External links
- The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation
- Heartbreak House: Fassbinder's BRD Trilogy an essay by Kent Jones at the Criterion Collection
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The BRD Trilogy (German : BRD-Trilogie) consists of three films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), Lola (1981) and Veronika Voss (1982). The films are connected in a thematic rather than in a narrative sense. All three deal with different characters (though some actors recur in different roles) and plotlines, but each one focuses on the story of a specific woman in West Germany after World War II. The three letter acronym "BRD" stands for Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the official name of West Germany and of the united contemporary Germany.
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) begins in the last days of World War II during the rushed marriage ceremony of Maria Braun, after which her husband is sent to battle the advancing Allies. After Maria later hears that he has been killed, she becomes the mistress of an African-American soldier. When Maria's husband unexpectedly returns alive, she kills the soldier in a scuffle, but her husband takes the blame. Maria becomes the self-centered assistant and lover of a wealthy industrialist and a model of post-war recovery.
Veronika Voss (1982) depicts the twilight years of film actress Veronika Voss in stark black-and-white. A sports reporter becomes enthralled by the unbalanced actress and discovers that she is under the power of a villainous doctor who keeps her addicted to opiates in order to steal her wealth. Despite his best attempts, he is unable to save her from a terrible end. The original German title, Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss, translates as "The longing of Veronika Voss".
Lola (1981) is loosely based on Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel and its source novel Professor Unrat by Heinrich Mann. It tells the story of an upright building commissioner, Von Bohm, who comes to a small town. He falls in love with Lola, innocent of the fact that she is a famed prostitute and the mistress of Shuckert, an unscrupulous developer. Unable to reconcile his idealistic images of Lola with reality, Von Bohm spirals into the very corruption he had sought to fight.
Fassbinder had the idea of making a series of films that focus on West Germany during the "economic miracle" of the 1950s. The main characters are all women, representing different people in different circumstances. Fassbinder developed the original treatments and stories, but Peter Märthesheimer wrote the detailed scripts for the films. He had worked with Fassbinder as a commissioning producer and script editor of some of his TV projects, with the help of his then partner Pea Fröhlich.
The films were shot and released in a slightly different order from their accepted numbering. Maria Braun, released in 1979, is the earliest in terms of both production and the chronology of the plot, beginning in 1945, but became part of the trilogy only retrospectively, when Fassbinder added the caption "BRD 3" to Lola in 1981. Veronika Voss, released a year later, included the caption "BRD 2" and is set in a slightly earlier period than Lola. Fassbinder did not intend the series to end as a trilogy but his plans to make further films in the same mould were cut short by his death.
The Criterion Collection released the trilogy in a DVD box set in September 2003.
Aside from Fassbinder's intention to make films about West Germany after World War II and during the "economic miracle", there are other threads that tie the three films together. One is the issue of "forgetting the past for the sake of moving to a brighter future". All the films' main characters are trying to overcome their circumstances, largely created by past experiences. Fassbinder depicts West Germany in the 1950s and afterward as attempting to forget its Nazi period, even allowing former Nazi officials to hold political power, and move ahead as a country, regaining international respectability and prestige. The painful past is neither acknowledged nor confronted.
A second parallel is the question of who exactly benefited from West Germany's economic progress. Fassbinder's view was that some Germans advanced during the "economic miracle" but others fell. For everyone who has a better life (more wealth, security, and peace), someone else suffers and loses. Veronika Voss is an example of someone who does not benefit, because her acting career was most prominent during the Third Reich. Maria Braun tries to advance economically for her and her husband's sakes, but hurts others in the process and in the end is emotionally distant from her husband and her family. Lola tries to take advantage of economic progress and use her position for advancement, but others who surround her attempt the same, with mixed results.
An additional commonality is the inclusion of African-American soldiers in all three films. In The Marriage of Maria Braun there are two, a gentlemanly soldier who becomes Maria's lover and another who drunkenly accosts her on a train. The latter is played by Günther Kaufmann, who also plays African-American soldiers in the other two films. It is unclear whether the soldier is supposed to be the same person in all three. He can be taken as a representation of the influence of the American occupation on postwar Germany, though the fact that he is African-American could have other implications.
Each film has a distinctive style (especially in its cinematography) to better reflect the characters. The Marriage of Maria Braun appears with much of its color drained. Veronika Voss uses a very rich black and white, similar to film noir or German Expressionist films of the 1920s. Lola is influenced by Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel and uses very bold colors in a manner similar to Technicolor.
