Over the weekend I watched "The American Soldier" (1970) which is an early film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film was quite interesting on a number of levels. The first of which was the very stylized look that Fassbinder gave the film as the film is an homage to American gangster films.
The film follows Ricky von Rezzori who in the film is returning home to Munich from America after fighting in for the US in Vietnam. After coming back Ricky is recruited by three corrupt cops to commit a series of contract killings. Once Ricky had committed the murders he calls for a girl, but at this point the police want to keep an eye on the killer so they send Rosa von Praunheim. To keep an eye on him. Rosa, who in the beginning of the film is with one of the detectives, falls for Ricky. At the end of the film the police finally track down Ricky and engage him in a gunfight. During the fight Ricky becomes distracted by his brother and mother.
Hopefully one of the names in the paragraph above rings a bell to you. Fassbinder uses the names of one of his friends, Rosa von Praunheim, as the name of the female lead in the film. When I was watching the film I was somewhat shocked when I noticed this. I had to rewind to make sure that was the correct name of character, but it was. After I had figu
red out that I had heard the right name I looked up on line to try and figure out why. There were many references in the film to the legends of film noir, but the inclusion of Rosa von Praunheim did not seem to fit. It may just be that they were friends. Fassbinder seemed to be having fun during the filming of the movie and was slipping in lost of references to the great directors and maybe he thought he could get in one more.
[Spoiler]
ReplyDeleteAdditional Comments
The other scene that I found to be really interesting was the ending. In the final scene Ricky is shot after being distracted by his mother and brother. After the shooting takes place Ricky's brother runs to his side and grabs him. From this point on Fassbinder uses slow motion for the rest of the film, which goes on for another five minutes, and shows Ricky and his brother slowly rolling on the ground. Even though the two are bothers, fully clothed, and in the midst of a shooting the scene appears to be very sexual in nature. There are hints throughout the film of the brother's deep affection for Ricky, but for the most part everything about the final scene is incredibly unexpected when it comes to the scenes length and nature.
The photo at the bottom of the post depicts the final scene with Ricky lying dead on the ground with his brother.