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"Echoes of the War": Sounds of Capitalism in Fassbinder’s BRD Trilogy"

In his unforgettable post-war BRD Trilogy, Rainer Werner Fassbinder delivers up a trio of female protagonists trying to survive in an irreversibly damaged environment. Each film tells a different story of trying to build an independent life in the post war landscape, and the difficulties (especially women) had in finding their way in a society in which gender roles were almost completely undefined post-war. To imply this chaos and confusion, Fassbinder uses various cinematic techniques to convey the muddled state of his characters, many which stem from satirizing melodramatic film conventions. “Fassbinder announces at the beginning of each of the three films his use of the spectacle as a strategic tool for the analysis of power relations in a German historical context; he seals his commitment to this methodology at the conclusion. He brackets the narrative with spectacular representations referring to concrete social (and generally overtly political) forces which extend the social relationships in the narrative into a larger and continuous historical process.” (Feinstein 45) In this paper I want to further articulate how the use of sound design in these films creates an atmosphere for the viewer that communicates the inner workings of the characters and the environment, and in tandem achieves, (in both subtle and extravagant ways) a strong social and political commentary.

In the first film in this trilogy, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Fassbinder follows the immediate post war years to chronicle the effect it has on a young bride who lost her husband to the war before they could begin their life together. The film begins with the actual wedding ceremony where a picture of Hitler is seen being blown off a wall by gunfire signifying the downturn of the war effort. Maria and Hermann must beg the preacher to stay and finish their vows as gunfire and bombs fall down around them. This chaotic beginning is almost humorous in it’s violence and extravagance. As they become man and wife, we hear the loud sound of a baby crying louder than any other sound in the mix, perhaps articulating the idea of the post-war life being a completely new one in which one must be dragged into kicking and screaming.

The next noticeable sound design element is the presence of the radio in Maria’s family home. This is a trend that continues throughout the film, and is a beacon of the public voice and agenda intruding into the private home that cannot be ignored. The great importance the state of the outside world has on the private sphere is made clear through this device. “The film’s primary level of narrative, that of the ‘private history’ of the everyday life of common people, implies a tradition of apoliticism. In Maria Braun, ‘public history’ regularly intrudes into the lives of the characters, usually in the form of radio speeches and announcements, but the characters remain oblivious to such intrusions. This narrative style, along with the large number of minor characters, allows the film to reproduce effectively the “microhistory” of the period, rendering it a valuable depiction of the early material deprivation and the later material plenty that submerged critical political, social, and historical consciousness.” (Cocks 1129) Although the radio is often playing in the background (often mixed loudly) to create a constant flow of information being afflicted on the private citizens, the actual broadcasts can become more important on a character level. For instance, one of the first times we understand the importance of the broadcast is when we see Maria listening desperately to the missing persons reports for a sign of her husband. The subtle manipulation of the voice of the radio is often used masterfully by Fassbinder on smaller occasions, like when Maria trades some cigarettes she received from an American GI to her mother in exchange for a brooch she can trade on the black market, the droning radio broadcast becomes louder, reminding us of the influence of the war and how it has changed the normal dynamics of the mother-daughter relationship.

The use of the radio broadcast at Maria’s family home continues to punctuate the effect of the post-war situation on Maria and those around her. Later in the film when she returns home after receiving her job from Karl-Oswald, the sound of the radio is mixed louder than it previously was, becoming a very conscious nuisance that makes it difficult to hear or pay attention to what the characters are saying. In this scene her family comments on how much Maria has changed, the loudness of the radio reinforces the effect the state of the country has had on Maria’s personality. On another visit to her family home for her mother’s birthday, we are greeted by the familiar radio broadcast, but it is changed in exchange for music as a part of the birthday celebration. In this scene we notice how much her mother has changed, adopting new hairstyles and fashions along with a new boyfriend. It is obvious her mother has in a way turned a blind eye to her old life in exchange for a much more commercialized and ignorant existence. Maria speaks to her friend Betti at the party, who comments on how she feels as if she is already dead. Maria’s mother proclaims in stark constrast they should all, “dance until they drop,” indicating that the best way for her to survive the bleak post-war setting is to forget about the reality of the situation and blindly indulge in what pleasures are available.

