"Actor: Rainer Werner Fassbinder"

• The Rainer Werner Fassbinder Collection Vol. 2 | Blu Ray | (06/12/2021) from £49.99   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £N/A

  Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the enfant terrible of the New German Cinema, wrote, directed, produced and starred in over 40 films in his short but prolific life, before passing away of a drugs overdose in 1982 aged just 37. Rainer Werner Fassbinder vol. 2 brings together a collection of his key works from the mid-section of his career in high definition digital restorations prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation. Among Fassbinder's best-loved works, Fear Eats the Soul sees the director paying homage to the classic melodramas of Douglas Sirk in its poignant portrayal of a relationship between a widowed cleaning lady in her sixties and a Moroccan immigrant in his thirties that causes an outrage with her family, friends and neighbours. Fassbinder's long-gestating adaptation of Theodor Fontane's classic German novel Effi Briest, his most expensive production to date as well as one of his most ambitious, tells the tale of a seventeen-year-old girl who is married off by her parents to a wealthy Baron more than twice her age. Fassbinder himself plays the protagonist of Fox and His Friends, a sweet working class soul whose relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen, he discovers, is based almost wholly on his unexpected lottery win. Chinese Roulette is a tense psychodrama set in an isolated house during a weekend break in which infidelities are revealed and families break down. Fassbinder's international breakthrough film, The Marriage of Maria Braun charts the rise to prosperity of its tenacious and pragmatic central character across the post-war years as she holds out hope for the return of the young soldier she was married to for less than 24-hours before he was dispatched to the Russian front and later reported dead. Limited Edition Contents High definition digital transfers of all films prepared by the Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation High Definition (1080p) Blu-rayTM presentations of all films Original uncompressed PCM mono 1.0 sound for all films Optional English subtitles for all films Exclusive 140-page collectors booklet containing archive articles and new writing by Deborah Allison, Geoff Andrew, Margaret Deriaz and Travis Miles. Disc One Fear Eats The Soul Audio commentary by critic and lecturer Mark Freeman My Name is Not Ali, Viola Shafik's 2011 feature-length documentary on the life and death of El Hedi ben Salem, star of Fear Eats the Soul Interview with director of photography Jürgen Jürges Theatrical trailer Disc Two Effi Briest Audio commentary by Ken Moulden Interview with actor Ulli Lommel Interview with director of photography Jürgen Jürges Theatrical trailer Disc Three Fox And His Friends & Chinese Roulette Audio commentary by Hamish Ford on Fox and His Friends Interview with actor Ulli Lommel on Chinese Roulette Original theatrical trailers for both films Disc Four The Marriage Of Maria Braun Life, Love & Celluloid, a 1998 feature-length documentary on Fassbinder, written and directed by his regular editor, Juliane Lorenz Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1977, a candid 30-minute interview with the director The Fassbinder Family, featurette detailing the actors who worked with Fassbinder time and again throughout his career

• The Early Works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder Blu-ray | Blu Ray | (15/08/2016) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  The Early Works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder brings together all of the German director's surviving works from the 1960s plus a documentary portrait examining his earliest days as a filmmaker. In the two short films, The City Tramp and The Little Chaos (heavily influenced by Jean-Luc Godard's Bande à part), we find Fassbinder in search of an identity. In the two features, Love is Colder Than Death and Katzelmacher, he begins to discover it. Dedicated to Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jean-Marie Straub and the main characters from Spaghetti Western A Bullet for the General, Love is Colder Than Death is a playful crime picture, heavily indebted to the nouvelle vague. Katzelmacher is more in line with Fassbinder's stage efforts, a character study and mini-melodrama in which the dynamic between a group of friends is radically altered by the arrival of an immigrant worker. SPECIAL EDITION CONTENTS ¢ Brand new 4K restoration of the films from original camera negatives ¢ High Definition Blu-ray (1080p) presentations ¢ Original uncompressed PCM mono audio ¢ Optional English subtitles ¢ Two early short films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1966, The Little Chaos and The City Tramp ¢ Newly-filmed interview with actor Ulli Lommel on Love is Colder Than Death ¢ End of the Commune?, Joachim von Mengershausen's 1970 documentary portrait of Fassbinder and his troupe including rare footage of his actors rehearsing and Love is Colder Than Death's premiere at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival ¢ Original theatrical trailer for Katzelmacher

