Il diritto del più forte

In "Fox and His Friends" (1975) which Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote and directed, he played a main character, Franz Bieberkopf alias "Fox", a lower class, uneducated circus worker who loses his job when his lover, the circus owner is arrested and sent to prison for tax fraud. Fox believes in his luck and strikes it rich by winning 500,000 marks in the lottery and very soon attracts the attention of an elegant, posh, and sophisticated Eugen who knows very well how to make Fox pay for his expensive habits and how to make him invest a lot of money in his father business that is not very successful to say the least. What fascinated me the most - how convincingly Fassbinder - one man production company who came up with the idea, wrote the screenplay and directed the movie- played seemingly tough but as it turned, confused and vulnerable Fox. Another interesting aspect of the movie is the way Fassbinder describes the gay community in Germany of the early 70s. He does not make any excuses and he does not make his characters complete villains or innocent victims. The story he tells could've happened in any community.

Fassbinder is an acquired taste in every sense of the word. It took me awhile to be able to fully digest and appreciate his films, and even then it can be difficult.

Fox and His Friends is one of his "accessible" movies, but Fassbinder at his most accessible would probably highly alienate most movie goers.

I've seen this movie 3 times. The first time I thought "that was a good Fassbinder". The second time, I thought the same. The third time, I realized it was brilliant. It might be because I recently bought the amazing dvd, which has an excellent transfer. Fassbinder made his films quickly, very quickly, so a faded old videotape sometimes seems to reflect that. However, when seeing the crisp DVD I realized just how great the camera work was and how well-planned out the movie was.

This would make a good starting point for entering the world of Fassbinder I would think, it has it all: well-framed shots, black humor, and an extremely depressing ending. Depending on how much you can relate to this sort of thing, I would recommend checking it out.

p.s. The last scene was later homaged in My Own Private Idaho (another great movie) and Fassbinder gives a really good performance in the lead.

A powerful and harrowing melodrama and one of Fassbinder's most accessible movies,this is a must-see for all those interested in intelligent filmmaking.The tragic story of Fox is masterfully and poignantly handled by Fassbinder, while never slipping into sloppy sentimentality.At the same time the film explores sexual and political issues that are still very much relevant.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder has long been honored as the 'bad boy' in European cinema, a writer/director/actor who repeatedly has taken chances and because of his brutal honesty has succeeded in making a stream of important films. FOX AND HIS FRIENDS dates back to 1975 and remains one of Fassbinder's most successful films. As with all of his films, Fassbinder deals with the homosexual subculture in Germany but his main message goes far beyond the characters he creates: the examination of how people manipulate people for personal gain and the destruction that produces is a recurring problem and one that this film certainly explores.

'Fox' - a nickname of Franz Bieberkopf - (acted with consummate skill by Fassbinder himself) is a lower class gay carny kid whose lover is arrested, leaving the carnival to collapse and leaving Fox without support. Enter handsome Max (Karlheinz Böhm), a wealthy antiques dealer, who picks up Fox, helps him buy the requisite 'lottery ticket' on which Fox bases his hopes for financial survival (!) via manipulative means, and takes him home, introducing Fox to his gay friends who regard Fox as scum but show obvious physical attraction to his rawness. Surprisingly Fox wins the lottery and suddenly has 500,000 DMs and with his new money, Max's friends abruptly see a target for obtaining that money. One of the friends named Eugen (Peter Chatel) takes Fox in as a lover and talks him into investing in Eugen's family business of bookbinding. Eugen's father Wolf (Adrian Hoven) and mother (Ulla Jacobsson) tolerate their son's life with a low class wretch, ridiculing his manners and lack of culture and education, but willingly take his money to salvage their business.

With a lover and a business and a role model to make him suave, Fox dons fancy clothes, banters with his old friends in a tawdry club, and makes the pretenses that at last he is secure and happy. But in time Fox is blamed for problems at the business and when his funds have been depleted on expensive vacations and apartments by the smarmy self-centered Eugen, Fox realizes that now without money he has no 'fancy friends', no lover, no security and his life becomes unbearable: the ending to the film is a tragedy beyond description.

Some would say the film is mannered in ways that depict stereotypes of the gay world (effeminate men, transvestites, opportunists, hustlers, etc), but Fassbinder is completely honest in his attempt to recreate a subculture of a specific time in Germany. And the characters are well written and well acted allowing us to look at Fassbinder's greater picture of depravity between social class antipathies. In many ways this is a difficult film to watch, but Fassbinder wisely places the main character whom he enacts in a place where his foibles and lack of higher class knowledge can be at once very humorous as well as pitiable. FOX AND HIS FRIENDS has some minor flaws but it has already become a classic in gay cinema repertoire. In German with English subtitles. Grady Harp

This is the first Fassbinder film I've seen, thanks to Francois Ozon, whose adaptation of Fassbinder's play Water Drops on Burning Rocks turned me on to him. After seeing Fox and His Friends, which stars Fassbinder, I most definitely want more. The story here is familiar - 'loser' gets to win big time and discovers how quickly people are willing - and able - to exploit him. It's the way the piece is written and performed that elevates it above predictability; there is a certain tongue-in-cheek quality to the proceedings that make it thoroughly captivating, through to the bitter end.