Maria herself becomes a prime example of trying to fill her empty life with consumerist pleasures in an attempt to reclaim or rebuild some part of her past. Maria sacrifices her innocence for financial success, and even after getting out of prison, Hermann sacrifices more time with Maria to lay claim the Karl-Oswald’s inheritance. In the end all the riches they have gathered do nothing in bringing them back together. “Emotional and spiritual decline, parallel commercial success. [Maria’s] behavior becomes more and more erratic…in Fassbinder’s world, the priority of the material necessarily results in apocalypse.” (Feinstein 48) The final use of the radio broadcast is famously in the form of the 1954 world cup broadcast. The presence of the broadcast begins with the pre-game show that is playing while Maria eats alone at a restaurant after discovering that Karl-Oswald has died, foregrounding the beginning of the end for Maria, and a larger new beginning for Germany itself. Maria returns home to be reunited with her husband, and the sound of the soccer broadcast accompanies Maria’s frantic preparation for the perfect reunion with her lost love. She does not actually come to him, but runs around the house changing her outfit and preparing everything nervously, further postponing the reunion that can never be worth all they have both sacrificed. The influence of the public state on the private sphere of Maria’s home life comes to head in this final scene. Even though Maria has succeeded in accomplishing everything she wanted, the influence of Germany’s history is something she cannot escape, and in the end it is her own attempt to rise from the ashes that turns her into ashes, and the audience is left shaked up with mixed feelings, “Having won the soccer championship that year Germany was embarking on a new era of confidence. The self-awareness of 1954 refers back to the war years…whether the past is remembered as an event of immense importance but still only of limited duration or what it is romanticized as Maria romanticized her marriage, can only be answered by the people directly.” (Reimer 142)

In The Marriage of Maria Braun, Fassbinder also employs other sound cues as a symbol of the everyday influence and oppression of war that are perhaps overlooked in comparison to the importance of the presence of the radio broadcast. The nonchalant use of patriotic songs is also present throughout the film, as if imbedded into the subconscious of all German citizens. We first hear Grandpa Berger whistling a patriotic tune in his state of Alzheimer’s bliss. We also hear Germany’s national anthem being played in a back alleyway while black-market deals are being made. A man is playing the athem on an accordion that he is trying to sell. He insists the instrument is worthless without knowing how to play the song, but at the same time he is selling the instrument. This perhaps perfectly encapsulates the crisis of national identity at the time, meaning everything but being worthless at the same time to the people of Germany. The use of music overall in the film creates a satirical take on the state of the melodrama that is being portrayed. One device that is used throughout the film is the sudden dramatic blast of music when certain events occur. The reason this device is interesting to me is because it is not usually heard at the main dramatic moments of the film. Some examples of it’s use are when Maria walks inside a building after a date with Bill, her black GI suitor, or when she is visiting the doctor for an exam. It does not occur at seriously dramatic moments, such as Hermann’s return or Karl-Oswald’s death.

I believe that Fassbinder chooses to subvert our expectations of melodramatic devices in order to downplay the drama of personal events within the shadow of the larger post-war situation. “Fassbinder brands his distinctive type of melodrama with a modernistic interpretation. By manipulating the formal elements of the melodrama, through which he makes reference to historical events, he undermines the logic of the narrative. He subverts many of the formal conventions of the genre while adhering to others.” (Feinstein 54) The oppression of the shadow of the war can never be escaped in this film. Even in the most subtle sound design elements portray echoes of the war, one of which struck me in particular was the background noise every time a scene is shown at Karl-Oswald’s factory/office. Perhaps it is just the sound of the factory’s machinery, but to me the noise in these scenes always sounded exactly like gunfire. Mixed louder than normal background ambience, I believe the reminder of being in battle every time we enter the office is not unintentional. The idea of not being able to escape the war, especially through exploiting capitalism, is consciously implemented in every track of the sound design. “The Marriage of Maria Braun offers significant insight not only into the social history of postwar western Germany but also into the radical critiques of the social and political system of the Federal Republic common during the 1960s and 1970s, critiques powerfully concerned not just with socioeconomic theory and practice but with the substance and consciousness of recent German history as a whole.” (Cocks 1130) Although Maria and Hermann perish in the end, we understand that Germany marches on without them, leaving them as mere casulaties of the war in the non-traditonal sense. This trend reoccurs in several instances in the next film in the trilogy, Veronika Voss.

