Customer Reviews

Fox and His Friends [VHS]

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

FOX AND HIS FRIENDS is one of Fassbinder's most poignant and accessible works. The story and performances are direct, and the look of the film is polished. Yet it also deals powerfully with some of his central themes, such of the search for love, and exploitation in its many forms (both homosexual and heterosexual). Wellspring Media has released a pristine DVD of the film, from a carefully restored print. If offers both a vivid new Dolby 5.1 soundtrack, as well as the original stereo, plus filmographies and Web links.

Fassbinder is very effective at shattering, or at least twisting, stereotypes in his films, whether they concern people from a "different" class (MERCHANT OF FOUR SEASONS), race (ALI: FEAR EATS THE SOUL), age (MOTHER KUSTERS GOES TO HEAVEN), or physical ability (CHINESE ROULETTE). In FOX AND HIS FRIENDS he focuses on homosexual men, in one of the first films ever to depict their lives - warts and all - as complex lived experience. (Of course, in the years since FOX's 1975 release, film has come a long way in exploring the diversity of homosexual experience.) Fassbinder made only a handful of other films dealing with homosexual, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) people: 1972's THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT, 1978's IN A YEAR OF 13 MOONS, and 1982's QUERELLE. All are worth seeing, and each remains among his most controversial works.

Since some people consider FOX to be homophobic, it's worth noting that there are perhaps as many unscrupulous straight characters (including Fox's new lover's mother and father - who swindle him for the "noble" purpose of keeping open their business, which employs 70 people) as homosexual ones. Also, Fox's bar buddies include several caring and likable homosexual and transgender characters, who represent a diversity of ages, body types, and demeanors (some are "straight-acting," others love to camp it up). And Fassbinder, in his most demanding role as an actor, gives his most nuanced performance. There are many complex layers to Franz "Fox" Biberkopf, and Fassbinder explores them all, from street-smarts to sweetness to pain to defiance to despair, and more.

When I first saw FOX, I was horrified by the final scene (although it is vintage Fassbinder). Now, after watching it again, I have to wonder if the film actually ends inside Fox's mind (for his sake, I hope so). That metro/subway stop is unnaturally - eerily - clean and quiet. Everything is blue and white, even the clothes worn by all the characters who pass through. Yet this comes at the end of one of Fassbinder's most naturalistic films; nothing earlier is as stylized. So, is this just a nightmare vision? (But as a friend noted, if you are going to include one dream state in a film - and make it the final scene - be sure the audience understands the ambiguity.) Has Fox learned, from his devastating experiences, that the glitzy "lifestyle" he has just lost was what was destroying him? So maybe - just maybe - Fox is ready to begin putting himself back together... if the final scene is just a nightmare.

This is one of Fassbinder's funniest and most heartbreaking films. Playing the title role himself, Fassbinder delivers an unforgettable performance as Fox--a directionless carnival worker who finds himself lured into a relationship with an upper-class German man after winning the lottery. A very visually striking and emotionally engaging film. Certainly one of Fassbinder's bests.

As for the DVD transfer, it's as good as if not better than the version I saw on VHS.

"Fox, a bumbling but sincere and big hearted unsophisicated carvinal worker who's job is terminate when his boyfriend, the carnival owner, is arrested by the German police. Out of a Job, Fox wins the 500,000 DM lottery and finds a new group of friends who pounce on the oppertunity to swindle him out of his winnings. His new b/f selects the apartment and furniture, purchased from the b/f's friends gallery; new clothes, a trip to Morocco, and a loan to the b/f's parents failing business drain poor Fox'es wealth.
As the film progress you cannot help but to have sympathy for Fox; and all his attempts to win the love and affection of his goldigging lover and unscrupulous friends. Let me warn you; this is not a "feel good" film; but rather be ready to be appalled by how far the depth of human cruelty can decend.
It's beautifully directed, the scenes flow smoothly, art direction and cinematography are all first rate with no flaws to distract you from the quality of this production; and Fassbinder plays his characther so convincingly, I wondered how this inept individual (Fox) could produce such a movie. Made circa 1974 but certainly not dated in focus and depth.
The conclusion will break your heart; and if you havn't devlopment a sense of compassion and sympathy for Fassbinder's character by the end of this film, you have ice water in your veins. A gripping and poignant gay tragedy; worthy of your conceration and as an addition to your collection of gay works.
Thankyou for reading this review; I hope it enlightened you on this truely magnificant story.
Jerry Balmes

Thoroughly depressing film about thoroughly despicable people. Fox wins a fortune in a lottery and proceeds to try to buy friends with it. He finds many who are willing to be bought. They use him and abuse him, all the while mocking him. As he begins his downward spiral they all turn against him, except his supposedly low-life friends at his favorite gay bar.

