Writer Kirby Malone reflects on the life and films of the late Rainer Werner Fassbinde. Fassbinder made 43 movies in his short life. A retrospective of his films moves from the Museum of Modern Art to Washington DC's National Gallery of Art this weekend. In another flurry of activity, 4 books are being written about the German filmmaker... and a cd is about to be released containing the haunting music of Fassbinder's premier composer, Peer Rabe. Malone thinks that Fassbinder was a walking contradiction. His films about cruelty are often a sad reflection on a man whose life was dedicated to films about man's inhumanity to man, but found that he was cruel to others as well.
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