The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection

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DarkImbecile
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The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection

#1 Post by DarkImbecile » Thu Nov 01, 2007 10:25 am

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema, wrote, directed, produced and starred in over 40 films in his short but prolific life, before passing away of a drugs overdose in 1982 aged just 37. Rainer Werner Fassbinder vol. 1 brings together a collection of his finest works from the early years of his career in high definition digital restorations prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation.

His debut feature Love is Colder Than Death (1969) is a playful but cynical crime picture, inspired by the nouvelle vague. Katzelmacher (1969) depicts the dynamics of a group of young layabout friends, which are radically altered by the arrival of an immigrant worker in their community. Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) pulls the curtain on the backstage dramas of the cast and crew of a film shoot as they wait in a Spanish seaside hotel for the arrival of funds to continue their production. The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971) portrays the downfall of a beleaguered fruit seller in 1950s Munich as he struggles to keep his family, body and soul together.

Originally written and produced as a stage play, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972) focuses on the loves, losses and lamentations of the titular Petra, a successful fashion designer with two marriages behind her and an estranged daughter. The Ulli Lommel-directed Tenderness of the Wolves (1973) sees Fassbinder adopting the role of producer in a bleak tale based on the German serial killer Fritz Haarmann, memorably played by Fassbinder regular Kurt Raab, who also wrote the screenplay.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
  • High definition digital transfers of all films prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation
  • High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all films
  • Original uncompressed PCM mono 1.0 sound for all films
  • Optional English subtitles for all films
  • Exclusive 140-page collectors booklet containing archive articles and interviews and new writing by Tony Rayns, David Jenkins, Nicole Brenez, Phuong Le, Carmen Gray and Sean Hogan
DISC ONE – THE EARLY WORKS: LOVE IS COLDER THAN DEATH and KATZELMACHER
[*]Two early short films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1966, The Little Chaos and The City Tramp
[*]Interview with actor Ulli Lommel on Love is Colder Than Death
[*]End of the Commune?, Joachim von Mengershausen’s 1970 documentary portrait of Fassbinder and his troupe including rare footage of his actors rehearsing and Love is Colder Than Death’s premiere at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival
[*]Original theatrical trailer for Katzelmacher

DISC TWO – THE MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS and BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE
[*]Audio commentary on The Merchant of Four Seasons by critics Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Christian McCrea
[*]Audio commentary on Beware of a Holy Whore by Adrian Martin
[*]Interview with actor Lou Castel on Beware of a Holy Whore
[*]Beware of a Holy Whore theatrical trailer

DISC THREE – THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT
[*]Commentary by filmmaker and lecturer Diane Charleson
[*]Life Stories: A Conversation with R.W. Fassbinder, a 50-minute interview with the director conducted for German television in 1978
[*]Role-Play: Women on Fassbinder, a 1992 documentary containing interviews with four of the director’s leading ladies, Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Hanna Schygulla and Rosel Zech

DISC FOUR – TENDERNESS OF THE WOLVES
[*]Audio commentary by director Ulli Lommel, moderated by Uwe Huber
[*]Introduction by Ulli Lommel
[*]The Tender Wolf, a newly-filmed interview with Lommel
[*]Photographing Fritz, a newly-filmed interview with director of photography Jürgen Jürges
[*]Haarmann’s Victim Talks, a newly-filmed interview with actor Rainer Will
[*]An appreciation by Stephen Thrower, author of Nightmare USA and Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco
[*]Stills gallery
[*]Theatrical trailer

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godardslave
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#2 Post by godardslave » Thu Nov 01, 2007 11:47 am

wow, nice extras on the fassbinder release.

solent

#3 Post by solent » Thu Nov 01, 2007 4:54 pm

Reading the DVD Times reviews and thinking on the Wellspring vesions [including their extras here mostly repeated] I would assume the source prints are the same as those of R1. The advantage with the R2 is that the subs are in white and not the dreafully oversaturated yellow used by Wellspring.


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#5 Post by colinr0380 » Fri Nov 02, 2007 7:54 am

solent wrote:[including their extras here mostly repeated].
Regarding 'mostly repeated' extras, are there any notable additions or omissions you noticed? I'm on the verge of picking these up (I'll have an overlap with the films Criterion released that are also included in the volume 2 set, but I don't mind that for the chance to pick up the other six relatively cheaply!)

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#6 Post by domino harvey » Fri Nov 02, 2007 10:41 am

I know the Merchant of Four Seasons had a commentary track in R1 that is absent from the R2 set.

solent

#7 Post by solent » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:08 pm

There is also a sporadic commentary on the R1 PETRA VON KANT apparently missing from R2. The MERCHANT commentary is by Wim Wenders. This is the usual case. Most R1 commentaries are not put on R2 discs for legal reasons probably. I bought the R2 ALFREDO GARCIA and was dissapointed to find the commentary track [from R1] missing.