The film is very well made and very well acted. It is not about gay vs. straight, or upper class vs. lower class, or any group vs. any other group. Rather It is about the corrupting and often toxic allure of money. As such it is a very powerful work, but distinctly painful to watch. I don't mind sad or even tragic movies, but depressing movies I can do without.

This is one of Fassbinder's best films, a really incisive, sad, and pointed commentary on class differences and exploitation. Fox, wonderfully played by Fassbinder himself, is a lower class carnival worker who wins the lottery, and is welcomed (or seduced) into the upper class gay culture. He naively and sadly believes that they genuinely like him, but they are just using him for his money. He essentially is used by the upper class until his money runs out. They jettison him, like an abattoir does with the carcases of cows.

Many have made hay of the fact that the main character here is homosexual. There weren't too many films at the time about homosexuality, but the strange thing is that Fox's sexual orientation really doesn't matter here. The film is about class and class exploitation, not sexual orientation. It never becomes a "gay" film. It is a human film, showing that (shock!) homosexuals can succumb to greed, cruelty, coldness, and indifference like everyone else can. I always find films that show "minorities" (for lack of a better term) as deeply human and flawed, because it shows that they are just as human as the so-called "majorities" are. It is the polar opposite of political correctness, which serves to dumb us down and makes us all the same. I prefer the polar opposite. It is refreshing and much more though provoking than bland, PC portrayals.

This is a very sad film. Even in high school (when I first saw this), I was really moved by it. I adore Fassbinder. I think he's one of the greatest directors that Germany ever produced. It's a shame he died, but his films still amaze people even today.

The story of a man searching for love but unable to find real happiness. I was very disappointed in this film. While it is well done and the acting and casting was good, I found it very boring and depressing to watch. It drags on for over two hours with the same poor guy being ripped off at every turn. I can relate somewhat to the main character but it is certainly not entertaining or a "feel good" movie. I doubt I will ever want to watch this one again. It fell way short of it's potential. The DVD doesn't offer anything along the lines of extras, but filming quality is good. Maybe you will like it more than I did, but probably not unless you are just really in the mood to be depressed. Not recommended.

Fassbinder himself exudes a natural impish charm as the streetwise ex-carny Franz Biberkopf, who loses his gig as "Fox the Speaking Head" when his carnival barker boyfriend is arrested for tax evasion as Fox and Friends opens. Down and out, and unable to borrow a few marks from his perpetually inebriated sister, he gets into the significantly older Max's car for a quick trick. Before getting down to business, Fox manages to scam the local florist for enough cash to buy that last prayer for the hopeless, a lottery ticket.

But wait, old girl, it just so happens that Fox has purchased the winning ticket...

Max (Karl-Heinz Bohm) cuts a truly Mephistophelean character as an antiques dealer who seems less interested in sex than in watching the predictable machinations of human nature with a jaded eye and a knowing smirk. After befriending the ill-mannered, working class Fox, Max throws him to his snobbish, affected, status-obsessed "friends" - after letting it slip that Fox has recently come into quite a bit of money. Fox puts the moves on Eugen, who he describes to his bar buddies as "posh and a little prissy". Fox soon finds that while his "natural intelligence" gets him through the day in his usual social sphere, he is outclassed among his new friends. Seeing an opportunity to save the family business, Eugen begins to "assist" the fish-out-of-water Fox in spending his newfound wealth.

Fox's old drinking buddies at the grungy neighborhood homo watering hole speak for the audience, warning Fox to save his money and stick to what he knows. And Max, though certainly the instigator behind Fox's growing troubles - seems to half heartedly hope that Fox turns things around and comes through as a street-smart underdog.

While Fox and Friends is based on a culture-clash cliché, watching it played out amongst homosexuals in 1975 Berlin was a pleasure. There's a scrappy realness to the lower class characters, and a comical superficiality and pretension to the upper-middle class characters - who seem to be "positively aghast" at the smallest infraction of etiquette. Further, homosexuality never becomes the central issue. The film stays true to the core theme of class disparity. However, both the speed at which the story develops and the legal instability of Fox's connection to his prissy partner do seem to comment on homosexual relationships.

