Germany in Autumn

Fassbinder was one of 11 German New Wave filmmakers who contributed to this omnibus essay film, organized by narrator Alexander Kluge (who would expand his segment, “The Patriot,” into a feature). The fiction and nonfiction shorts were made in response to the German Autumn, a series of events in late 1977 including the kidnapping and murder of magnate Hanns Martin Schleyer by the Red Army Faction and the hijacking of a Lufthansa airplane. What the project lacks in perspective (the lag time was minimal) it makes up for in urgency, and while it may not offer cohesion or consistency, it boasts a spectrum of styles, with Fassbinder baring his soul as an enraged man arguing with his disengaged male lover and politically naïve mother about terrorism.