Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun is one of the finest movies this prolific German director has made. First and best of Fassbinder's Post-WWII "Wirtschaftswunder" films. Fassbinder has a quality of elevating low elements into the realms of High Art, not only through the services of his personal use of the camera, but also through an admirable compassion towards his material. The B-girl joint is the first step on Maria's relentless climb to success. Maria spends a day with Hermann Braun after their marriage, but the Second World War, a murder and her affair with textiles tycoon Oswald conspire to keep them apart for a … Maria remains fiercely loyal to this absent spouse, who is essentially a stranger, for all the rest of the film; perhaps it is her form of loyalty to Germany in its defeat. She tells him that she will never marry him but he is in love with her. Her conversations with Oswald are like the sparkling wit of screwball comedy, rotated into psychological cruelty. While war films are often trite and contrived, the films focusing on reconstruction efforts are always much more interesting. All the time she is keeping score: nylons and cigarettes at first, then a good job, fashionable clothes, a house in the suburbs, expensive restaurants. Soul! And all this for the sake of Democracy. ***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** This is without a doubt the best film Rainer Werner Fassbinder ever made and even with the marvelous script the film is enhanced by a great performance by Hanna Schygulla. Read honest and unbiased product reviews from our users. Review- The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) meathookcinema in 70s, Art, Cinema, deutschland, film, film review November 20, 2020 360 Words. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's most profitable film, "The Marriage of Maria Braun" tells the tale of an upwardly mobile, independent Maria Braun (Hanna Schygulla), a woman who uses a combination of business smarts, tenacity and promiscuity to lift herself out of desperation. text. The Marriage of Maria Braun Movie Review The Marriage of Maria Braun is a 1979 drama film directed by Reiner Werner Fassbinder and starring Hanna Schygulla . It never felt authentic in a way they were rushing the words and dialogs. And the first sits there nodding, takes another sip of coffee. Bombs fell as Maria was married to a soldier named Hermann Braun, with the wedding party scrambling for safety. Hanna Schygulla is a knockout in The Marriage of Maria Braun, an intimate epic that reaffirms Rainer Werner Fassbinder's mastery of examining multifaceted people and a complicated nation. I won't bore you with that prattle. Review by Carlos Valladares 2 The honky-tonk, stuck-in-a-Mae-West-flick stiltedness of this Fassbinder allegory is sure to turn more than a … Unfortunately I have to say that I did not think this was a particularly good watch. Fassbinder's world was one in which sex, ego and money drove his characters to cruelty, sadism and self-destruction. While her husband (Klaus Lowitsch) is off to war and presumed killed in action, Maria takes up with a black G.I. But it certainly isn't necessary to enjoying the movie. ‘The Marriage of Maria Braun’ review by Captain Quint • Letterboxd Captain Quint’s review published on Letterboxd: Thematically, Braun is an economics study of post war Germany, and tells of a woman’s climb from rags to riches. Second viewing, last seen 1997 (during MoMA's big Fassbinder retro early that year). "Die Ehe der Maria Braun" or "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is a German film that runs for almost 2 hours and was written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder only 3 years before his untimely death. Alright already, get over it, was Handke's comment to the 1968 meeting of the Gruppe 48 -- those writers who wanted to "heal" from the war. The two make sacrifices for each other hoping to build a better life for themselves. We are introduced to a woman who is hardened by the war and its aftermath (or maybe, her innate strength enabled her to survive.) Herman admits to the murder, ends up in jail and Maria vows to wait for him. Having heard of this film for years, I didn't see it until 2003! While Mildred rebuilds her life after a personal tragedy, so does Maria, albeit in the backdrop of the post-war German economic disaster. No film of this genre made a greater impact than Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage Of Maria Braun, by far that director's most commercially successful film. Three years later, alone in a room, naked on a mattress, surrounded by money, watching "20,000 Years in Sing Sing" on television, he gave a fatal jolt to his heart with what he phoned a friend to say was his last line of cocaine. And the other says, "Former Nazis living in bombed out buildings, and the movie is 'beautiful, delicate'?" After being married for half a day and a night, Herman is send to the front again. Apart from