genre and Ali: Fear Eats the Soul Flashcards
The Use of Genre + Recognizable Conventions and Variations
⦁ Film producers – which projects to fund
⦁ Marketing – publicity, distribution, exhibition
⦁ Viewers/critics – audience expectations, choices, legibility, reception
⦁ Filmmakers – socially embedded templates (narrative, character, iconography) for exploring sociocultural issues
⦁ Engage and dramatize deep-seated myths and conflicts through social imagery
⦁ Expose ideological structures in society (and thus reveal societal/political tensions)
⦁ Genre twists have the power to cause strong reactions (e.g., a Western with no shoot out)
Standardization and Differentiation (Nichols)
⦁ Concepts to describe how films balance conformity to genre conventions (standardization) with creative innovation (differentiation) to attract and satisfy audiences
Standardization -
films conform to familiar patterns, structures, and tropes to meet audience expectations and ensure marketability (e.g., genre formulas like the hero’s journey or jump scares)
Differentiation
films introduce unique elements or stylistic innovations to stand out, keeping audiences engaged while still operating within familiar conventions
What is condensation and what is the example?
⦁ Condensation - use of a single image, object, or motif that represents broader themes or ideas within the film; how film compiles techniques, characters, images to tell stories
⦁ e.g., Meshes in the Afternoon: Deren employs repetitive motifs and dreamlike sequences that condense time; recurring symbols, such as the mirror and the door, condenses ideas about self-reflection and transition… internal struggle, psyche
What is displacement and what is the example?
⦁ Displacement - how filmmakers manipulate visual elements to suggest alternative meanings; discontinuous storytelling; how meaning comes out of film
⦁ Emotional displacement
⦁ e.g., Meshes in the Afternoon: encounters with figure and objects represent her subconscious fears and desires. Instead of confronting these feelings directly, they manifest in surreal and unsettling ways; disorientation and confusion.
Iconography and plot conventions
⦁ Fassbinder employs iconography (images that are repeated) and plot conventions (such as melodrama) to explore societal issues
⦁ Recurring visual motifs impact plot and themes – such as intimate framing in domestic spaces and the stark contrasts between Ali/Emmi’s appearances – to emphasize their cultural and social differences
⦁ Plot conventions such as the “forbidden” love trope and outsider prejudice are reworked to critique racism, xenophobia, ageism, and class divisions in post-war Germany
Characteristics/conventions of melodrama
⦁ Elements: heightened emotional conflict, moral polarities, and familiar character archetypes (such as the virtuous heroine, the villainous antagonist, or noble hero)
⦁ Themes typically involve love, self-sacrifice, suffering, and/or illness
⦁ Setting: often private, familial, domestic spheres (closed frame)
⦁ We tend to associate “women’s films” or “weepies” with melodrama because …
⦁ Women tend to be stuck in a contradiction between social function and individual desire
Ali as melodrama with differences (a Brechtian twist)
⦁ Ali is situated within the melodrama genre, yet employs deadpan/Brechtian techniques to simultaneously create distance, thus generating a combination of recognizability and distance
⦁ Recognizable as a melodrama because: intense emotional conflict (unlikely romance between Emmi, older German widow, and Ali, Moroccan immigrant), social critique (Fassbinder addresses racism, ageism, and xenophobia, embedding these issues within the intimate struggles of Emmi and Ali’s relationship), moral polarization and empathy (“villains” appear in the form of bigoted friends, family members, and neighbors, yet these characters are also given some complexity), expressive cinematic techniques (framing, lighting, and color to underscore emotions and isolation, particularly in closed, rigid compositions that highlight Emmi and Ali’s alienation)
⦁ Not recognizable as a melodrama because: the subversion of melodrama is closely connected to Fassbinder’s use of deadpan and Brechtian techniques, employed to distance the audience from purely emotional engagement and to encourage critical reflection on the social issues presented
⦁ While melodrama traditionally aims to evoke strong empathy and catharsis, Fassbinder disrupts this immersion through deliberate choices that evoke the Brechtian concept of the Verfremdungseffekt, or “alienation effect,” and deadpan performance style
Postwar Germany and New German Cinema
⦁ Munich, 1974
⦁ Post-war West Germany – beginning to turn away from Nazi past and reinventing cultural identity
⦁ Situated in the “Audenauer” period, a time of rapid economic growth
⦁ Gastarbeiterprogramm – “guest worker program,” temporary residence for work (Morocco joined in 1963)
⦁ Ali: Younger Moroccan immigrant worker
⦁ Workers recruited from Morocco, Southern Europe, and Turkey to aid in rebuilding Germany post-WWII
⦁ Addresses the issue of xenophobia and racism that existed in German society during this time
⦁ Highlights the prejudice faced by immigrants, particularly those from non-European countries
⦁ Division of East and West Germany in 1949
⦁ The Soviet Union controlled the Eastern portion (German Democratic Republic (GDR) or East Germany
⦁ West Germany became the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG)
⦁ The division lasted until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989
⦁ Terrorist Attacks were carried out by left-wing extremist group, Red Army Faction (RAF) or the Baader-Meinof Group, active from 1970-1998
⦁ They sought to overthrow the repressive capitalist system in Western Germany
Fassbinder Under the Influence of Douglas Sirk
⦁ 2 phases of career: before and after Douglas Sirk (German-born filmmaker)
⦁ Douglas Sirk Changes his filmmaking
⦁ Exploration of women as fully developed characters
⦁ Women do + think things (All that Heaven Allows by Douglas Sirk)
⦁ Internal worlds of women
⦁ Women beyond the male gaze and more than stock characters
The Collective Gaze and Ali’s character: is he Infantilized, Objectified, and/or Exoticized?
⦁ The Collective Gaze - shared attention or looking is done by a group + concentrates their gaze on larger social forces, pressures
⦁ Reinforces outsider/insider status
⦁ In line with social surveillance
⦁ e.g. stairwell scene shows cycle of belonging + exclusion, the costs of belonging
⦁ e.g. Emmi in the beginning at the bar
⦁ e.g. Emmi and Ali at café in the rain
⦁ e.g. family during announcement scene
⦁ e.g. fellow works at garage
⦁ Ali internalizes how society views him
⦁ e.g. Ali slapping himself in mirror
⦁ Ali is infantilized, exoticized, and objectified by the gaze
⦁ e.g. Emmi’s friends feel his muscles
⦁ e.g. how he speaks German; highlighted by Emmi
