Germany in Autumn - Episode 02: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

• 1978
• Drama, Documentary

RWF's contribution cross-cuts between two domestic situations: (1) RWF returns to his apartment in Munich from a trip to Paris, to work on his script for the projected film adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz. He is greeted and ministered to by his lover Armin Meier... but RWF repeatedly picks quarrels with Meier over the political crises caused by the Mogadishu hijack-ing and the deaths in Stammheim. At one point RWF orders some cocaine to boost his spirits, but flushes it down the toilet when he fears a police raid on the apartment. (2) RWF has a kitchen-table discussion with his mother, Liselotte Eder, about the political situation. Ms. Eder evinces orthodox bourgeois outrage at the tactics of the terrorists; RWF agitatedly points out the flaws and holes in her reasoning.... [RWF] is at pains to dramatize (-externalize) his personal anxieties: he presents himself both as a 'concerned' individual and as a domestic tyrant, taking out his own insecurities on his long-suffering lover.