"I am Biberkopf", Rainer Werner Fassbinder declared, aligning himself with the protagonist of his vastly popular television adaptation of "Berlin Alexanderplatz". The statement provoked an unprecedented national debate over what constituted an acceptable German artist and who has the power to determine art. More than any recent German director, Fassbinder embodied this debate, and Jane Shattuc shows us how much this can tell us not just about the man and his work, but also about the state of "culture" in Germany. It is fascinating in itself that Fassbinder, a highly controversial public figure, was chosen to direct "Berlin Alexanderplatz", Germany's longest, costliest, and most widely seen television drama. Shattuc exposes the dichtomy of institutional support for this project versus the scandalous controversial reputation of Fassbinder as a gay man who flaunted his sexuality and flirted with drugs. Fassbinder built his reputation on two separate images of the director - the faithful adapter and the underground star; with "Berlin Alexanderplatz" these two identities came explosively together.
Tracing the two artistic paths that led Fassbinder to this moment, Shattuck offers us a look at cultural class divisions in Germany. Her account of Fassbinder's history as an Autor reveals the triumph and failure of bourgeois cultural domination in postwar West Germany.
- ISBN10 0816685959
- ISBN13 9780816685950
- Publish Date 14 May 2014 (first published 1 January 1995)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Imprint University of Minnesota Press
- Format eBook
- Pages 273
- Language English