BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Tayloriona Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Wyatt There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

timmy_501 Martha, the titular character of Rainer Fassbinder's 1974 made for TV (but nonetheless acclaimed) film Martha is the kind of character I detest more than any other. If there is one characteristic that defines her it is weakness. Her weakness can be seen from the very beginning, as an early scene shows her as she runs away from an emergency situation. Later, shortly after the death of her father, she begins to try things that her father had forbid her to do; thus it becomes clear that her will has been subsumed by that of her parent. Nonetheless, Martha leads a fairly happy life until she marries a domineering sadist. A good portion of the film portrays her sickening subservience to this petty tyrant and the pitiful efforts she makes to change her situation inevitably worsen it because they are so passive and ineffectual. The plot of this film makes for a maddeningly unpleasant viewing experience.At the same time, Fassbinder's film-making powers are never less than formidable, particularly in some of the earlier sequences here. Fassbinder sets the early, happy scenes in vast, richly decorated interiors. There are a lot of interesting juxtapositions created through the use of mirror images and unusual angles. Exterior scenes are also visually sumptuous, a bit like the work of French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, Academy ratio and all. Later, as the film turns more miserable the interiors seem to shrink and their uniform lack of design reflect Martha's new hopelessness. The exteriors seem to grow into vast wildernesses at the cost of their former beauty. Needless to say, Fassbinder is adept at using a character's surrounding (and the mise en scene) to suggest that character's mood.This is the third Fassbinder film I've seen and I must say that while I haven't been blown away by any of his films, his direction remains a strong point in each one. No doubt I'll eventually see one where the other aspects of the film are just as satisfying as the direction. Martha is not that film but it does increase my appreciation for Fassbinder's artistry.

hasosch "Martha" is part of a series of movies by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, in which he treated different kinds of decrease of mind. In "Merchant of the four seasons" (1972), Fassbinder portrayed the former police officer Hans Epp whose carrier is ruined by a prostitute, whose girl-friend is unreachable for him and whose wife shows no affection to him. After a long time in depression, interrupted by alcohol, he decides to kill himself. In "Martha" (1975), a young woman, hardly released out of the hands of her passed away father, marries a brutal and psychopathic engineer who isolates her from her family, forces her to quit her job, imprisons her in their apartment, cuts down the telephone connection and controls her money. He seems to have reached his goal when Martha, after trying to escape with one of her coworkers, has an accident that paralyzes her, letting her in a wheelchair. In "Fear of Fear" (1975), housewife Margot, pregnant with her second child, starts to suffer from hallucinations while neither her husband nor her mother- and sister-in-law are willing to listen to her. After a physician prescribes her Valium, she increases the dose. When she cannot get enough anymore, she helps herself with alcohol. After having been "healed" in a psychiatric clinic, from which she is released under the promise to take regularly her medication, she is typing addresses on envelopes, pretending to be happy.All of these movies by Fassbinder to which also belong, for instance, "Why does Herr R. run amok" (1970), "In a year with 13 moons" (1978), "Despair" (1978), "Veronika Voss" (1982) and certain episodes of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1980), have in common that what turns a human insane is, according to Fassbinder, basically the society in which he or she lives. Neither Hans Epp, nor Martha nor Margot have an emotional support from their family. Let alone by their closest relatives, these individuals are inclined to make false decisions, that lead to decrease of mind and often to suicide. Although Fassbinder repeatedly pretended not to be an intellectual, it is important to point out that we know from the several interviews he gave as well as from his theoretic studies that he was well familiar with the works of the Frankfurt School around Adorno, Horkheimer and Habermas as well as with the psychiatry of Lacan. Therefore, I ask everybody who watches "Martha" to have a close look at the book she is reading in the scene where she sits on the balcony of the hotel in which she stays during her honeymoon. The title of this book is "Das enteignete Bewusstsein", written by Hans Kilian, a sociologists from the Frankfurt School, and appeared in 1971. It turns out that the "expropriated consciousness" – a process committed in society - is the real reason that is responsible for the decline of Hans Epp, Martha, Margot, Peter, Herr R., Erwin/Elvira, Hermann Hermann, Veronika Voss, Hans Biberkopf and many others whose fate has not been subject of any film.

jimi99 Yes, hysterical as in exaggerated comedy, and hysterical as in the title character freaking out over her bizarre, ever-degenerating marriage. This is great Fassbinder film-making--the performances, cinematography, and dialogue are brilliant. As in many of his films, Fassbinder takes a perverse joy in keeping the audience balanced between comedy and melodrama, the laughs always tinged with apprehension. The colors are dominated by lurid reds. The arc of the story keeps one queasy as to how horrible the outcome might be.The famous Sirk influence is very obvious in this as in many of RF's early 70's films, but what struck me is the equally obvious influence of Bunuel on Fassbinder's movies. "Martha" owes a great deal to "Belle du Jour" and "Tristana" among many other of the Spanish master's films about the natural perversity of male-female relationships.

zetes Good, nearly great Fassbinder about an adult woman who passes from the care of her controlling parents to the even tighter control of a bizarre husband. Margit Carstensen plays the woman and Karlheinz Böhm (whom you probably remember as the protagonist of Michael Powell's Peeping Tom) the husband. This is one of Fassbinder's better films. Jonathan Rosenbaum, who doesn't seem to be much of a Fassbinder enthusiast, cites it as his very favorite. It would rank as one of my favorites, too, but for a couple of reasons. It kind of makes its point fairly early on, especially after the marriage takes place. Then it gets a tad repetitive, and goes on for nearly two hours. The next year, Fassbinder made an even better film dealing with similar themes called Fear of Fear, which also starred Margit Carstensen. Carstensen's performance is exceptional in Martha (and just as good in Fear of Fear), and Böhm is quite good, too.