Rainer Werner Fassbinder is indisputably one of the most prominent directors of post-war European cinema. In just thirteen years he made forty-chree films, many of which have become classics, such as The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, The Merchant of Four Seasons, Ali-Fear Ears the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun and his monumental Berlin Alexander-plats. Most studies of Fassbinder have concentrated on his controversial personality and speculated on the private motives behind his frenzied productivity. Wich Fassbinder's
Germany
Thomas Elsaesser has written the first thoroughly
analytical study of Fassbinder's work, stressing the importance which he native country and the representation of its recent history have for an understanding of
the hims.
Approaching the work from diflerent tex-
tualland contextual pers-pectives. Elsaesser offers an overview as well as a
number of detailed read. ings of crucial films.
While providing a Euro-
pean context for Fassa binder's own coming to terms with fascism. El-odesser. also argues that this himmaker s unigne moral vision and sense of history have much to tell us about Germany af-
ter uninication, the new Europe, and che multi-culmal clot
Paschinder's Germany will appeal to students and scho of European cinema. Germanists, cultural historians. and
the cencrasreaderinc resco in one one mos
or gunar responses to modern Germanv and it
ISBN 90-5356-1日
Thomas Elsaesser is