassbinder thought this movie was so personal to him that he didn't want anyone else to see it, or any movie theaters to show it.

Also of note, the ending of this movie is highly unusual for Fassbinder. No suicide, no crying, no corpses? I guess for the final shot, Fassbinder had his convertable engine running so he could drive off forever into the distance the second it was completed. It just seems directors don't have that type of dedication or personal anguish attached to their movies anymore. All the more reason to keep watching Fassbinder's I guess.

If there's one thing that really bothers me about Fassbinder's history is how boggled his film chronology is. For someone who improved at such a consistent rate, it's really annoying in the case of his first 11 "anti-theater" films, that no one seems to know what order they came in.

According to the information on the recent DVD issue of this movie, "Pioneers" is the last of those first 11. Now, I could have sworn that "Beware of a Holy Whore" was Fassbinder's 11th film (which would make more sense, given that movie's self-reflexive 'biting the hand that feeds you' nature). Alas, maybe this one is number 11.

On a technical level, this is very much "early Fassbinder", which is best evidenced by Dietrich Lohmann's early cinematography. When working with Michael Ballhaus, Fassbinder was able to have his camera swoop around his characters. Even if they still weren't doing anything, it at least gave some external feel to the movie. Dietrich Lohmann is the polar opposite. He just points the camera, and occasionally pans it, as in one seen that pans back and forth between two characters talking for about 5 minutes. Fassbinder always loved long takes, and always liked giving a theatrical look to his movies, especially the early ones. Michael Ballhaus was able to nail this, but Lohmann's camera work always seemed a bit amateur. It worked great in "Effi Briest", and certain scenes of "Merchant of Four Seasons" and "American Soldier", but I can see why Michael Ballhaus slowly became Fassbinder's preferred camera man going into the mid-'70s.

That said, this movie is also indicative of Fassbinder's early career in that is stars seedy low lives. Before, he usually used gangsters, here he uses whores and bored, drunken soldiers (or 'pioneers'). They sit and drink and do typical Fassbinder stuff (occasionally have sex, occasionally beat someone up). There's some plot here and there. It definitely gives you what you're looking for when renting a Fassbinder movie, but certain scenes had a Fassbinder-by-numbers quality. In one of the final scenes, Hanna Schylla starts chasing after the morally bankrupt guy she's fallen in love with. I said under my breath "she's going to trip and fall and start to cry". I was right. Maybe I've seen too many Fassbinder movies, or maybe Fassbinder was treading a bit too much water with this one.

Like I said, this movie does the trick if you're looking for a Fassbinder fix, and in that, I have to commend it. It's just a movie best reserved for the devoted fans.

First off, this is one of the greatest movies ever made. It's just as objective as a Stanley Kubrick movie, and just as disturbing, but instead of typical Stanley imagery, here you have pretty landscapes, wildlife, and cloudy skies. This is the Malick way.

Anyhow, I'd just like to address some people's negative comments about the film. First off, the pace of this film is measured and certainly not speedy, but it really should only come off as dead slow to people more accustomed to contemporary action/comedy/suspense movies, as for the '70's this pace is pretty normal, especially for a movie this hypnotic. Also, the implausibility of some of the character's actions is simply because these are detached, out of place people. I can think of a handful of people I've met who actually remind me of Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek in this movie, socially just acting in subtely bizarre ways. One reason this movie is so brilliant is that it captures the presence of this type of person where I rarely have seen any other film that does. Finally, the psychotic person who sees this movie as a condemnation of Americans and a glorification of the the British a) Terrence Malick is not British, he was born in Illinois b) He did not direct "the Limey" c) Steven Sodenberg did, and he's not British either d) this movie is based loosely on a true story and actually tones down the much more graphic and depraved violence that the real life American redneck Charles Starkwater actually acted out in order for Malick to offer the wide array of thematic food for thought within this movie.

This is an early Fassbinder film, and from what I've seen, one of the best of his first 11 (which make up his first stage as a filmmaker). It's Fassbinder in gangster mode, and has been called an homage to film noir or even a parody of film noir. This isn't the case though. The movie is just film noir done by Fassbinder. There are little homages here and there, the beginning and end could be seen as being inspired by Breathless (taken to ridiculous extremes), and there are lots of filmmakers names used as characters, but Fassbinder isn't winking at the camera so much as just being himself, which back then, could be quite bizarre. In fact, this might be one of Fassbinder's most bizarre movies.

The camera stands still, characters occasionally deliver seemingly unrelated monologues, unusual plot lines are treated nonchalantly (Ricky's brother is in love with him?), people about to be killed don't seem to be worried, and the singlehandedly greatest song ever plays over and over again, crooning "so much tenderness is in my head, so much loneliness in my bed." To have this song play over scenes of a stone-cold amoral hitman (the title character) casually driving his car are perversely hilarious. Even better is when it plays in the end, in one of the greatest endings I've ever seen (you'll have to check it out).

