Frauen in New York

I recently managed to get a VHS copy of this rarity. It unfortunately has no subtitles, but I am very familiar with the play ("The Women," 1936), so it was a real pleasure to watch.

Unlike Fassbinder's other made-for-television films like FEAR OF FEAR or I ONLY WANT YOU TO LOVE ME, both of which could have been released theatrically as feature films, FRAUEN IN NEW YORK only really works as a television product. It is "filmed theater" in the extreme – the sets are very stagey, and slightly unreal in some cases. Each scene is filmed in single takes, with the camera zooming and panning to emphasize the different characters (very good camera work, mind you, from Michael Ballhaus). The scene in the Reno hotel is remarkable in that the entire scene was shot through a huge piece of glass with evenly spaced streams of water trickling down it (this is evidently meant to be one of the windows of the elegant hotel lobby). This strikingly visual scene places this film comfortably in Fassbinder's Chinese ROULETTE period.

FRAUEN IN NEW YORK features one of Peer Raben's stranger scores (very similar to his music for QUERELLE, actually). The primary elements are choral singers, mixed with some synthesizers – ethereal to say the least, but thankfully subtle. In the scene where Mary is at the manicurist, there is this persistent synthesizer noodling in the background, giving the film a real 70s avant-garde feel.

Margit Carstensen shines the brightest as the cosmopolitan Sylvia – who else in Fassbinder's troupe could have been so perfect for that role? And Fassbinder is very much at home in telling a story about catty women. I would say that this is certainly deserving of a DVD release, as it is, if nothing else, a nice television piece.

Together with "Satansbraten/Satan's Brew" (1976), "Frauen In New York/Women in New York", based on the novel by Calire Boothe Luce (1903-1987), is R.W. Fassbinder's only comedy. To his work belong all genres, including documentaries, but no horror movies ("Tenderness of the Wolves" (1973) was allegedly directed by Ulli Lommel, although it bears all signs of a true Fassbinder movie and not only his production). More precise, the TV broadcasting of "Frauen In New York" is a filmed performance of Fassbinder's theater group at the Hamburger Staatstheater. Very similar to Fassbinder's "women movies", it shows the woman in the center and her development from ethics to opportunism, one could say according to the (only later established) motto "Good girls come into heaven, bad girls everywhere". Mary Haines, who stands in the center of this movie, is first characterized as an outsider amidst all the other women who scoop out their time by complaining about their husbands, but at the same time also profiting form there. Even then, when she is also betrayed by her husband, she fights for him in order to preserve her marriage. But all the men are absent! There is not one single male role in the movie. Obviously, the discursively mediated presence of the male is sufficient. (Consistently, a man had not even to marry a women: It would have been enough the meet her, to disappear and to send her money every month.) From the 45 movies that the Fassbinder Foundation counts, 10 have never been put either on VHS or DVD, 1 amongst them is banned, approx. 3-6 (depending if you are looking for a PAL or NTSC version) more movies are not available anymore, and 1 is lost. Amongst the 10 mentioned movies there are all theater pieces that Fassbinder filmed. Since Fassbinder was both a film and a stage director, making them available would enlighten the interesting relationship between his theater and movie production.