- Hanna Schygulla and Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Katzelmacher
I wonder how many conscious references there are to the work of Rainer Werner Fassbinder in Richard Linklater’s films. Linklater cites the German actor-playwright-filmmaker as one of his chief creative influences (which is why I couldn’t resist bringing him up when I spoke to Linklater last month with the programmers from Northwest Chicago Film Society), even though the two would seem to have little in common. Fassbinder was one of cinema’s most resolute pessimists, while Linklater’s films generally advance a life-affirming worldview. Fassbinder, as a devotee of Bertolt Brecht, often drew attention to his filmmaking, while Linklater (“the stoner Jean Renoir” of American cinema, per Newcity‘s Ray Pride) tends towards a more invisible style. Yet both are self-taught filmmakers with anarchist sympathies and a love of literature, and each has tried in his own way to live through cinema. Fassbinder made as many movies as he possibly could, regarding his personal life as something of an inconvenience. Linklater, on the other hand, divides his time between making movies and programming them with the Austin Film Society, and much of his cinematic output (Dazed and Confused, the Before trilogy, and now Boyhood) exploits the temporal aspect of film art to reflect on his own memory and mortality.
- Katzelmacher
It’s a little gem of dramatic writing, illustrating in minutes who this girl is, what Mason realizes about girls through talking to her, and how both characters are shaped by the same suburban anomie. It’s nowhere near as caustic as the revelations of Katzelmacher, though. Linklater still communicates respect for the girl’s strong will and intelligence—you can see her going on to become the captain of her high school debate team or study law in university. Yet the thematic similarities, in addition to the obvious stylistic one, suggest that Fassbinder is rarely far from the Texan filmmaker’s thoughts.
