Plot Summary

Documentary film that deals with four main thematic areas in Fassbinder’s films: The exploitation of love, the human tendency for mutual repression, the resulting loneliness, and powerlessness that leads to an explosion of violence. Fassbinder’s genius lay in his logical and uncompromising combination of these various themes into a harmonious unity, while at the same time creating a very personal self-portrait of himself. All Fassbinder’s films are self-portraits in disguise. His greatness was one of emphasizing the negative, the darker aspects of things. Through his radical use of rigorous subjectivity he was able to be objective, whether in Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun or Effi Briest.