The second film in Fassbinder’s trilogy, Veronika Voss, is the story of an out of work Nazi-era actress struggling to even exist in the post-war world. The film opens with Veronika watching herself in a film which foreshadows her own demise. After leaving the movie theater she meets Robert Krohn, a indiscriminate man who she intrigues with her sultry and manic personality. We initially think Veronika is a little crazy when she is afraid to have someone identify her on the trolley. We soon understand that these delusions of grandeur are hardly true anymore, and her shattered confidence and drug addiction cause her to behave very erratically. The sound design in Veronika Voss creates another multi-layered presence of the effects of the war on the characters in the film. The overall soundtrack is a somewhat typical melodramatic accompaniment, with what sources have called a “Bavarian” influence, which although was supposedly very at home in the film’s setting, gives a bit of a manic, circus-like feel to the soundtrack in my opinion. Similar to the melodramatic soundtrack used in Maria Braun, Fassbinder again creates a layered and satirical meaning behind while it also blends well with the mood. In this instance, other than merely toying with the meaning of melodramatic conventions for the sake of satire alone, Fassbinder’s use of this type of music also creates a level of meaning related to the character of Veronika, who obsesses throughout the movie over every moment in her life being more like the world of a film. Her outward obsession with lighting and mood create a perfect reason for the soundtrack to be as it is, and the Bavarian twist gives it a bit of a manic edge that goes perfectly with the world the film portrays. Beyond the film’s non-diagetic score, the music of the film also becomes a powerful social and political tool for Fassbinder’s commentary. Devices such as an ominous drum beat are used throughout the film to articulate the mania and urgency felt by the characters, specifically Veronika. There are moments where the drum beats or the tempo of the music will change to accompany Veronika’s fast paced, manic speeches about her future work, or life situation in general. This catering of soundtrack elements to fit Veronika’s mental condition assist in further accentuating her frenzied and irreversible state of being, caused from being forced to live in this post-war environment with her baggage related to Nazism. Veronika’s film career becomes her ultimate flaw as it is the main thing that she defines herself by, and the one thing that holds her back from existing plainly withing society post-war. She is not able to let go of her film career and therefore cannot move forward, so she clings to any scrap she can of her past fame or possible bleak future movie prospects. Her relationship to the camera is interestingly defined in the scene where she actually goes to the studio to play a role for the first time in a long while. The sound design Fassbinder uses in the scene accentuates the loud buzzing of the lights and equipment, with the camera itself (which is forced to zoom in towards Veronika as she performs each take) sounds like a piece of surgical equipment coming closer and closer as Veronika falters. This to me, reveals the violence and intensity Fassbinder sees as a necessity for making powerful films, while also giving us insight to Veronika’s shattered personality and relation to the glamour and falsity of the world of film and the Germany of the Nazi era.

Within one of the most powerful setting in the film, the diabolical Dr. Katz’s office, Fassbinder creates a surreal environment comprised of stark white decor and the never-ending presence of an American armed forces radio broadcast playing cowboy-Western music. This capitalistic influence as an overtone for the dirty dealings of Dr. Katz and her cohorts, (one of which is a black American GI) again remind us of the inevitable influence of greed in post-war life. Dr. Katz is a fascinating amalgamation of the horrors created by the influence of the war. “We can see how Fassbinder integrates his formal method of the spectacle with a sense of history as an on-going political process. Veronika displays herself most strikingly and vulnerably to Dr. Katz, who, is a signifier indicative of a signified (the society of a free market in post war Germany). It is implied that Dr. Katz functioned as a doctor in the concentration camps; this provides a link with an otherwise suppressed past.” (Feinstein 49) Dr. Katz’s jewish affliation becomes an embodiment of the insanity concerning the strong sense of victimhood that arose from the war. One of the couples she takes advantage of with her ploy is an elderly couple who have survived the concentration camps. They thank her unendingly for her help, and she repays them in kind by pushing them aside and allowing them to suffer when she decides it is time for them to die so she can inherit their possessions. After suffering from withdrawals, the couple proceeds to kill themselves by taking pills with tea and honey to mask their “bitter” taste, (which is often referenced by Veronika as well) mirroring quite literally the bitter taste of living in this post-war environment. The use of a ticking clock also creates a clearly defined ominous inevitability of death for certain types of people in the post-war world.