As to extras I would say: go for the R2 release. It has everything from the R1 discs mentioned above sans the commentaries and it is cheaper and it has white subs!!!!

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#8 Post by domino harvey » Fri Nov 02, 2007 8:28 pm

I never managed to move on those OOP Wellspring titles so the first set appeals greatly to me, put my pre-order in last nite.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#9 Post by TMDaines » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:07 pm

A new Fassbinder Blu-ray set incoming!
  • Love is Colder Than Death
    Katzelmacher
    Beware of a Holy Whore
    The Merchant of Four Seasons
    The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
    Fear Eats the Soul
    Effi Briest
    Fox and His Friends
    Chinese Roulette
    The Marriage of Maria Braun
Arrow store exclusive at only 1000 copies. £65 pre-order until 2016. Seems a steal even if individual releases are coming. The seven individual releases would have to be cheaper than £9.29 each to make buying them individually a better offer. For a pre-order that seems pretty damn good, especially as this may well explode in value as with Boro.

Holy shit! I knew I was right to avoid the Criterion Fassbinders during this B&N sale.
Limited edition box set (1,000 copies) containing Love is Colder Than Death, Katzelmacher, Beware of a Holy Whore, The Merchant of Four Seasons, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Fear Eats the Soul, Effi Briest, Fox and His Friends, Chinese Roulette and The Marriage of Maria Braun
Brand new 4K restorations of the films from original camera negatives
High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations
Original uncompressed PCM mono audio
Optional English subtitles on all films
Six audio commentaries: Adrian Martin on Beware of a Holy Whore, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas and Christian McCrea on The Merchant of Four Seasons, Diane Charleson on The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Mark Freeman on Fear Eats the Soul, Ken Moulden on Effi Briest and Hamish Ford on Fox and His Friends
Two early short films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1966, The Little Chaos and The City Tramp
My Name is Not Ali, Viola Shafik’s 2011 feature-length documentary on the life and death of El Hedi ben Salem, star of Fear Eats the Soul
Newly-filmed interview with actor Lou Castel on Beware of a Holy Whore
Newly-filmed interviews with actor Ulli Lommel on Love is Colder Than Death, Effi Briest and Chinese Roulette
Newly-filmed interviews with director of photography Jürgen Jürges on Fear Eats the Soul and Effi Briest
The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Family, an all-new featurette detailing the actors who worked with Fassbinder time and again throughout his career
Life Stories: A Conversation with R.W. Fassbinder, a 50-minute interview with the director conducted for German television in 1978
End of the Commune, Joachim von Mengershausen’s 1970 documentary portrait of Fassbinder and his troupe including rare footage of his actors rehearsing and Love is Colder Than Death’s premiere at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival
Role-Play: Women on Fassbinder, a 1992 documentary containing interviews with four of the director’s leading ladies, Margit Carstensen, Irm Hermann, Hanna Schygulla and Rosel Zech
Life, Love & Celluloid, a 1998 feature-length documentary on Fassbinder, written and directed by his regular editor, Juliane Lorenz
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1977, a candid 30-minute interview with the director
Original theatrical trailers for Katzelmacher, Beware of a Holy Whore, Fear Eats the Soul, Fox and His Friends and Chinese Roulette
200-page hardback book, exclusive to this limited edition box set, containing all-new writing by Tony Rayns, Gertrud Koch, Michael Pattison, Nick Pinkerton, Ashley Clark, Erica Carter, Alex Davidson, Glenn Kenny and Margaret Deriaz
Edit: Looks like seven individual releases and not ten.
Last edited by TMDaines on Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:18 pm, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#10 Post by tenia » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:14 pm

£64.99 seems an insane early bird price.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#11 Post by Drucker » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:14 pm

Wow. I picked up Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant in the flash sale, but it's the first film of his I've owned, so I'll definitely be re-selling it. This is exciting as I was planning on seeking out more of his work.

I applied my points and got the set for a cool 54 GBP. Not bad!

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#12 Post by domino harvey » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:17 pm

Sweet, I think the Adrian Martin commentary is from the Madman disc

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#13 Post by antnield » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:19 pm

domino harvey wrote:Sweet, I think the Adrian Martin commentary is from the Madman disc
That's right. All of the commentaries previously appeared on Madman's Fassbinder discs.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#14 Post by TMDaines » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:20 pm

With Arrow releasing boxes like this, it makes me nervous to buy individual titles of auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders or Haneke from Criterion. I think the other two's films are tied up elsewhere in the UK, but this is such a better way of buying films.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#15 Post by swo17 » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:26 pm

For the record, this provides an improvement on 3 of the 5 titles included in the Eclipse set, leaving off Gods of the Plague and The American Soldier, though the first Arrow DVD set will give you those plus The Niklashausen Journey and Rio das Mortes.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#16 Post by EddieLarkin » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:29 pm

Any reason to keep my three Criterion Blu-rays supplements wise?

