Fear of Fear
Picture: C+ Sound: C
Extras: C- Film: A-
Every director has
borrowed their ideas from somewhere else and with the medium being around for
as long as it has, it’s getting to the point where directors are borrowing
their material from directors who already borrowed that material from someone
else. The domino effect, if you will. This is not always a bad thing,
especially if it is done correctly. Even the top auteur recognizes the
achievements of others. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was quite original and was a
gorilla filmmaker finishing more films in his shortened life than some
individual’s dream of in a lengthy career. He enjoyed a large share of
artistic freedom throughout Germany and Europe since he was able to complete projects with low
costs. While some of his films were not huge successes, they always managed to
be successful on some level.
Fassbinder was highly
influenced by some of the filmmaking that took place in the 40’s and 50’s in
American including the work of Douglas Sirk and his melodramas for which Ali:
Fear Eats the Soul was a tribute to Sirk’s All that Heaven Allows and
Written on the Wind, both sweeping melodramas from the 50’s. Another
filmmaker is Todd Haynes an admirer of both Fassbinder and Sirk with his 2002
film Far From Heaven a true testimony to his appreciation of both men.
To go back further though would be to compare Haynes’ 1995 film Safe
with Fassbinder’s Fear of Fear.
Both involve housewives
who end up starting to experience strange encounters with fear for no apparent
reason. The films then devote their storylines to uncovering some of the
mystery and illusion that goes with an emotion like fear. What Haynes and
Fassbinder were both capable of doing with their subject matter is taking something
as simple as one emotion and turning it into a study. The film circles around
this one emotion and demonstrates the power of just that.
Wellspring owns a large
portion of the Fassbinder catalog and is starting to issue more of his films
onto the DVD format. For this particular film they have stuck with the
original full-frame color presentation and delivered a rather steady transfer,
which looks slightly dated, but is clear and clean of much of the debris that
other films from this era received. One might find a good comparison to this
transfer and Criterion’s edition of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which has a
slightly better color transfer. More work was obviously done in keeping that
print in better shape, but Fear of Fear still looks impressive.
Fassbinder usually kept a very neutral color scheme for his films, which have a
lackluster quality, but he was more concerned with everything looking more true
to life. The monophonic Dolby 2.0 audio is decent as well, but the best bonus
is the sharp yellow subtitles.
The release is light on
extras, but heavy in content. This might not be the best place to start if
introducing yourself to Fassbinder, but certainly a destination point worth
hitting at some point in time. Thanks to Wellspring it’s been made all the
easier.
- Nate Goss
