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The Marriage of Maria
Braun - Available ONLY as part of the "Rainer
Werner Fassbinder’s BRD Trilogy" - 4 Disc Boxed Set
" Bombs fell as Maria [Hanna Schygulla],
was married to a soldier named Hermann Braun, with the wedding party
scrambling
for
safety.
Then came more years of the war. Whatever happened to Maria Braun during
those years created a woman who is strong and cruel, sad and indomitable.
She is so loyal to her husband of less than a day that she kills for
him, and so pitiless to her lover of many years that she drives him to
death."
"All the time she is keeping score: nylons and cigarettes at first,
then a good job, fashionable clothes, a house in the suburbs, expensive
restaurants. At the end, her desperate lover, who is also her boss
and has made her rich, tries to get a word with her; as he talks, she
continues to enter numbers into an adding machine."
"Fassbinder's world was one in which sex, ego and money drove his
characters to cruelty, sadism and self-destruction. It is never difficult
to discover
what they want, or puzzling to see how they go about it. ... His occasional
gentle characters, like the old woman in "Ali: Fear Eats the Soul" (1974),
are eaten alive. The suggestion is that the war years and the postwar
years wounded the German psyche so profoundly that the survivors wanted
what they wanted, now, on their terms. Fassbinder himself was cruel
and distant to those around him, particularly those who loved him,
and in Maria Braun, he created an indelible monster who is perversely
fascinating because she knows exactly what she is doing and explains
it to her victims while it is being done." ---- Roger Ebert
The Marriage of Maria Braun is the first part of a "post-war" trilogy
by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
DVD - The Criterion Collection
The Four-Disc Box Set of Rainer
Werner Fassbinder’s
BRD Trilogy Contains:
The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979, 120 min.), Lola (1981, 113 min.)
Veronika Voss (1982, 104 min.) & BRD
Trilogy: Supplemental Disc (2003)
- Disc One: The Marriage of Maria Braun - Special
Features:
- New
high-definition digital transfer, enhanced for widescreen televisions
- Audio commentary by cinematographer Michael Ballhaus and filmmaker
Wim Wenders
- Exclusive video interview with regular Fassbinder collaborator,
Hanna Schygulla
- Video interview with Fassbinder scholar Eric Rentschler
- Disc Two: Lola - Special
Features:
- Audio commentary by Fassbinder documentarian, biographer, and friend
Christian Braad Thomsen
- New video interview with Lola star Barbara Sukowa
- New video interview with Fassbinder co-screenwriter Peter Marthesheimer
Disc Three: Veronica Voss - Special Features:
- Audio commentary by Fassbinder scholar Tony Rayns
- New video conversation with star Rosel Zech and editor Juliane
Lorenz
- Dance with Death, a one-hour portrait of UFA Studios star, Sybille
Schmitz, Fassbinder's inspiration for Veronika Voss
- Disc Four: The Supplements - Special
Features:
- I Don't Just Want You to Love Me, a feature-length documentary
of Fassbinder's life and career
- Life Stories: A Conversation with R.W. Fassbinder, a rare 45-minute
interview with the director, made for German television
- Exclusive video interview with Fassbinder cinematographer Xaver
Schwarzenberger
- Exclusive video conversation between Fassbinder scholar Laurence
Kardish and editor Juliane Lorenz
Curator's Comments:
Read
Roger Ebert's essay on this DVD Classic.
Director: Rainer Werner
Fassbinder
Color
120 minutes
Released: 1979
Rated: R
Country: Germany
Language: German with optional English subtitles
Genre: Drama
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