Welt am Draht

O

Omaar

Guest
AKA World on Wires, World on a Wire

Has anyone heard of or seen this film? I met some Germans at the weekend and was chatting to them about Fassbinder and they mentioned this film, which they described as being better than the Matrix, but made by Fassbinder in 1973. WTF?

http://imdb.com/title/tt0070904/


... or read the book it was based on Counterfeit World (Simulacron-3) (1964) by Daniel F. Galouye?
 

owen

Well-known member
I'm writing an MA dissertation (partly) on Fassbinder and I had never even heard of this.
(skulks off in abject shame)
 
O

Omaar

Guest
lol - well these Germans did say it was notoriously difficult to get hold of. I read somewhere yesterday that some Fassbinder stuff is about to be released on DVD, and that this film might become available. I'm so curious ...

Owen - What's your topic for your dissertation btw?
 

owen

Well-known member
heh thanks for asking! it doesn't have a title yet, but its about....consumerism and utopianism in post-68 west germany....about the way that the US represented a) an escape from a bombed out, amnesiac country (think of wenders constantly going on about chuck berry, or kraftwerk's beach boys fixation; or fassbinder trying to be an agitprop douglas sirk; or andreas baader wanting to be the maoist marlon brando) and b) the enemy, whose bases were the target of the red army faction's bombs- or less obviously you have neu/can/cluster/etc and the new german cinema kind of stripping america out of what were strictly speaking american models. so its charting that glaring contradiction and the stuff that comes out of it.
book/film recommendations greatly appreciated! hope 'the third generation' gets reissued, its absolutely impossible to find a subtitled copy...
 
O

Omaar

Guest
Sounds Ace! I would be interested to have a look over what you've written when you finish, if you wouldn't mind. Can you recommend any good books on the RAF, SPK?
 

owen

Well-known member
there's a fair bit out there, but not much is either any good/in english (mein deutsch ist nicht sehr gut). stefan aust's book is pretty good, he was a friend of ulrike meinhof when she was editing 'konkret'...otherwise its mostly right wing hackwork like 'hitler's children' or (admittedly very seductive) radical chic like astrid proll's 'pictures on the run'. richard ellmann's baader-meinhof.com is terrific though.

excellent if you can find it (i fluked a copy in the er 'institute of autonomy' in bloomsbury the other day!) is the 'televisionaries' issue of Vague, which is maybe a bit overly laudatory but is comprehensive...
ha a book about the Socialist Patients Klinik would be amazing, haven't found one mind you.

i'd be flattered to let you have a look at it when finished but that won't be until september so you'd have to remind me...
 

cortempond

Active member
Re: World On A Wire

As stated earlier, World On A Wire was a three-hour film/series that Fassbinder made for TV in the late 70's. It's Sci-Fi, with a thriller aspect, regarding media and its domination. It's only available in German, and I have seen copies of it available on E-Bay (I know, because I bid on it and lost).

It was shown here in Chicago two or three years ago as part of a Fassbinder Retrospective.

If you've seen Kamikaze '89, it's kind of like that, only not as manic.

Massive fan of Third Generation. Right now, it's only available as part of a Fassbinder box set. I do believe the version made available has English subtitles. Saw it on the Amazon.De sight. Terrorism as soap opera.

Owen, I have always been fascinated by the myth of the Baader-Meinhof and its impact on 70's German society. Have you seen Germany In August? The Legend Of Rita did a good job of examining the reasoning and role behind the B-M. The Director's Commentary on the DVD provides a lot of insight on that period.

Have heard that Berlin AlexanderPlast is going to come out as a Criterion issue soon, prob later this year.
 

owen

Well-known member
well i hope it comes out in time for me to shoehorn it into my dissertation!

cortempond, yeah i have seen germany in autumn (was a while ago though), thought it was a compelling mess. fassbinder's section is awesome, partly because of the arrogance of filming yourself wandering around arguing with your boyfriend and fiddling with your willy on a 'serious' semi-documentary.
'legend of rita' doesn't ring any bells though, care to enlighten me?
 

borderpolice

Well-known member
for what it's worth, i have a VHS copy of "Welt am Draht" that I no longer need as I don't have a TV
any more. The lead actor is Klaus Loewitsch, who is brilliant when he plays arrogant tossers, aparently
because he doesn't have to change for the role.
 

cortempond

Active member
Legend of Rita

Was directed by Volker Schlondoff (sp?). It came out in 2000.

The main character is named Rita Vogt, a West German terrorist who settles in East Germany with a new identity provided by the East German secret service and shows her life from the '70's until the Unification of Germany.
 