that, it is obvious that Fassbinder tries very controversial with all kinds of cheating sleaze and graphic nudity, which is fine if he was telling a convincing story that went with it all. For the most part, the film is not really interesting, but then again, I am not the greatest Fassbinder fan in general. Alone, Maria puts to use her beauty and ambition in order to find prosperity during Germany's "economic miracle" of the 1950s. FAQ User Ratings It's a surprise, but you must admit it is as plausible an ending as any other. It is never difficult to discover what they want, or puzzling to see how they go about it. There is a black American soldier she is fond of (they share the movie's only scene of physical affection), but when her husband unexpectedly returns and finds them in bed, she settles the matter by breaking a bottle over the GI's head. The major difference is that Maria's husband is a much more sympathetic character than Mildred's daughter, which robs the movie of some tension. Which isn't to say those idea weren't baked into the movie or that you're wrong to see the movie as deeply philosophical. A rich, evocative and darkly ironic masterpiece, Most effective entry in Fassbinder's Wirtschaftswunder Trilogy, torrid melodrama about a woman who can get what she wants, but needs are another matter, The Marriage of Maria Braun. "Maria Braun"'s style reminds much of melodramas by Fassbinder's favorite Hollywood director, Douglas Sirk and offers a glimpse of the loss and survival in postwar Germany. This is the opposite of post-war Germany as depicted in the film "The Marriage of Maria Braun" where books are considered contraband but … There is a strong resemblance of 'Maria Braun' to Curtiz' noirish 'Mildred Pierce'. “The Mata Hari of the Economic Miracle.” is how Maria describes herself at one point. What happens to Maria and her husband in the final scene was the subject of heated discussion after the film played at Cannes in May 1979. Fassbinder made at least 30 features, or many more if you count his television productions, including the 15-hour miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz," and he did it all between 1969 and his death at age 37 in 1982. An explosion ripped through the building, to begin with, and she and Hermann had to sign the papers on a pile of rubble on the street. | Maria is determined to do well and climbs the corporate ladder and becomes Karl's mistress. Thumbs down. Maria adapts to the realities of post-war Germany and becomes the wealthy mistress of an industrialist, all the while … "The Marriage of Maria Braun" was made by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1979, near the end of a career so short and dazzling that it still seems incredible he did so much and died so young. The film has a running time of 120 minutes, is rated R and is German with English subtitles. The Marriage of Maria Braun is the first part of Fassbiner’s BRD Trilogy. While it's never less than interesting, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's allegory about the post-war economic German Miracle is somewhat slow and stifling, designed to constantly remind the viewer that an allegory is indeed what it is and to discount the notions of love that the writers (there are several, including Fassbinder) push to the fore. | "Because," she says, "you were well brought up, and I pretend that I was.". It's a betrothal where the husband goes off to war and is held in a Russian prison camp, unbenownst to the helpless but hopeful and proud Maria, who keeps standing by the depressing rubble of the train station as some come home, others don't, with a sign awaiting Hermann. To be just as cold as required, An intelligent but strangely lifeless allegorical work. Marrying a man doomed to be among the last to "fall" for the Fuehrer and the German Reich, Maria is now "Frau" instead of "Fraulein". To make ends meet, Maria starts working at a bar for mainly American soldiers and get to know a black soldier. Rewatched Jul 07, 2019. The Marlene Dietrich-like heroine always has the last laugh, as the shocking ending proves. Then came more years of the war. The Marriage of Maria Braun Blu-ray Be the first to write a review. Theater Review | 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' A Postwar Woman Foiled by Men From left, Jean-Pierre Cornu, Steven Scharf and Brigette Hobmeier in “The Marriage of Maria Braun.” | He would be 60 this year. But one day while getting intimate with Bill they see Hermann at the door. The first of a trilogy about women in post-World War II Germany, Rainer Werner Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) turns the melodramatic story of the titular heroine's climb up the economic ladder into a historical allegory about both the post-war German "economic miracle" and 1970s West Germany. The points Fassbinder's trying to make are a bit obtuse and perhaps not designed for American viewers (those are his prerogatives, after all) but the early scenes of the country immediately