A contrasting view of new world cinema
DENMARK | 109 minutes | 2015
We all know the facts: over 40 made-for-TV and feature films, more than 30 theatre plays, acting performances galore and a brilliant, provocative body of work cut short by his death at 37 of a “work overdose.” But Christian Braad Thomsen’s take on Rainer Werner Fassbinder goes much deeper. The Danish filmmaker was a friend and admirer of the so-called enfant terrible of German cinema from the stormy reception of his first feature Love Is Colder Than Death at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1969 until the end. Fassbinder – To Love Without Demands covers the filmmaker’s complicated (to say the least) bond with his mother Lilo Pempeit, whom he transformed into an actress, his thwarted desire to have children, metaphorically represented in many of his films, his rapport with actors and actresses including his muse Irm Hermann, his hatred of paternalism, his worship of Brecht and Douglas Sirk and his take on sadomasochism and social structures. The film, screened at the Berlin Film Festival, is an intensely profound and Freudian analysis that uses rare and often never-before-seen archives to shed new light on Fassbinder’s cinema, shaped by his obsessions.
CHRISTIAN BRAAD THOMSENBorn 10.12.1940. Educated from the Danish Film School 1969.Director, author, producer, distributor.Director of Odense International Film Festival 1997 - 2005Life time award from the State Artistic Council.
Feature films as director/producer:Dear Irene (1971) Officially invited by Venice Film Festival.Wellspring of my World (1976) Officially invited by Tehran Film Festival.Children of Pain (1977) Officially invited by Karlovy Vary Film Festival.Dreams don't make noise when they die (1979) Offficially invited by Hamburg Film Fest.Stab in the Heart (1981) Special jury prize at the San Remo Film Festival.Ladies on the Rocks (1983) Director's prize at the Atlantic Film Festival.The Blue Monk (1998) Carl Th. Dreyer Prize, Denmark.Documentary films as director/producer:The Squattor Trilogy (1972)Dusan Makavejev (1972)The One You Love (1980)Flowers of Memory (1991) Grand Prix at The Danish Short Film Festival.Karen Blixen - storyteller (1996) Best Portrait Film at The Danish Short Film Festival.Morten Korch – You Are My Sunshine (1999).Svend Åge Madsen – To Testify People (2002)The Voice of Iran – Mohammed Reza Shajarian (2006)Marilyn Mazur – Queen of Percussion (2006)Blues for Montmartre (2011)Fassbinder – to love without demands (2015)Books on cinema:Godard - from gangsters to red guardists (1971)Political filmmaking (1973 together with Jan Aghed and Mette Knudsen) The Non-Reconciled: Luis Bunuel, Robert Bresson, Andrei Tarkovskij, Jean-Luc Godard, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Jean-Marie Straub (1988)Fassbinder. Life and Work (1991)Hitchcock. Life and Work (1990)Snapshots. Film, Politics, Psychoanalysis (1993)The Camera as Pen: Francois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette (1994)Illness Transformed Into Beauty (Diary of The Blue Monk, 1998)Dream Films, 100 of the best films of the century (2000).Films in Hand Writing. Six Modern Danish Directors (2011)Other books:The Lust and the Law (essays on psychoanalysis, 1983)Freud. Sigi the Conqueror (biography, 1984)The Rose and the Gypsy (children's novel, 1985)The Prodigal Son (novel, 1988)Heritage and Debts (childhood memories, 1990).Bob Dylan – a Guide to his Records (1998 together with Asger Schnack).Music without Borders – a Guide to World Music (2003)Sing, O goddess, the anger! (memories, 2005)Dream Jazz, 100 of the best jazz cd’s (2009).Boganis’ Feast. Karen Blixen and her father (2010)Willie Nelson – Voice of America (2013)
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