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owen

Well-known member
might have to seek that one out, ta. 'lost honour of katherina blum' by schlondorff is ok as well, though a bit soft left.
 

h-crimm

Well-known member
oh my god cant believe it took me so long to find this thread...

fassbinder is my boy.



-> owen -> have you seen werner herzog :: stroszek ?

the guy, bruno S, from the enigma of kaspar hauser plays basically himself, moves to the town in wisconsin where the murders that psycho and the texas chainsaw massacre are based on happened. ends up stealing a turkey and more...
its not too friendly to the american dream.

i have it on dvd i can do you a rip maybe... but you should buy it of course :p




....right now i'm off to the southside to see animal collective again. hurrah!
 

owen

Well-known member
hey, isn't that what ian curtis killed himself to? i would love to see that. am a little ambivalent on herzog but i do love popol vuh...i must seek that out....though obviously a rip would be, well, lovely :p
 

owen

Well-known member
right well the dissertation mentioned upthread is now finshed and in and stuff so, omaar if you want a look (or anyone else for that matter), private message me- a chunk is posted on the blog w pics and stuff.

oh and i did see stroszek. i like. (specially the chicken)

artificial eye though, can fuck off :mad:

anyway now i've revived this...any fassbinder discussion would obv be lovely, though am a bit deutsched out at the mo...

fassbinder.jpg
 
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h-crimm

Well-known member
hey, sorry i didnt send you that strozek rip, my hard-disk has about 400MB free and my DVD player is broken so it stopped being possible.
i started getting welt am draht tho from an emule client (untill i ran out of space). i think its gonna be in german tho so i'll be lost very quickly (even if i claim i can speak it...)



i've just recently seen "the marraige of maria braun" and "beware of a holy whore" (a little while ago "fox and his friends" and "in a year with 13 moons" ohh and "gods of the plague")
dyou have any recommendations? i have all those on video or DVD so if anyone wants to borrow them...

i've been trying to persuade people to come and see the new "bitter tears of petra von kant" opera
tho opera has pretty bad associations with me i think i ought to try... me and my friend are thinking of going for the cheap seats on the twentieth if youre interessted :)
 

owen

Well-known member
recommendations, eh...well I am a little tired by now but you did ask...

there aren't really any Fassbinder films that are ALL good, but they all have mesmerising Moments....won't repost the stuff on the blog but not mentioned there and fantastic is Chinese Roulette- icy family infidelity ting with stunning glass cabinet and kraftwerk & girl dancing on crutches scenes...
chineseroulette27.jpg


s'cool abt stroszek, got a copy in Southampton of all places...may private messg you abt the opera.....
 

Melmoth

Bruxist
h-crimm said:
i've been trying to persuade people to come and see the new "bitter tears of petra von kant" opera
tho opera has pretty bad associations with me i think i ought to try... me and my friend are thinking of going for the cheap seats on the twentieth if youre interessted :)

I saw this last night and its stunning, elemental stuff, especially if you like mannequins, wigs, clockwork dolls and giant purple kangaroos.
 

h-crimm

Well-known member
i came away with a realy positive impression of opera (my first time...) but later i wondered if i would have been just as happy to see the play. most of what i liked was fassbinder and the design, the music was more invasive than helpful... and not as shocking as i had been led to expect.

but then i dont know anything about opera so i'm not really a decent judge.


anyway the reason i was bumping this thread is that i've downloaded the first half of welt am draht from emule
aber mein deutsch ist nicht gut genug. ich verstehen etwas aber es ist miestens mir zu schnell.

so if anyone has the skills we could put on a showing with a simultaneous translation.

once i find a linux compatible cd burner i can make you a copy as well....
 

rob_giri

Well-known member
hey guys i just got a copy of Welt am Draht off eMule - two 700mb avi files (teil 1 und teil 2)

problem is that i don't have the subtitles!

subtitle files come in *.srt and *.sub, and the net is full of hundreds of thousands of different files in different langauges for every film imaginable (there is even a large Fassbinder subtitle collection, which contains most of the sub and srt files for most of his major films) With several players/converters you put them onto the film and watch it (if they have the same file name as the films you can use Windows Media Player)

not so for welt am draht (claims of obscurity are all too true, unfortunately). If anyone can help me out here that would be great! If someone has the DVD i could research how you could convert them from the DVD onto a computer in a sub or srt file.

Also, same is true for The Third Generation - no ENGLISH subtitles anywhere!

please help!
 
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