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domino harvey
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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#17 Post by domino harvey » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:30 pm

Buying this, especially at only 1000 copies, is the biggest no-brainer ever given that limited Arrow releases can fetch at least three time what you paid on the second hand market if you decide it's not for you. I already own the two DVD boxes Arrow is pulling these titles from but the copious extras make it an even more obvious no-brainer, even though my favorite titles from the first box aren't being upgraded

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#18 Post by Ribs » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:37 pm

Is that the final art? A bit of a step down from the other three Academy sets so far.

I'm *hesitant* about this and am contemplating trying to wait until the December sale so as to get double points. I'm *totally* unfamiliar with *all* of his work but its not like this set won't accrue in value if I end up disliking it (and at $6.60 a film (I've got rewards points saved up) I can't believe I won't think it's value for money).

Mildly disappointed because obviously it's not as big a deal as Rivette or Yoshida but still seems very exciting.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#19 Post by swo17 » Thu Nov 12, 2015 12:38 pm

EddieLarkin wrote:Any reason to keep my three Criterion Blu-rays supplements wise?
The Criterions have several unique interviews and essays (presumably, since we don't know all the contents of that book), a Wenders commentary on Merchant, and a short film and BBC program on Fear Eats the Soul.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection

#20 Post by jedgeco » Thu Nov 12, 2015 2:18 pm

According to Arrow's Facebook page:
(Individual titles will be released throughout 2016, with two being available at the same time as the boxset)

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection

#21 Post by tomN245 » Thu Nov 12, 2015 4:14 pm

SWEET. This set looks fantastic! I was going to donate some money to Children in Need, but... errr... How can I do that now? Sorry kids.

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#22 Post by perkizitore » Thu Nov 12, 2015 5:01 pm

Ribs wrote:Is that the final art? A bit of a step down from the other three Academy sets so far.

I'm *hesitant* about this and am contemplating trying to wait until the December sale so as to get double points. I'm *totally* unfamiliar with *all* of his work but its not like this set won't accrue in value if I end up disliking it (and at $6.60 a film (I've got rewards points saved up) I can't believe I won't think it's value for money).

Mildly disappointed because obviously it's not as big a deal as Rivette or Yoshida but still seems very exciting.
Last time they credited people double points if they pre-ordered before the sale started (the early bird price was still valid during the sale).
I would have waited for a possible December sale, but this being only 1000 copies might sell out even before then (especially if some people buy 2 and 3 copies).

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#23 Post by rapta » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:17 pm

TMDaines wrote:With Arrow releasing boxes like this, it makes me nervous to buy individual titles of auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders or Haneke from Criterion. I think the other two's films are tied up elsewhere in the UK, but this is such a better way of buying films.
Wenders seems to be with Axiom here in the UK, but even then so far they've only done Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire for Blu-ray. I hope they embark on a Wenders set one day, but I fear they are too small a label to try and attempt it. That said, they have started 'upgrading' a couple of their catalogue DVD titles to Blu-ray, so maybe that will spur them on to do at least a few more Wenders titles (if not a full set).

As for Haneke, they're almost certainly with Artificial Eye. Each year I wonder if they'll actually release the long-rumoured Blu-ray set of his older titles, but the only one of his films they've released on Blu-ray since 2013 (Amour) was a reissue of Funny Games US earlier this year...but that particular film has already had two Blu-ray releases in the UK (and the AE disc was bare-bones too, whilst the previous two releases of it at least had a few extras).

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Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection

#24 Post by chatterjees » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:35 pm

Is there any change that Arrow might wanna do a digipak? I am asking this after I placed the order, so please don't get me wrong.
TMDaines wrote:With Arrow releasing boxes like this, it makes me nervous to buy individual titles of auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders or Haneke from Criterion. I think the other two's films are tied up elsewhere in the UK, but this is such a better way of buying films.
I think this is the best way to get the films. I am loyal to Criterion, and I do have 4 of their Fassbinder releases, but do I really want to wait for 5 more years (if I am lucky enough) to get the other films on blu-ray from the Criterion? The answer is no. So, I would welcome more sets like this from Arrow in future.

criterion10

Re: The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Commemorative Collection

#25 Post by criterion10 » Thu Nov 12, 2015 10:58 pm

Fassbinder has long been one of my blind spots, and while I do already own the Criterion Blu-Rays, this seems like an essential set worth taking the risk on (I mean, I'm sure I'll be able to make quite the profit if I do sell it after it goes OOP!).
TMDaines wrote:With Arrow releasing boxes like this, it makes me nervous to buy individual titles of auteurs like Fassbinder, Wenders or Haneke from Criterion.
Well, I can picture Criterion releasing box sets of both The Road Trilogy and The Glaciation Trilogy, so there is that...

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