The recent release of this film on DVD should help bring it some attention, as its now available for a pretty reasonable price from Wellspring. If you're looking for one of Fassbinder's more mature, professional, socially poignant melodramas, maybe this isn't the movie for you. If you're interested in an extremely unique unclassifiable early Fassbinder, by all means, check this out. Despite the occasional nods to past filmmakers, it's surprising how unique Fassbinder was from the start.

(for those who are Jim Jarmusch fans, it's apparent films like these must have inspired the detached humor in some of his more recent films).

Homoerotic bikers, nazism, suicide, 50's/60's pop songs, Jesus, pulp cartoons, mustard, and quite a bit of leather, i.e. everything I look for in a movie. This had me questioning "This Kenneth Anger guy achieved notoriety?" at the first 3 minutes, but by the end, the whole thing gained a certain rhythm and I began to understand what it was trying to do. This is for fans of experimental underground/midnight cinema, anyone else I would recommend staying far away.

As for the guy below who claims this inspired Martin Scorsese, Calvin Klein commercials and Michael Bay...Okay, Martin Scorsese, yes, to an extent. Calvin Klein commercials...maybe. Michael Bay? What? If the comment was sarcasm, than I accept you as an evil genius, otherwise you might belong in an asylum. Although I guess you could argue his last two movies are far more depraved than Scorpio Rising.

Of all the "classic" movies I've seen, I'd have to say Rebel Without a Cause is the most overrated. James Dean is a good actor, but honestly, aside from him, everyone else is over the top.

Let me first list a few things that seemed completely implausible to me: The people in James Dean's new town hate him immediately, without him even doing anything. A highschooler gets his shirt caught in a car door, flies screaming off the edge of a cliff to a explosive firey death, and no one cares. These first two problems wouldn't be that bad if the movie didn't appear to be going for an element of realism. If the whole thing was played as little surreal, or as some sort of social black comedy, I could accept these events, but I'm pretty sure that's not the case.

The character of Plato is atrocious, both acting wise and thematically wise. And yet he becomes the focal point of the movie. My biggest problem is that the themes are literally batted over the audience's head. It becomes immediately clear that James Dean is serving as a replacement father figure for Plato. Plato has mentioned he has no father and no friends, it just becomes very obvious. Does he really need to say things like "yeah, I'm hoping we can go on fishing trips like my dad used to take me on." I refuse to believe audiences were that dumb in the 1950s. (as an aside, the person who argued that Plato was gay, I agree that this is intentional, [how else would he be so attracted to James Dean after only knowing him 3 seconds] and the movie does get some points for slyly tackling a taboo thing like that). However, I desperately wanted Plato to fall victim to a flail of gunfire by the final scene.

Maybe my hopes were too high, It could be that all the themes in this movie have been re-done in more audience-trusting fashion. Still, James Dean was a much better teen idol than we have nowadays.

Fassbinder is an acquired taste in every sense of the word. It took me awhile to be able to fully digest and appreciate his films, and even then it can be difficult.

Fox and His Friends is one of his "accessible" movies, but Fassbinder at his most accessible would probably highly alienate most movie goers.

I've seen this movie 3 times. The first time I thought "that was a good Fassbinder". The second time, I thought the same. The third time, I realized it was brilliant. It might be because I recently bought the amazing dvd, which has an excellent transfer. Fassbinder made his films quickly, very quickly, so a faded old videotape sometimes seems to reflect that. However, when seeing the crisp DVD I realized just how great the camera work was and how well-planned out the movie was.

This would make a good starting point for entering the world of Fassbinder I would think, it has it all: well-framed shots, black humor, and an extremely depressing ending. Depending on how much you can relate to this sort of thing, I would recommend checking it out.

p.s. The last scene was later homaged in My Own Private Idaho (another great movie) and Fassbinder gives a really good performance in the lead.

In Fassbinder's earlier films, his ideas sometimes surpased his ability to execute them. He was always a great writer, but it took him some time to get his style of camera work and storytelling down pat.

The Merchant of Four Seasons is one of Fassbinder's first movie to make great use of color, from the bright green pears in the merchant's cart to the bright red roses at the funeral (a funeral in a Fassbinder movie? who'd have thought).

His camera work was getting there too, but it was still fairly minimalist. The occasional zooms seem a bit uncomfortable at times and unnatural, but then again, Fassbinder was still coming out of his purely avant garde phase. This might be because Michael Ballhaus isn't behind the camera, but instead the slightly inferior Dietrich Lohmann.

Still, this is Fassbinder, and you get your fix here. Broken dreams shown so vividly and unflinchingly as to alienate audience and drive them into a depressed stupor. Just what the doctor ordered. An early classic that shows remarkable progression when compared to his first films released only 2 years prior.