The strange and stifling environment of Dr. Katz office, is also where Veronika meets her end. Similar to the situation with the elderly couple, Dr. Katz decides that it is time for Veronika to die. Before she comes to her end, the doctor throws a “going away” party for Veronika at her decedent mansion which is the doctor is about to inherit. At the party Veronika sings a song in English, “Memories are made of this,” making us inquire about the manipulation of history in the post-war climate, and the value of Veronika’s life work as an actress creating propaganda. “Fassbinder offers a stimulating counterpoint between sound and image tracks. (The American songs which constantly accompany the action in Veronika Voss function as an obsessive sub-text, providing a voice for the silent presence of American imperialism, the GI dealer who haunts the clinic and specifically ‘Memories are Made of This’ offers a concise verbal pointer to the fetishistic quality of Robert’s obsession, Veronika’s dilemma, and the viewers stake in the whole affair.” (Jenkins 4)

In the final scene of the film, Veronika is locked in a room at the doctor’s office, essentially left to die. The sound design in this sequence combines the usual drone of the cowboy music, with such on the nose lyrics as, “They’re gonna get you, run boy run” and a variety of other distracting sounds such as church bells for a Good Friday service, the sound of a ticking clock, and a mass broadcast in Latin. These intersecting sound elements create a perfect landscape for Veronika’s final state of mania. When she finally meets her demise, we hear only the cowboy music, reminding us of the main reason for her death. The evil presence of capitalist greed exploiting the battered and bruised victims of post-war Germany shown through the state sanctioned drug trade, becomes a meaningful device for Fassbinder as it was something that affected his own life. His personal struggle with drug use, which lead to his early death, cannot be overlooked when understanding the potency of the world shown in this film. “…the ease at which [Fassbinder] could obtain and even publicly flaunt his use of [drugs] came to be seen by him as symptomatic of the State’s ability to find ways to wear down or eliminated any opposition, including his own. In this respect, is it mere coincidence that the most frequently heard song on the soundtrack, 16 Tons, contains the oft-repeated refrain (to which Fassbinder’s visual and aural editing gives prominence)…’I owe my soul to the company store’?” (Macbean 12)

The final installment in Fassbinder’s trilogy, Lola has been described as, “a satiric tribute to capitalism.” Continuing in the “dance until you drop” fashion ofMaria Braun's mother, Lola takes on an altogether different viewpoint of the post-war lifestyle. Lola becomes in a way, a celebration of the ignorant bliss that arose during the time of the economic miracle. Similar to the previous two films, the non-diagetic soundtrack serves as both a genuine accompaniment to the action of the film, and a satire of the melodramatic form of music at the same time. He also emphasizes other melodramatic musical tropes in such devices as Von Bohm’s violin performances, which paint him as the over sentimentalized and unrealistic gentlemen he is, while at the same time showing the inner strength and genuine beauty of his character. He even comments at one point about Esslin’s anti-war movement, “I’m always intrigued by fruitless passions” indicating his romantic nature, yet down to earth and cut-throat personality. Unlike the downtrodden characters in the previous two films, Fassbinder creates characters that revel in their power, whether it be unjustly earned or not. Lola herself uses her sexuality and independence as a weapon and as a means of making a living. You can tell by the way she performs that her song is her currency, and she is confident in what she is selling. The popular songs Fassbinder chooses for her to perform also portray that same degree of pride even in their falsity, “Other auteurs have often used the device of popular songs from the past commenting on the present as memory in order to point up the false consciousness of such popular expressions. By contrast, Fassbinder’s use of these songs, though also acknowledging their falseness, retains the forceful emotional energy that they originally projected, so much so that they seem to be among the few genuine forms of emotional expression within the film’s aesthetic dynamic.” (Bergfelder 32) The use of song throughout the film becomes a window into the inner-workings of Lola as well. When we see her sing with Von Bohm in the church, she thanks him for singing with her, and comments how it’s been a long time since she’s been able to sing so beautifully. Lola’s passion and stregth always comes out through her songs, but here we see her doubt herself for a moment and lament her lost sense of purity. Wishing momentarily perhaps that she could start fresh with Von Bohm, she quickly realizes that she must be true to the product she has become in her own right, whether pure or not.