Fox and Friends is far more natural and less stylized than Fassbinder's Querelle, however, there are strange, surreal moments when artificial theatricality prevails over the realistic, straightforward filmmaking that makes the rest of the film believable. Whereas Querelle feels like an erotic dream, Fox and Friends is grounded in the real. Some might find the oddball touches and vignettes out of place, but they also give the film a certain sparkle and symbolism that make it special.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder has long been honored as the 'bad boy' in European cinema, a writer/director/actor who repeatedly has taken chances and because of his brutal honesty has succeeded in making a stream of important films. FOX AND HIS FRIENDS dates back to 1975 and remains one of Fassbinder's most successful films. As with all of his films, Fassbinder deals with the homosexual subculture in Germany but his main message goes far beyond the characters he creates: the examination of how people manipulate people for personal gain and the destruction that produces is a recurring problem and one that this film certainly explores.

'Fox' - a nickname of Franz Bieberkopf - (acted with consummate skill by Fassbinder himself) is a lower class gay carny kid whose lover is arrested, leaving the carnival to collapse and leaving Fox without support. Enter handsome Max (Karlheinz Böhm), a wealthy antiques dealer, who picks up Fox, helps him buy the requisite 'lottery ticket' on which Fox bases his hopes for financial survival (!) via manipulative means, and takes him home, introducing Fox to his gay friends who regard Fox as scum but show obvious physical attraction to his rawness. Surprisingly Fox wins the lottery and suddenly has 500,000 DMs and with his new money, Max's friends abruptly see a target for obtaining that money. One of the friends named Eugen (Peter Chatel) takes Fox in as a lover and talks him into investing in Eugen's family business of bookbinding. Eugen's father Wolf (Adrian Hoven) and mother (Ulla Jacobsson) tolerate their son's life with a low class wretch, ridiculing his manners and lack of culture and education, but willingly take his money to salvage their business.

With a lover and a business and a role model to make him suave, Fox dons fancy clothes, banters with his old friends in a tawdry club, and makes the pretenses that at last he is secure and happy. But in time Fox is blamed for problems at the business and when his funds have been depleted on expensive vacations and apartments by the smarmy self-centered Eugen, Fox realizes that now without money he has no 'fancy friends', no lover, no security and his life becomes unbearable: the ending to the film is a tragedy beyond description.

Some would say the film is mannered in ways that depict stereotypes of the gay world (effeminate men, transvestites, opportunists, hustlers, etc), but Fassbinder is completely honest in his attempt to recreate a subculture of a specific time in Germany. And the characters are well written and well acted allowing us to look at Fassbinder's greater picture of depravity between social class antipathies. In many ways this is a difficult film to watch, but Fassbinder wisely places the main character that he enacts in a place where his foibles and lack of higher-class knowledge can be at once very humorous as well as pitiable. FOX AND HIS FRIENDS has some minor flaws but it has already become a classic in gay cinema repertoire. In German with English subtitles. Grady Harp, August 06

A sad movie of going riches and back of a working class lad spent his lottery win on a lover is quite typical for cinematography if not so frequently pictured between same gender lovers.

It is a very educative story for everyone regardless of sexual preferences and surely controversy-provocative in the seventieth.

This is a first disk of a Fassbinder Foundation three disc set (other pictures included: The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, A Year of 13 Moons), which costs a hand-and-a-leg price in Australia.

Among his 33 films, Fassbinder considered his 1974 film, Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit), one of his personal favorites. It tells the compelling story of Franz Bieberkopf, a.k.a. Fox (Fassbinder himself in the leading role), a working-class young man who, after losing his carnival job, wins 500 thousand marks playing the lottery. Fox celebrates in Munich by mingling with an older gay man (Karlheinz Böhm) and his cultivated gay friends. By contrast, Fox has no polish or savoir-vivre. He is portrayed as an innocent, and the portrayal is poignant. After spending the night with one of the men, Eugen (Peter Chatel), Fox goes into a slow downward spiral, squandering most of his lottery winnings in the company of Eugen and his gay friends by investing in Eugen's company, buying furniture and clothing, vacationing in Marrakech, and spending what he has left on prostitutes and flowers. Ultimately, Fassbinder is not as interested in the sexual orientation of Fox and "his friends," as he is in their values, obsession with money, and exploitation of Fox. By the end of the movie, it is clear that without money, Fox really has no friends. Highly recommended.

G. Merritt