Fassbinder and Altman: Approaches to Filmmaking

FASSBINDER AND ALTMAN: APPROACHES To FILMMAKING Carrie Rickey Fassbinder and Altman? The linkage of these two names is, for some, as unlikely as a meal of schnitzel with succotash. But there is more similarity between them than meets the eye. One obvious similarity is their shrewdness in maintaining actor flexibility and characterization by using the same ensemble of actors from movie to movie. Initially, my topic for discussion was the method used by Fassbinder and Altman to individually group and regroup their ensembles to reach the pungency of characterization that makes their movies more interesting than the talk about them. That alone is a rare occurrence in the feedback system in which today's movies operate. It became increasingly clear, however, that a discussion of actors and acting could not take place without a parallel discussion of the thematic modes and strategies of their films. What is immediately manifest in dealing with the movies of Fassbinder and Altman- something that isn't the case in any random sampling of other directors- is that the movies of each seem to fall into one of three modes. The following lists should be taken provisionally (they include only films I've seen) as indications of a more precise taxonomy: RAINER WERNER FASSBINDER Socially Conscious Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven Ali: Fear Eats the Soul Fox and His Friends The Merchant of Four Seasons Katzelmacher 33 Genre Effi Briest An American Soldier ]ail Bait Camp Follies The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant Chinese Roulette Why Herr R Ran Amok Beware of a Holy Whore ROBERT ALTMAN Social Histories Nashville Buffalo Bill and the Indians McCabe and Mrs. Miller California Split Genre Thieves Like Us The Long Goodbye M*A*S*H Fantasies Brewster McCloud Images Three Women Beyond a shared interest in acting ensembles and a similarly organized approach toward varying their thematic modes,.the most striking commonality between the two filmmakers is their manipulation of actors and their use of closure as a proscenium, both of which suggest theatre more than movies. Closure in Fassbinder might mean the two rooms used to stage the arena of Petra's shrinking control in Petra, or the limited resources or "sets" in the town without pity in fail Bait, or the Spanish hotel that encloses the actors and director in Holy Whore-all perimeters within which the characters are forced to remain . Closure in Altman might mean Brewster's roost, the Astrodome in Brewster McCloud, or the delimited circus/rodeo arena of Buffalo Bill, or the defined, ready-built qualities of Presbyterian Church in McCabe, or the Korean War medical unit in M*A*S*H. Closure also means for Fassbinder and Altman the psychological closure of families and couples in Mother Kusters, Fox, Images, Ali, Thieves Like Us, Herr R, or the closed communities of McCabe, Katzelmacher, M*A*S*H, Buffalo Bill, and Chinese Roulette. Before any of these issues are explored, it might be appropriate to offer some observations on movies and theatre in general. There are those who worry about the purity of the medium (movies or theatre) and they, of course, are troubled by the mongrel potential of a movies/theatre transaction. Fassbinder and Altman obviously hold a 34 K THE AMERICAN SOLDIER THIEVES LIKE US I mE 35 non-purist position: they find cinematic uses of the strategies and devices of theatre enriching. In the films of both men the repeated use of an actor or actress allows the theatrical luxury of having the actor/actress not just representing him/herself, but a "someone else." Likewise, their inversion of a theatre/movie sleight-of-hand will lead them to introduce "theatrical" elements such as long-takes which make static the distance between viewer and viewed, improvisation (although the latest films of Fassbinder have been strictly scripted) within the long-take putting the onus on the actor, and closure which delimits the arena of action. But certainly Fassbinder and Altman are making movies rather than theatre (though Fassbinder was formerly the director of Frankfurt's Anti-Theatre). Before treating each director individually, perhaps some thoughts on the location of Fassbinder and Altman with respect to our immediate cultural past and...