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder, sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, actor, and dramatist. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Versatile and prolific, his over 40 films span a variety of genres, most frequently blending elements of Hollywood melodrama with social criticism and avant-garde techniques. His films, according to him, explored "the exploitability of feelings". His work was deeply rooted in post-war German culture: the aftermath of Nazism, the German economic miracle, and the terror of the Red Army Faction. He worked with a company of actors and technicians who frequently appeared in his projects.
New German Cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, gained notice by producing a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. These filmmakers included Percy Adlon, Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleischmann, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders. As a result of the attention they garnered, they were able to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of these larger films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies. By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
Armin Mueller-Stahl is a German retired film actor, painter and author, who also appeared in numerous English-language films since the 1980s. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Shine. In 2011, he was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear.
Karlheinz Böhm was a German-born Austrian actor and philanthropist. He took part in 45 films and became well known in Austria and Germany for his role as Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria in the Sissi film trilogy and internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell. He was the founder of the trust Menschen für Menschen, which helps people in need in Ethiopia. He also received honorary Ethiopian citizenship in 2003.
Lola is a 1981 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the third in his BRD Trilogy, preceded by The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) and Veronika Voss (1982). It is a loose adaptation of Heinrich Mann's Professor Unrat (1905), which had previously been adapted for Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930).
Hanna Schygulla is a German actress and chanson singer associated with the theater and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She first worked for Fassbinder in 1965 and became an active participant in the New German Cinema. Schygulla won the 1979 Berlin Silver Bear for Best Actress for Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, and the 1983 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Marco Ferreri film The Story of Piera.
Cornelia Froboess is a German actress and a teen idol of the 1950s and early 1960s. During that time, Froboess appeared in many West German and Austrian musical films, especially after the rock and roll wave had hit Germany. In those comedy films, she would often portray the typical Berliner Göre who craves independence from her strict parents.
Sybille Maria Christina Schmitz was a German actress.
The Marriage of Maria Braun is a 1978 West German drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remains unfulfilled due to World War II and his post-war imprisonment. Maria adapts to the realities of post-war Germany and becomes the wealthy mistress of an industrialist, all the while staying true to her love for Hermann.
Veronika Voss is a 1982 West German black-and-white drama film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and starring Rosel Zech, Hilmar Thate, and Cornelia Froboess. Loosely based on the career of actress Sybille Schmitz, the film follows the titular Veronika Voss, a morphine-addicted film star in 1955 Munich who begins an affair with a sports journalist; soon after, he discovers that Veronika is under the control of a corrupt neurologist scheming to bleed her of her wealth.
Michael Ballhaus, A.S.C. was a German cinematographer who collaborated with directors such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Scorsese, Mike Nichols, James L. Brooks, and Wolfgang Petersen. He was a member of both the Academy of Arts, Berlin, and the American Society of Cinematographers.
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven is a 1975 German film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It stars Brigitte Mira, Ingrid Caven, Karlheinz Böhm and Margit Carstensen. The film was shot over 20 days between February and March 1975 in Frankfurt am Main. The film drew on both Sirk-style melodramas and Weimar era workers' films to tell a political coming of age story.
Volker Spengler was a German stage and film actor. Spengler was best known to international audiences as a member of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's acting ensemble, including his role as the transsexual Erwin/Elvira of Fassbinder's In a Year of 13 Moons (1978). Spengler appeared in about 40 film and television productions between 1966 and 2004, also working with other directors such as Christoph Schlingensief and Volker Schlöndorff. On stage, he performed at Berlin's Volksbühne and with the Berliner Ensemble.
Hark Bohm is a German actor, screenwriter, film director, playwright and former professor for cinema studies. He was born in Hamburg-Othmarschen and grew up on the island Amrum. His younger brother was the actor Marquard Bohm, who starred in some of his early films. He is most notable for his long-time collaboration with Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
Günther Kaufmann was a German film actor best known for his association with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Fassbinder directed Kaufmann in a total of 14 films, casting him in leading and minor roles. Kaufmann was also romantically involved with the director for a time.
Rosalie Helga Lina Zech, known as Rosel Zech, was a German theater and film actress, she is most well known for her works associated with the "Autorenkino" movement, which began in the 1970s.
Peter Märthesheimer was a German screenwriter, producer and author.
Harry Baer is a German actor, producer and author, best known for his work with director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. He has also been credited as Harry Bär.
Pea Fröhlich is a German screenwriter and psychologist, best known for co-writing all three films of the BRD Trilogy: The Marriage of Maria Braun, Veronika Voss and Lola. She also wrote for Bloch.