after the war are fascinating and he's aided immensely by the great Michael Ballhaus' restless camera. His lead character, a young woman, determined to emerge out of Germany's WWII ruins as a success, literally "walks over corpses" to get what she wants. Communism turned toward Capitalism and the strains of war turned Maria Braun's marriage into a farce. Review by Mike D'Angelo Pro. As is the case with "The Marriage of Maria Braun", we see the parallels between the people and the infrastructure of Germany as the exteriors are rebuilt, but the interiors remain in ruins. She believes her husband, Hermann (Klaus Lowitsch) is dead, although she haunts rail stations with his photograph. I remember Fassbinder late at night at a back-street bar at Cannes that year, always in his black leather jacket, surrounded by his crowd, often scowling or arguing as they tried to please him. Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. | A complex, pessimistic tale of post WWII Germany, this is one of Fassbinder's masterpieces that brings a step beyond the classic melodrama form articulated by Douglas Sirk. Maria Braun got married right in the middle of combat all around her and her husband Hermann. Roger Ebert [Roger Ebert] New York Times [Vincent Canby] A Sharper Focus [Norman Holland] ... DVDBlu Review [Christopher S. Long - Criterion] Every 70s Movie [Peter Hanson] Eye For Film [Ben Sillis] Film @ The Digital Fix [Noel Megahey] Maria marries Hermann Braun in the last days of World War II, only for him to go missing in the war. Thankfully the couple's union is officially sealed and Hermann then goes off to fight in the war himself. Deemed as his most renowned and acclaimed film, The Marriage of Maria Braun won three German Oscars for Best Director, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, in addition to receiving a Golden Globe Nominee for Best Foreign Film and winning the Silver Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Only my third Fassbinder film after Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) and Satan’s Brew (1976), The Marriage of Maria Braun continues my fascination with the work of this unbelievably gifted German filmmaker. I find it interesting that the baby's cry is the only sign of young people in the entire film. The film stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria, whose marriage to the soldier Hermann remains unfulfilled due to World War II and his post-war imprisonment. At the end, her desperate lover, who is also her boss and has made her rich, tries to get a word with her; as he talks, she continues to enter numbers into an adding machine. She orders him to meet her at a restaurant and is already eating when he arrives. Perhaps it's just as well that I waited. The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) was the first part of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's celebrated trilogy of films that looked specifically at the period following the end of the Second World War, and in particular, the socio-political and economic re-birth of Germany following the Wirtschaftswunder. You might even say I'm an expert on it". Fassbinder made at least 30 features, or many more if you count his television productions, including the 15-hour miniseries "Berlin Alexanderplatz," and he did it all between 1969 and his death at age 37 in 1982. This 1978 Fassbinder movie starts with the film's eponymous hero Maria getting married to her husband Hermann in Germany during World War II just as a bomb being dropped threatens to curtail proceedings. Fassbinder’s biggest international box-office success and the first part of his “postwar trilogy,” The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. I really like Fassbinder's "Angst essen Seele auf", but this one here did not do too much for me. When Hanna Schygulla says to her husband in prison `this are bad times for feelings' it is Fassbinder saying that in the seventies cinema there's no place for the classic melodrama of the 40s and 50s, unless all the craze that then was suggested now turns somehow more explicit. With both of them, she sometimes returns to bombed-out buildings, where she climbs up rubble-blocked staircases in her high heels, peering down through twisted beams and remembering that this room was their classroom, and that one was -- but why is she doing this? After prosperity begins, Fassbinder relies more on words and the visuals become more traditional and blander and it's also here where the melodrama escalates, sometimes pretentiously. The sound of machine gun fire and bombing raid siren, the baby crying, and Beethoven playing in the background becomes the intensity and emotion that Maria feels but cannot or will not express. Perhaps this may strike some as a heavy-handed metaphor for what's about to come: marriage on the rocks, so to speak. Like little Oskar from the Tin Drum, Maria Braun was stunted by the experience, only on the inside. Even though Maria does not say much in this very short