‘He was everything – the sweetest, the most generous, the most understanding. On the other hand, he could be so destructive,” Hanna Schygulla said of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the prolific German filmmaker.
And she should know, having appeared in many of the most important of the 40 or so features Fassbinder directed and often appeared in before dying of a drug overdose in 1982. The fast-living director was 37.
Many of their pairings are in the 20-film Fassbinder retrospective unreeling through March 27 at the Film Forum (Houston Street, west of Sixth Avenue).
Schygulla spoke with Cine File during a brief visit here from her home in Paris.
“It was hard working with him,” the elegant, 59-year-old actress continued.
“He was so obsessed with doing so many things in such a short time there was never time to breathe. And it was hard to cope with certain social behavior around him.”
Schygulla said one of her favorite pairings with Fassbinder is “Effi Briest” (1974), showing March 16-18.
She’s magnificent as a fragile teenager who agrees to a loveless marriage to an older man.
The story unfolds in alluring, deceptively simple black-and-white photography, with impeccably framed scenes and the director’s trademark shots through windows and into mirrors.
You’ll also find Schygulla as a Nazi toy in “Lili Marleen” (1981), a bisexual model in “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” (1973), a hooker in “Katzelmacher” (1969) and a gangster’s moll in “Gods of the Plague” (1969).
Screening today and tomorrow is “Fox and His Friends” (1975) – minus Schygulla – a controversial, semi-autobiographical look at the gay underworld.
Fassbinder cast himself as a lower-class carnival worker who strikes it rich in the lottery and attracts an upper-class lover in what turns out to be a doomed relationship.
Visit http://www.filmforum.com for the full schedule.
*Raoul Coutard, the brilliant French cinematographer, will put in personal appearances this week at the French Institute/Alliance Francaise (55 E. 59th St.).
Tuesday at 6:30 p.m., Coutard will be interviewed by critic Kent Jones at a screening of Francois Truffaut’s “The Soft Skin” (1964), which Coutard photographed.
The film also will unspool at 12:30 and 3:30 p.m.
And Wednesday at 7 p.m., Coutard will be present when the Vietnam war drama “Hoa-Binh” (1971), which he directed, unreels.
There will be no subtitles for this French-language film, but a plot synopsis will be available.
Info: http://www.fiaf.org.
V.A. Musetto is film editor of The Post.