Querelle (Fassbinder, 1982) uncut

[twicebilled]

Are there any extras on the bluray? I notice it's getting a region 2 release in September, and I'm hoping the Channel 4 documentary will be included, although it's probably wishful thinking.

Présentation du film par Volker Schlöndorff (6')
"Le crépuscule des corps : Fassbinder cherche Querelle" : documentaire (34')
Entretien avec Franco Nero (18')
Bande-annonce

[j99]

Présentation du film par Volker Schlöndorff (6')
"Le crépuscule des corps : Fassbinder cherche Querelle" : documentaire (34')
Entretien avec Franco Nero (18')
Bande-annonce

Thanks for the info.

[jsteffe]

Nola, never trust the author, trust the work. My eyes tell me screamingly it is a movie about nothing but homosexual desire and frustration. Just like the Genet. And one of the layers of visual commentary it provides is also a sardonic representation of that prototypical gay "Macho/SM/Leather bar/clone" culture which had become ubiquitous by the late 70s early 80s.
[...]
Rainer's pronouncements towards the end of his life are all mischievous firecrackers he left to blow up in people's faces, like the garbage even Ingrid Carven used to spout claiming Rainer was "really heterosexual".

I don't buy revisionism.

You are 100% right on this one. I finally received the French Blu-ray, after not having seen the film for twenty years. (Very nice to rediscover it on Blu-ray!) Everything about it, from Genet's story to the cast, production design and costumes, is soaked through with a gay sensibility and perspective. I don't think I'm taking much of a leap to call this is the "gayest" European art film ever made. It could have been directed by Joe Gage or Tom of Finland! Any protestations otherwise, particularly by people who knew Fassbinder, can be dismissed out of hand as either dissimulation or deeply internalized denial.

I also think you're also on the money about its "sardonic representation of that prototypical gay 'Macho/SM/Leather bar/clone' culture," especially in the context of when the film was made.

Also... the film is dedicated to El Hedi ben Salem!

[nolanoe]

I think you guys give Fassbinder a bit little credit in terms of how schizophrenic his behavior often was (as schizophrenic as the characters in Querelle, actually).
So yeah, I can imagine him go one way and then another. One day, he wants to make a film, the next he doesn't show up. So maybe one day he wanted to make "an observation on malehood and power struggles", the next day "europe's gayest film". Who knows?