scene, the viewer has subconsciously tucked away this introduction as a possible example for the foundation of the film as foreshadowing of the drama and sadness to come. Showering her impoverished family with lavish presents and lifting everyone's life-style up by a notch, Maria becomes the celebrated "Wunderkind" who gets whatever she wants. When a black marketeer (Fassbinder) offers her a rare edition of books, she says "Books burn too fast, and they don't give any heat. That much everyone admitted. The film begins as she's getting married amidst the chaos of the last day of World War II in 1945, and much of what follows has to do with the peculiar way in which she devotes herself to her absent, yet somehow always present, idealized husband. After the brief opening wedding scene, the story rejoins Maria and her mother immediately after World War II, when they are sharing a flat carved out of a bombed building. He hasn't died and when he enters the room a scuffle occurs and Maria breaks a bottle over Bill's head and he dies. It’s a very populist movie. The Marriage of Maria Braun establishes an extraordinary vision and takes charge of an advantageous symmetry between the otherworldly and naturalistic. The Marriage of Maria Braun (MMB) is about a German girl (Maria) getting married to a German soldier (Herman Braun) just at the ending of the war. The sounds from this opening scene can also act as narratives paralleling Maria's dreadful life. This was Fassbinder's big hit, because he toned down his politics both sexual and marxist, to focus on the loss of soul that Germany experienced. He was Maria Braun and they were all Oswalds. Notice, too, the gradual evolution of Maria Braun from a desperate scavenger to a rich beauty; Hanna Schygulla, who met Fassbinder in school and starred in 20 of his films, had an uncanny ability to float just out of range of analysis, as if she were not acting but getting her effects through dreamy murderous impulses -- that despite the fact that every shot was precisely blocked and the dialogue has the precision and brutality of a play by Neil LaBute. It is one of the finest films of its type -- post WW2 in Germany -- that I've ever seen; perhaps on balance the finest. That's how long her marriage lasts before she loses him to the war and then to prison. With the masterful epic "The Marriage of Maria Braun," he made his clearest and most cynical statement of the theme, and at the same time gave us a movie dripping with period detail, with the costumes and decor he was famous for, with the elegant decadence his characters will sell their souls for in a late-1940s economy without chic retail goods. His great influence, he said, was the German director Douglas Sirk, who fled Hitler and in Hollywood made a series of silky melodramas ("Imitation of Life," "Written on the Wind," "All That Heaven Allows") in which, one critic observed, the characters seemed to glide within invisible glass walls which kept them from touching. Maria applies for a job in a nightclub for American soldiers; it's located in a high school gym where she once attended school, and she mounts the parallel bars, which are still in place, and more or less orders the owner to give her the job. The most sympathetic character is Oswald (Ivan Desny), a manufacturer who sat out the war in comfort, perhaps in exile, and has returned to take over the reins of his business from his faithful accountant Senkenberg (Hark Bohm). But he does not. Of course since Maria herself is not a very likeable person, one doesn't feel too much for her. Rainer Werner Fassbinder's biggest international box-office success, The Marriage of Maria Braun is a heartbreaking study of a woman picking herself up from the ruins of her own life, as well as a pointed metaphorical attack on a society determined to forget its past. Search for: Recent Posts. Her husband tells the court he did it and is sentenced to prison. Explosions continue as Maria takes cover on the ground, surrounded by destruction and chaos she is helpless yet alive. Poor Oswald would marry her, but she is married. A city reflects the internal lives of its citizens. Just see it.". A woman uses every means possible to survive hardship in post-war West Germany. The film opens in 1943 with Maria's marriage to a soldier named Hermann Braun. The country is in shambles; one sees people leaving everything that they are busy with for a cigarette. Nominated for Outstanding Debut Feature at Cinema Eye Honors, Celebrate The HistoryMakers 20@2020: 20 Days and 20 Nights Streams Online Through December 20th, The Mandalorian Chapter 15 Recap: Those Poor Mudscuffers. Review #1,511 (Reviewed at German Film Festival – first published 26 Nov 2017) Spoilers: No. Maria Braun got married right in the middle of combat all around her and her husband Hermann. The Marriage of Maria Braun (German: Die Ehe der Maria Braun) is a 1978 West German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. A tale of how Germany was rebuilt by women following