i was going to rant about how tired i am of american culture
But having started writing it, I just got tired of hearing myself complain again.
So I've decided to talk about how I love the film Whity by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. How could I love a film that is so so so bad. I mean it's just absolutely and completely bad in a way that makes it sterlingly perfect. It's a western, filmed in Spain (like several spaghetti westerns of its time), all of the dialogue is in German, and the music is of a strange polytonal variety that sounds vaguely similar to American country but has way too many complex chord progressions to be appreciated by anyone without at least a few years of music theory training and is something probably closer to a Hindemith piece than any form of popular song.
The dysfunctional family lives in a plantation home apparently in the American south, with their slaves wearing blackface and the white masters wearing some sort of ghostly green-face. The head slave, Whity, is the sexual stud, providing service for the whole family both male and female. The acting is so terribly overly-stylized it's nearly difficult to watch. The postures and movements of the actors are more closely related to experimental performance than anything like natural movement. The dialogue is nearly non-existent, close to a silent film.
Fassbinder described this film as his most personal ever made, and that extreme seriousness and attention to every detail, to a fault, shines through in every frame. Not one element of the film is left to chance, but is instead groomed to a level of over-sytlization that is extremely rich, but also completely alienating and disturbing. What he is trying to get to, and I believe he can't help himself, is a very profound understanding of human nature. But he is so serious about it, that it becomes something closer to a comedy. And it is this high-camp that saves it, he fails miserably but in the process he does nail all the things he's aiming for. But that doesn't make it any easier to watch.