Chinese Roulette
Chazen Museum of Art 750 University Ave., Madison, Wisconsin 53706
press release: West Germany | 1976 | 35mm | 86 min. | German with English subtitles
Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder; Cast: Anna Karina, Margit Carstensen, Brigitte Mira
A husband and wife unwittingly take their respective lovers to the couple’s shared country house on the same weekend. After an initial period of sophisticated acceptance, the pair’s disabled daughter and her inscrutable nanny arrive, and tensions quickly increase. This brief, intense drama stands as one of Fassbinder’s most trenchant critiques of human relationships and the modern family.
Our Sunday afternoon series at the Chazen Museum of Art this fall will provide an opportunity to view 15 features by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, a founder of New German Cinema and one of the most controversial filmmakers of his generation. Fassbinder’s prolific oeuvre includes examples of virtually every genre, and while he drew inspiration from the melodramas of Douglas Sirk and the French Nouvelle Vague, Fassbinder’s own movies have influenced a whole generation of filmmakers including Todd Haynes, Quentin Tarantino and Todd Solondz. All screened on 35mm prints, the selections in this series conclude with Fassbinder’s trilogy of post-War German life (The Marriage of Maria Braun, Lola and Veronika Voss). The series will provide ample evidence of Fassbinder’s genius, reminding us of the miracle of his short career as well as the tragedy of his early demise, in 1982, at the age of 37.
All Cinematheque screenings are free and open to the public.