Ok I don't know if I'm doing this right, but I'm finally able to get in to the blog. Here are my thoughts on The Marriage of Maria Braun.
It's an intriguing movie - not one that I would watch on my own volition but I'm glad that I did see it. Probably the most interesting part for me was the fact that, though it was a melodrama, many things were very understated. For pretty much the entire film you have to pay fairly close attention in order to figure out what is happening. I think this is especially true for non-German speakers in the audience. I wish I was actually able to understand it in its original language.
It's a very multi-layered story that I'm sure you can draw new things out of with each subsequent viewing - probably my favorite of all of the films we have seen thus far.
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There was a lot of layering. Almost too much for me (a non-German speaker). I feel like I missed important aspects of the film when they would only translate the radio broadcasts and not the dialogue. This is one of those films that can stand as a work of art in Germany, but sort of fall flat in the US.
ReplyDeleteBecause I do not understand German, the part where Maria finds out about Oswald and Hermann's deal was not clear until I read from GCtF.
ReplyDeleteBesides this, I think it was perfectly fine. I agree, the film does have a lot of layers as well as interpretations. If we had enough time, I think we would have been able to get a plethora of interpretations.
This was one of the most well-made films I've seen, in my opinion.
Yay Sam! You can recycle and post reviews, what a Renaissance Man! Maria Braun was one of my favorite movies we've watched so far. I enjoyed how superficial and melodramatic it was, but under the surface there is a lot more going on, and it's up to us as the viewers to find it. Maria is an extremely complicated character, but one would only see that after careful examination. The character building is what made the film.
ReplyDeleteI found an interesting article on Fassbinder's use of Brechtian aesthetics in his trilogy. It is really interesting to read, I am not sure about truthfulness but it's really cool if you like the movie. Here is the link (I am not sure how to add links into responses): http://www.ejumpcut.org/archive/onlinessays/JC35folder/MariaVonBraunTrilogy.html
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you said Sam. For me it was one of my favorites of the class so far. I really love how it uses the melodrama which is usually so involved yet artificial and used those qualities to purposely detach the audience from all of it forcing us to take a step back and figure out what the film was saying. Having seen 3 of Douglas Sirk's melodrama genre films (All That Heaven Allows, Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life) who Fassbinder was heavily influenced by, its really fascinating to see the film, knowing the major source of his inspiration and to see what he did with it.
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ReplyDeleteYeah I did enjoy Maria Braun most so far (maybe because I did extra research on it, watched it twice with comments from director and producers, and got the little german "lost in translation" things) You are completely right sam.... it is multilayered, and the things I did not notice AT ALL at first viewing came out the second time, a little more obvious and important. Such as the part when Willy is talking to Sekenberg about rights of workers, and it sounded like Maria agreed with Willy at first on workers right, but later records the official statement for the newspaper saying something more pro-capitalism and anti-socialism. I think this is the first signals we see of Maria beginning to change and take on power. Anyways... great movie definitely deserving of at least another viewing!
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