• Fox and His Friends & Chinese Roulette | Blu Ray | (18/07/2016) from £20.98   |  Saving you £-1.00 (N/A%)   |  RRP £17.99

  Few filmmakers have enjoyed a decade quite so diverse or quite so prolific as Rainer Werner Fassbinder did during the seventies. Amid the likes of The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant and Fear Eats the Soul, it's easy to forget some of the lesser-known and more singular works, two of which are presented here. Fox and His Friends is among the director's most personal works and the first to tackle homosexuality in a direct manner. Fassbinder himself plays Fox, a sweet working class soul whose relationship with wealthy industrialist Eugen, he discovers, is based almost wholly on his unexpected lottery win. When his money runs out, so does any affection, with tragic consequences. Chinese Roulette, set in an isolated house during a weekend break, is like Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None without the murders a tense psychodrama in which infidelities are revealed and families breakdown. At its centre is nouvelle vague icon Anna Karina, a rare outsider alongside the familiar Fassbinder faces.

• Tenderness of the Wolves Dual Format | Blu Ray | (02/11/2015) from £18.98   |  Saving you £8.00 (47.09%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Fritz Haarmann, aka the Butcher of Hanover and the Vampire of Hanover, was a German serial killer responsible for the murders of two dozen boys and young men during the so-called ˜years of crisis' between the wars. His case would partly inspire Fritz Lang's M, and its central character portrayed by Peter Lorre, as well as this forgotten gem from 1973. Tenderness of the Wolves treats the viewer to a few weeks in the company of a killer. Baby-faced and shaven-headed, in a manner that recalls both M and F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu, Haarmann is a fascinating, repulsive figure. Using his status as a police informant to procure his victims, he dismembers their bodies after death and sells the flesh to restaurants, dumping the remainder out of sight. This isn't an easy film to watch, but it certainly gets under the skin Produced by Rainer Werner Fassbinder (who also supplies a shifty cameo), Tenderness of the Wolves provided two of his regular actors with a means of expanding their careers. Ulli Lommel later responsible for the infamous video nasty The Boogeyman made his directorial debut, while Kurt Raab wrote the screenplay as well as delivering an astonishing performance as Haarmann.

• Fear Eats The Soul | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £34.90   |  Saving you £-14.91 (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Rainer Werner Fassbinder already the director of almost twenty films by the age of twenty-nine paid homage to his cinematic hero Douglas Sirk with this updated version of Sirk's All That Heaven Allows. Lonely widow Emmi Kurowsky (Brigitte Mira) meets Arab worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love - to their own surprise - and to the shock of family colleagues and drinking buddies. Fassbinder expertly uses the emotional power of the melodrama to underscore the racial tensions threatening German culture at the time.

• Wim Wenders Collection | DVD | (26/03/2007) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £49.99

  Best known for such international hits as Wings Of Desire Paris Texas and the Oscar-nominated Buena Vista Social Club Wim Wenders remains one of the most unique and important directors in the world today. In these 10 acclaimed feature films and documentaries - including several available for the first time ever on DVD in the UK - Wenders explores potent themes of mortality and identity fashion and cinema ideology and redemption with a passion and vision all his own.

• The Merchant Of Four Seasons | DVD | (07/08/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Famed German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder typically portrays aspects of the human struggle using an unwavering style that is often difficult to watch but provides a refreshingly raw and honest narrative perspective. Merchant Of Four Seasons is an engaging close-up portrait of a downtrodden fruit seller named Hans. Full of hope after serving with the Foreign Legion Hans becomes a police officer--only to be fired for an indiscretion with a prostitute humiliating himself and his family. Hungry for a piece of the economic boom of the 1950s Hans begins selling produce from a cart much to the dismay of his class-conscious family. Saddled with a shrewish wife Hans derives most of his pleasure from drink and flirting with a former girlfriend whom he truly loves. However when he hires a former Foreign Legion friend to help with his business things suddenly take an unfortunate turn making Hans obsolete in the process. The Merchant Of Four Seasons was a turning point in Fassbinder's career marking his entry into the international arena and the subsequent scrutiny of his notorious private life