Irish Film Institute -BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE

BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE

Director: RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER

103 minutes| West Germany-Italy| 1970| Colour| Subtitled| 35mm


Fassbinder’s seldom-seen 10th feature film marked for him a major turning point in his career. He said in a 1974 interview, ‘I knew it had to be the end. With that film we buried the antiteater.’ Based on the shooting of his revisionist Western Whity (1970), this film is Fassbinder’s take on Godard’s Contempt, a film within the making of a film and a study of the violence of group dynamics. A cast and crew are stranded in a Spanish hotel while they wait for filming to begin. They drink bottomless Cuba Libres and become increasingly irritated with each other. When the director (Lou Castel) arrives with his star (Eddie Contantine), chaos erupts. The film to be made is about brutality, and the violence between the members of this group gives us insight into Fassbinder’s view on his previous nine films, his working process, and the people with whom he surrounded himself.

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