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Compare & contrast Douglas Sirk's 'All that Heaven Allows'…
Compare & contrast Douglas Sirk's 'All that Heaven Allows' with Rainer Werner Fassbender's 'Fear Eats the Soul'. You should pay close attention to the similarities and differences in style, narrative & meaning. What is the specific project of each filmmaker?
STYLE
Similarities
Trapping characters within a frame: FETS Emmi trapped behind balusters of staircase / in the restaurant, in a more plain way because of working environment setting, Sirk uses windows or mirrors to achieve this effect
Fassbinder expresses in physical space how the protagonists experience social reality --> draws the viewer's attentions to the construct of the film itself
The TV as a symbol for a lonely widow, nothing better to do than watch TV now
Differences
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ATHA is more openly ironic, see music
ATHA is very bright and fake, Ron's area looks like a painting with too much saturation, perfectly idyllic, could never exist outside the movie
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NARRATIVE
Similarities
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Widow falls in love with younger man who's not excepted in her society and she falls into despise by her friends / children / colleagues / neighbours
Both women can't let go of what they're used to, in Carie's case her perfect american life and for Emmi the German culture & racial aspect
Cringy, unhappy happy ending
Differences
FETS working class environment, can't afford big houses / country club / consumerism
FETS more direct & violent, doesn't comment on consumerism --> Son kicks in the TV, Ali collapses because of an ulcer (another comment on society, because he can't adjust), Ron only has an accident
FETS exaggerates narrative premises: Wider age gap, racial difference, even more unlikely and less easy to sympathise with - the viewer is tested to their own limits of social & cultural tolerance
FETS less ironic & bleaker, smaller windows, more pessimistic
FETS more open about political oppression, Ron helps Cary escape from her life, Ali can't help Emmi, they're both in a state of desperation
Bad relationship to the children, in both cases are the girls more understanding
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PROJECT
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Sirk
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Used soap opera to crack open the outwardly smug, prosperous world of 1950s American bourgeoisie & reveal internal contradictions
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General Information
All That Heaven Allows: Cliché-ridden film for female fans to cry over, ridiculously overblown dramatic situations & garish technicolour
Melodrama that appeared hokey and degraded entertainment for the masses, actually ironic distancing & subverted Hollywood clichés from within
Radical indictment of 1950s materialism, conformity & complacency --> putting meaning into his movies
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