We witness a similar faltering of Lola’s confidence and pride when Von Bohm finally discovers her secret and sees her performing at the salon. She stumbles momentarily, but after a moment remembers who she is and why she is there, and sings even more passionately, proclaiming herself to the world no matter what anyone thinks. In the end Lola uses her power to capture Von Bohm even as a whore, and at the same time gains the power of owning the salon, and freedom to continue to sleep with Schukert. Although in the end she is owned by Schukert in a way, she is also the only true owner of herself, and exploits her feminine power to get everything she is worth. “Overall, then, Lolais not a critique of the greed and corruption of West German society of the 1950s, but a gleeful, almost Sadean, celebration of the total corruptibility and amorality of its characters, whose ‘vitality’ Fassbinder explicitly admired,” (Bergfelder 27) It is obvious by the way these characters are portrayed that Fassbinder does not want us to feel bad for them. They revel in what they have created out of the remains of past Germany, and run into the future with it proudly. Even Von Bohm, who in way gets shafted moreso than anyone else, makes the best attempt he can to take the tangible goods he is able to salvage and create from a wretched world and move forward. “Lola makes Von Bohm just the right man both for Lola’s ticket to respectability and for postwar Germany’s launching of the ‘economic miracle.’ In both cases, Fassbinder seems to be saying, the people directly involved prefer not to look too closely at the foundations on which their apparently solid and respectable lives are built.” (Macbean 14) At the end of the film we hear the presence of a soccer game broadcast yet again, and the powerful image/sound of a caged peacock loudly squawking, perhaps a metaphor for the newly married Lola. Despite the limitations of the reality of each characters situation, each ends up satisfied in the end, taking what they could salvage from the post-war world and churning out their own little economic and personal miracles. “While the former films end with the death of their main female protagonists, and are infused with a fatalistic mood of foreboding and gloom, the eponymous protagonist of Lola not only survives, but triumphantly achieves her social aspirations by the time of the supremely ironic ‘happy ending.’” ( Bergfelder 26)

In each of these films Fassbinder manipulates melodramatic and general filmic conventions to subvert their meaning within the context of history. Each woman he portrays suffers and struggles immensely in an attempt to provide for herself and becoming a functioning human being in the undefined post-war environment. From Maria’s fruitless ladder climbing, to Veronika’s ill-fated manipulation into drug dependency, even to Lola’s necessity to be a prostitute, Fassbinder paints portraits of women who are forced to define themselves through the terms of their country’s history. “The use of framing devices provides a key to the films’ otherwise oblique references to social and political issues, as they place the narrative in a context expanding the narrative of the melodramatic format. In almost every instance, the lead characters accept unquestioningly and unconditionally the manifestations of the dominant ideology that entrap them… [the relationships] functions in microcosm as an indicator of the generally unperceived economic and historical forces which determine each relationship.” (Feinstein 47) Never using conventions in a conventional sense, Fassbinder brings forth a trio of fascinating films with an air of satire that never lets us, or his characters, escape from the deterministic history that surrounds them at every turn.

———-

Written while attending Tisch School of the Arts Masters of Cinema Studies Program 2011

Bibliography

Bergfelder, Tim. “Popular genres and cultural legitimacy: Fassbinder’s Lola and the legacy of 1950s West German cinema.” Screen 45:1 Spring 2004.University of Oxford Press, 2004.

Cocks, Geoffrey. “The Marriage of Maria Braun by Rainer Werner Fassbinder Review.” The American Historical Review. Vol. 96, No. 4. UP Chicago, 1991.

Feinstein, Howard. “BDR 1-2-3: Fassbinder’s Postwar Trilogy and the Spectacle.” Cinema Journal 23, No. 1, Fall 1983. UP Austin, 1983.

Jenkins, Steve. “Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss (Veronika Voss) Monthy Film Bulletin. 1983 Volume: L Issue: 588. British Film Institute, 1982.

Macbea, James Roy. “The Cinema as Self Portrait: The final films of R.W. Fassbinder.” Cineaste 1983, 12, 4. Proquest Direct Complete pg. 8.

Reimer, Robert C. “Memories from the Past: A Study of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Marriage of Maria Braun." The Journal of Popular Film and Television. Vol IX, Issue 3. Edinboro, 1981.

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