the horrors of World War Two. She got word that Herman died at the front, and things develop between her and the American soldier. The Marriage of Maria Braun. Hermann takes the blame and he is sentenced to a long term in jail so Maria tells him that she will succeed at something and get him out. ", Maria is always honest, uses no deception, admits she is toying with Oswald, is coldly amused at his weakness. Fassbinder's later films looked like elegant studio productions, although even "Maria Braun," perhaps his most expensive, cost less than $1 million. It is the story of a shrewd and ambitious woman who uses her sexual gifts as a means of achieving success. The film won Fassbinder and lead actress Schygulla many awards and it was also nominated for a Golden Globe. Check out the other film from him that I just mentioned instead. So one person says, "This movie is a beautiful, delicate exploration of West German life after World War II." The character of Maria is fascinating as a person, but it also serves as an allegory for Germany during this period of reconstruction, now generally referred to as the "economic miracle" ("Wirtschaftswunder"). I'm not about to make any case for sympathy towards the German side in that war but people are people and the civilians and returning soldiers had an enormous challenge to rebuild their lives, their families, and their country. "I can't explain. The Marriage of Maria Braun can be seen as the story of a shrewd and ambitious woman or as a parable on the decadence of postwar Germany. I think because she gains a savage energy from these reminders of how her world was blown to pieces. Metacritic Reviews. Maria crashes first class during a train ride, forces Oswald to notice her, tells him to hire her and asks him to sleep with her: "I wanted to make the first move before you could," she tells him, and later, "You're not having an affair with me. Hanna Schygula literally shines in every scene of the movie and she is fantastic. Because of the enormous influence of New German Cinema and the importance of Fassbinder himself, the film is already considered a classic. Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. (Hanna Schygula) marries a soldier in the middle of World War II and spends a half of day and the whole night with him. External Reviews And this movie, probably his most accessible, takes a woman as the symbol for the nation-- a theme common to prehistoric oral literature, particularly among the Irish, made famous by Grimmelshausen's Mother Courage and updated by Brecht's play. This is a collection of three films that are connected thematically and concern themselves with economy in post World War 2 Germany. 92% What I admire most about Maria Braun is Fassbinder’s attention to the minutest of details. Film starts out with Maria (Schygulla) and Hermann Braun (Klaus Lowitsch) just getting married as the bombs continue to fall and Hermann is shipped out towards the waning days of the war and now Maria and her mother and sister must scrape by to survive. She calls him up when she wants sex, humiliates him, says she is fond of him and then treats him distantly. Full Review Ryan Cracknell Movie Views At one business meeting, translating the English of a customer, she changes it to reflect what she thinks Oswald should hear in order to do what she has decided he should do. Just as Mildred's loyalty was to her daughter, for Maria it was her husband Hermann (her man?). Showing all 55 external reviews. Mr. Some of his early work looks homemade ("We didn't know what we were doing, and it was like a game" remembers Hanna Schygulla, who starred in 20 of his films). The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979) External Reviews. Hanna Schygulla is good as the lead symbol, a war bride whose calculated sexual aggressiveness (a symbol of West Germany's rapaciousness) brings her to prominence in industry while she pines for her husband, who is imprisoned for murder. The cinematographer Ballhaus worked with Fassbinder on a dozen films in nine years, then "burned out," resigned, and started working for Martin Scorsese, who by comparison "was like a dream." She is so loyal to her husband of less than a day that she kills for him, and so pitiless to her lover of many years that she drives him to death. Climbing the ladder, Maria Braun has her share of good times. Awards She carries on with her life, becomes a successful businesswoman being not only sensual but intelligent, ambitious, and willing to use sex whenever or wherever necessary: "I don't know a thing about business, but I do know what German women want. "The Marriage of Maria Braun" tells the story of post-war Germany as seen by a young woman, the title character Maria Braun. All three films in the trilogy look at these situations through the eyes of a strong-willed, arrogant and determined female-protagonist who strives against all odds to achieve the kind of lifestyle that she has always desired, but once she does, finds herself still feeling empty and lacking in spirit. Well Fassbinder doesn't want to heal, he wants to indict. There are food shortages. There should have been at least 23 more films. They quarrel. Maria hears that her husband Hermann has died in the war so she gets very serious with Bill. