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A Film and its Era: The Mariage of Maria Braun (Reiner W. Fassbinder)

Hanna Schygulla, Günter Lamprecht, Yann Lardeau, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Harry Baer, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Juliane Lorenz, Michael Ballhaus, Barbara Baum

Rainer Werner Fassbinder shot Maria Braun's wedding in 1979. Story of a film: The film is about the life and destiny of Maria Braun and tells the rise and fall of this great adventurer and exceptional woman who lived in West Germany between 1945 and 1953. Married to a soldier, Hermann, during the last three months of the Third Reich, Maria Braun kills her lover when her husband comes back home, but she manages to avoid prison because he pleads guilty instead of her. While her husband is incarcerated, she was hired by Karl Oswald and slowly becomes his favorite adviser and lover. Very ill, Karl Oswald dies and leaves his fortune to Maria and Hermann, that even jail didn't split apart. But when she is about to inherit, Maria Braun dies in an accident at home. We will never know whether or not it was a suicide. Story of a period: At the End of the seventies, (West) Germany is destroyed by the war. Occupied then split into two during the Cold War, the country has started a huge reconstruction process and is about to become the first European Power. In the meantime and since the beginning of the seventies, Germany suffers from terrorism by the Red Army Faction. Through films, plays and books, a new German generation tries to unveil a past still considered a taboo. Story of a filmmaker: Rainer Werner Fassbinder was born just at the end of the First World War in may 1945 and died in 1982. Passionate about films, he starts with directing plays and shooting radical, shocking or activist movies which will make him famous worldwide as a cursed and sulfurous artist. Fassbinder is a driving force of German new Cinema and he has a great influence in Europe. From Patrice Chéreau to Pedro Almodovar, or the magazine « les Cahiers du cinéma », the seventies can definitely be considered as Fassbinder's years.

Facts

Prog. No.
6215
Music genre
Documentary
Length
30 mins
Director
François Levy Kuntz
Producers
Folamour
Production year
2012
Format
HD