THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1978) C 120m widescreen dir: Rainer Werner Fassbinder

w/Hanna Schygulla, Klaus Lowitsch, Ivan Desny, Gisela Uhlen, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Gottfried John, Hark Bohm, George Eagles, Claus Holm, Gunter Lamprecht, Anton Schiersner, Lilo Pempeit, Sonja Neudorfer, Volker Spengler, Isolde Barth, Bruce Low, Gunther Kaufmann, Karl-Heinz von Hassel, Kristine de Loup, Hannes Kaetner, Michael Ballhaus, Barbara Baum, Peter Berling, Rolf Buhrmann, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Martin Haussler, Horst-Dieter Klock, Georg Kuhn, Norbert Scherer, Andreas Willim

From the Turner Classic Movies website (www.tcm.com), this article about the film by Nathaniel Thompson: "The prolific New German Cinema filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder scored his biggest success both in his home country and the United States with this entertaining 1979 melodrama paralleling an ambitious woman's rise to success and its consequences with the 'German miracle' (or 'Wirtschaftswunder') which found the country rapidly growing both economically and industrially after the devastation of World War II. 

"With well over thirty feature films to his credit by the time he died in 1982 at the age of 37, Fassbinder's output is difficult to numerate since some of his work made for television (such as Berlin Alexanderplatz [1980] and World on a Wire [1973]) was shown theatrically elsewhere, and at least one film credited to him (Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?, 1970) later revealed to have no involvement from him at all. In any case, his output from 1969 to 1982 was both prodigious and remarkably consistent in quality with this particular title marking a late period trilogy of sorts about women in postwar Germany with Lola (1981) and Veronika Voss (1982), later dubbed the "BRD Trilogy" for their home video release from Criterion.

"Romy Schneider was originally announced as the title character in The Marriage of Maria Braun but backed out after a fight with the director. Shot for one million dollars in the summer of 1978, the film was a breakthrough role for actress Hanna Schygulla, who remains busy in international productions to this day. Born to a lumber merchant in 1943 in Kattowitz, Germany, Schygulla originally intended to become a teacher but shifted to acting when she signed up for Munich's Action-Theater, where she worked with Fassbinder. The pair co-founded the 'anti-theater' of Germany which was the foundation of their first feature, Love Is Colder than Death (1969); they collaborated again in Katzelmacher(1969), Gods of the Plague (1970), Rio das Mortes (1970), Whity (1971), The Niklashausen Journey (1970), Beware of a Holy Whore (1971), and Pioneers in Ingolstadt (1971), with her juicier roles coming soon after in The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971), The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant (1972), Jail Bait (1973), and Effi Briest (1974). 

"Starring as Maria's ill-fated husband, Hermann, who takes the fall for her most dramatically decisive action, is actor Klaus Lowitsch. Born in Berlin, he studied acting and dance in Vienna before touring Germany in a string of musicals. He first teamed up with Fassbinder (and Schygulla) in Pioneers in Ingolstadt and also appeared in Despair (1978) as well as such non-Fassbinder films as The Odessa File (1974) and The Cross of Iron (1977).

"Though the film itself was financially troubled and went over budget, it proved to have a warm reception with Schygulla winning the Silver Bear award for Best Actress at the 1979 Berlin Film Festival. It also snagged multiple Filmband in Gold awards in Germany for Fassbinder, Schygulla, actress Gisela Uhlen, and production designer Norbert Scherer, and was assumed to be the likely submission for West Germany for Foreign Language Film consideration for the Oscars had it not run up against stiff competition from the likes of Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampyre and the ultimate choice (and actual winner), Volker Schlndorff's The Tin Drum. 

"Its first major sign of international audience demand actually came when it closed the 1979 New York Film Festival to major acclaim and became a major hot-ticket item, passing a million at the U.S. box office. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it 'an epic comedy and a romantic ballad. Mr. Fassbinder's most perfectly realized comedy to date... reminds us of the still immense possibilities of movies made by masters.' Outside Germany, Fassbinder (who was still only 33 when he actually made the film) was even awarded the David di Donatello Luchino Visconti prize in Italy, the equivalent of the country's Oscar, upon the feature's release. Today its luster continues as one of Fassbinder's most famous achievements and can also be savored as a pivotal moment in the most famous cinematic period of German cinema, one high point among many that continue to influence filmmakers around the world today."