I finally understand (after watching a string of Rainer Werner Fassbinder films for DECADES) the complex, layered, and interconnected (one film leads to the next) genius of Fassbinder. He’s not for me, but he’s exhaustive and relentless. And he was interested in love. The power of love. The need for love. The failure to love.

In a Year of 13 Moons is astonishing. And the sound work/score exquisite. Sounds pile up and coexist. And, as is often the case, and as I wrote about in LENNY, Fassbinder’s editor, with whom he worked on 13 Moons and many other films, Julian Lorenz, was a woman. She edited 13 Moons at 22. Another genius.

About his films, Lorenz said:

I really learned from Fassbinder that you have to use all kinds of information, all kinds of patterns to make a film: like sound—made by music, by words, by effects—and then the camera movements. All of Fassbinder’s films are really movies. They move not only with the camera, they move with all kinds of motion. His films are an extreme tension and exchange of all kinds of information.

Crossposted with Love Dog.