1971 German movie
Rating: 15/20
Plot: Some people try to make a movie.
Maybe I didn't like this, but it's apparently one of Bob Dylan's favorites which forces me to give it bonus points. We learn that pride goes before the fall with this near-story about a purgatory disguised as a movie shoot. I've seen an alarmingly small number of Fassbinder movies, but I still consider myself enough of an expert to find an opening soliloquy about Goofy to be somewhat shocking.
Knowing how bad I am about writing these things, I've been jotting down notes. For this one, I have two notes that I don't understand. The first just says "jukebox." I know what a jukebox is, and I remember a jukebox being in this movie. I think all the music is actually from that jukebox. But I'm not sure why I would have just written down that one word. What's going on there?
The other is "sleep aids." I have no idea what that's all about, but it must have been important because I put a box around it and wrote it in all capital letters.
This starts with that Goofy soliloquy and ends with this fantastic shots on stairs, a newspaper and characters leaving one by one. In between, the first half consists of all these tiny sketches, these vignettes with all these extended shots. There's a sneaking choreography as the camera moves through the characters. By the end, things are more frenetic. The settings change rapidly, and the shots aren't nearly as long. There will be a brief snippet of conversation, and then, as if somebody has magically snapped his fingers and made it happen, the scene shifts to a new location and a new conversation.
Sleep aids. Huh.
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