Fri December 6, 2013
Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
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at Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
(see times)
Imported Print!
(Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?). A gritty, color case history of a bourgeois office worker who “without warning” goes berserk, killing his wife, child, and neighbor before hanging himself. Herr R. predates Fassbinder’s Sirk-influenced period and almost seems to reflect an influence of Andy Warhol’s cinema in its low-key, incessant, seemingly improvised, quietly brilliant dialogues. But the thread that drew Fassbinder to Sirk—the relentless disrobing of the Emperor Normality to reveal, and only then show compassion for, an individual divided against his own nature—already runs through this more distanced early work. Fassbinder spends the film’s listless energies rendering the title question rhetorical. Irm Hermann as a chattering, ski-crazy neighbor is the straw that breaks the schlemiel’s back, but until Herr R. does it, in the living room with a candlestick, the question is, “Why doesn’t Herr R. run amok?” Kurt Raab, antiteater actor and art director of many of Fassbinder’s films, stars.
—Judy Bloch
• Written by Fengler, Fassbinder. Photographed by Dietrich Lohmann. With Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Franz Maron, Lilo Pempeit. (88 mins, In German with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Studiocanal)
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(Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?). A gritty, color case history of a bourgeois office worker who “without warning” goes berserk, killing his wife, child, and neighbor before hanging himself. Herr R. predates Fassbinder’s Sirk-influenced period and almost seems to reflect an influence of Andy Warhol’s cinema in its low-key, incessant, seemingly improvised, quietly brilliant dialogues. But the thread that drew Fassbinder to Sirk—the relentless disrobing of the Emperor Normality to reveal, and only then show compassion for, an individual divided against his own nature—already runs through this more distanced early work. Fassbinder spends the film’s listless energies rendering the title question rhetorical. Irm Hermann as a chattering, ski-crazy neighbor is the straw that breaks the schlemiel’s back, but until Herr R. does it, in the living room with a candlestick, the question is, “Why doesn’t Herr R. run amok?” Kurt Raab, antiteater actor and art director of many of Fassbinder’s films, stars.
—Judy Bloch
• Written by Fengler, Fassbinder. Photographed by Dietrich Lohmann. With Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Franz Maron, Lilo Pempeit. (88 mins, In German with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Studiocanal)
Imported Print!
(Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?). A gritty, color case history of a bourgeois office worker who “without warning” goes berserk, killing his wife, child, and neighbor before hanging himself. Herr R. predates Fassbinder’s Sirk-influenced period and almost seems to reflect an influence of Andy Warhol’s cinema in its low-key, incessant, seemingly improvised, quietly brilliant dialogues. But the thread that drew Fassbinder to Sirk—the relentless disrobing of the Emperor Normality to reveal, and only then show compassion for, an individual divided against his own nature—already runs through this more distanced early work. Fassbinder spends the film’s listless energies rendering the title question rhetorical. Irm Hermann as a chattering, ski-crazy neighbor is the straw that breaks the schlemiel’s back, but until Herr R. does it, in the living room with a candlestick, the question is, “Why doesn’t Herr R. run amok?” Kurt Raab, antiteater actor and art director of many of Fassbinder’s films, stars.
—Judy Bloch
• Written by Fengler, Fassbinder. Photographed by Dietrich Lohmann. With Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Franz Maron, Lilo Pempeit. (88 mins, In German with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Studiocanal)
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(Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?). A gritty, color case history of a bourgeois office worker who “without warning” goes berserk, killing his wife, child, and neighbor before hanging himself. Herr R. predates Fassbinder’s Sirk-influenced period and almost seems to reflect an influence of Andy Warhol’s cinema in its low-key, incessant, seemingly improvised, quietly brilliant dialogues. But the thread that drew Fassbinder to Sirk—the relentless disrobing of the Emperor Normality to reveal, and only then show compassion for, an individual divided against his own nature—already runs through this more distanced early work. Fassbinder spends the film’s listless energies rendering the title question rhetorical. Irm Hermann as a chattering, ski-crazy neighbor is the straw that breaks the schlemiel’s back, but until Herr R. does it, in the living room with a candlestick, the question is, “Why doesn’t Herr R. run amok?” Kurt Raab, antiteater actor and art director of many of Fassbinder’s films, stars.
—Judy Bloch
• Written by Fengler, Fassbinder. Photographed by Dietrich Lohmann. With Kurt Raab, Lilith Ungerer, Franz Maron, Lilo Pempeit. (88 mins, In German with English subtitles, Color, 35mm, From Studiocanal)
show less
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Pacific Film Archive (PFA) Theater
2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA 94720
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