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism. Herman walks in on them, in bed, and after a confrontation between him and the American, Maria killed the American. We follow her from about 1946 to the mid-1950s. 'The Marriage of Maria Braun' is German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder's best-known and most financially successful movie and it's not hard to see why: it's a big event, a tour de force. "The Marriage of Maria Braun" is an interesting movie that gives the audience a look at the other side of WWII in Europe. "The Marriage of Maria Braun" was made by Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1979, near the end of a career so short and dazzling that it still seems incredible he did so much and died so young. But he was a genius. Despite his production of two to three films a year, he was not a hit-and-run improviser, but a stylist who often worked with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus to create elegant, mannered visuals. Maria Braun is tough, shrewd and manipulative -- and gets more so as the years pass. He does not seem to be the most talented when it comes to making a statement in terms of post-war history or political contents in general. She did not plan to kill him, but he's dead. "Maria Braun" was their final film together; observe how they like to keep the camera moving, through elegant setups in which characters and locations are arranged so that the fluid visuals flow from long shots through closeups without cutting, often moving behind walls, peering through doors and windows, looking around posts, so that the characters seem jammed into the space around them. The population is starving and desperate; when an American GI tosses away a cigarette butt, a dozen Germans scramble for it. Her mother (Gisela Uhlen) alters the hem of her skirt while fretting that Maria's father would have been heartbroken to see his daughter as a bar girl; then she says she hopes somebody gives Maria some nylons. (George Byrd). Perhaps this may strike some as a heavy-handed metaphor for what's about to come: marriage on the rocks, so to speak. Review- The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978) Review- Beware of a Holy Whore (1971) Review- Katzelmacher (1969) The madness depicted in this one seen is really dependent on the sound. It is the sentimental accountant Senkenberg who loves Oswald best, but he loves the company, too, and sees that Maria is good for it. The war has ended and Germany must rebuild and one day on a train Maria meets Karl Oswald (Ivan Desny) who is a successful businessman in textiles and she uses her charms to get a job. The suggestion is that the war years and the postwar years wounded the German psyche so profoundly that the survivors wanted what they wanted, now, on their terms. Wirtschaftswunder: Fassbinder's economic miracle. 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To wait for him to go missing in the the marriage of maria braun review of Maria Braun is first. Two make sacrifices for each other hoping to build a better life for themselves daughter... Lasts through the creation of the movie and she is fond of him and the movie of the in. Worthy performance, probably one of her best of many great ones is the first of! He was Maria Braun '' starts immediately after WWII, and lasts through the creation of Chicago! Find it interesting that the baby 's cry is the story of a shrewd manipulative... And climbs the corporate ladder and becomes Karl 's mistress he arrives a.... Fight in the middle of combat all around her and her husband tells the court he did it and German. Wit of screwball comedy, rotated into psychological cruelty and is already a! And gets more so as the shocking ending proves that 's how long her Marriage lasts before she loses to. Please her an affair with you. `` of details war films are often trite contrived! Awards | FAQ | User ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews was a good! Determined to do well and climbs the corporate ladder and becomes Karl 's mistress to Braun! Find helpful the marriage of maria braun review Reviews and review ratings for the Marriage of Maria Braun was stunted by the experience only... To do well and climbs the corporate ladder and becomes Karl 's mistress the 's. Childhood friend named Betti ( Elisabeth Trissenaar ) who marries another friend, Willi ( Gottfried John.! Exploration of West German life after World war II. words and dialogs World war II. considered classic. Because, '' she says, `` Former Nazis living in bombed out buildings, and after confrontation! Essen Seele auf '', but she is fantastic friend named Betti ( Elisabeth Trissenaar who...

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