Die dritte Generation (1979)

Director:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer:

Rainer Werner Fassbinder (writer)

Release Date:

9 September 1980 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime

Plot:

Made during the 2nd Generation of the violent left-wing West German group, Red Army Faction, the film...

Plot Keywords:

Terrorism | Terrorist | Left Wing | Berlin Germany | Marxist

Cast

Harry Baer	...	Rudolf Mann
Hark Bohm	...	Gerhard Gast
Margit Carstensen	...	Petra Vielhaber
Eddie Constantine	...	P. J. Lurz
Jürgen Draeger	...	Hans Vielhaber
Raúl Gimenez	...	Paul
Claus Holm	...	Opa Gast
Günther Kaufmann	...	Franz Walsch
Udo Kier	...	Edgar Gast
Bulle Ogier	...	Hilde Krieger
Lilo Pempeit	...	Mutter Gast
Hanna Schygulla	...	Susanne Gast
Volker Spengler	...	August
Y Sa Lo	...	Ilse Hoffmann
Vitus Zeplichal	...	Bernhard von Stein

Also Known As:

The Third Generation

Runtime:

Germany:105 min | UK:111 min

Country:

West Germany

Language:

German | English | French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:MA | Finland:K-16 | West Germany:16

Filming Locations:

Berlin, Germany

Company:

Filmverlag der Autoren

Trivia:

A film projectionist in Hamburg was beaten unconscious while screening this film and a theater in Frankfurt was besiege by youths throwing acid.

Quotes:

Petra Vielhaber: I'd like to be called Michaela Angela Martinez.

Movie Connections:

References Solyaris (1972)

The World as Will and Idea...

Along with In A Year of 13 Moons, this is the only other Fassbinder film on which the director/writer/producer also served as director of photography. Like that film it features bold striking compositions and rich colours that are perfectly saturated and stylized to the right amount. The Third Generation was made in 1979 two years after the German Autumn, the crackdown of the Baader-Meinhof gang. Despite it's topicality however Fassbinder's film is about the future about the world of tomorrow as exemplified by it's evocation of science-fiction masterpieces like Solaris mentioned and cited in this film, the casting of the star of Alphaville, Eddie Constantine as the head of a computer business organization and the constant presence of technology in this film, either off-screen(speakers and recording equipment) or on-screen(TV screens and later guns and bombs). The score by Peer Raben is appropriately electronic.

The story of The Third Generation is hard to summarize or describe and most people won't understand one bit of this film when they see it for the first time. See it twice and thrice and then it adds up. The story is just as fragmented as the personalities and lives of it's characters. The terrorist cell at the center of the film is a group of mostly middle-class misfits and apathetic junkies who are a mass of unresolved tensions and contradictions. Bulle Ogier's a stern history teacher(crucially introduced to us discussing the 1848 revolution in Prussia) but she's also a would-be feminist who submits to becoming a sex toy of Paul the "leader" of the group. Hanna Schygulla is your average bubbly corporate secretary but she's also carrying out a sado-masochistic affair with her father-in-law. Most of these "terrorists" activities for the first half are relegated to living in an apartment of a drug addicted young girl, later joined by her former boyfriend and his friend. Their activities here are confined to juvenile games and irritating each other out of their skulls later extended to breaking-and-entering and bank robbery. The sole murder committed by them is revenge acted out by a submissive over the dominant.

The actions of the police, the business interests, the government bureaucracy however is that of self-justification, of ruthless exercise of power and repression whose machinery ultimately incorporates these terrorists willingly and unwillingly.

The relation of this film to our current-day hell-hole needs little elaboration. This is a film for the 21st Century, the children of the third generation, one just as compromised and confused as it's forebears.