Veronica Voss (1982)
Directed by: Rainer
Werner Fassbinder.
Written by: Rainer
Werner Fassbinder and Pea Frohlich and Peter Marthesheimer.
Starring:
Rosel
Zech (Veronika Voss), Hilmar Thate (Robert Krohn), Cornelia Froboess
(Henriette), Annemarie Duringer (Dr. Marianne Katz), Doris Schade (Josefa),
Erik Schumann (Dr. Edel), Peter Berling (Filmproduzent/Dicker Mann), Gunther
Kaufmann (G.I./Dealer), Armin Mueller-Stahl (Max Rehbein).
Out of
the three films in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BRD trilogy, Veronika Voss is the
saddest, the most hopeless. None of these films is cheery, but Veronika Voss is
the one in which all joy has been sucked out, and all we’re left with is the
sad death spiral. We don’t even get the rise of the star, just the sad final
moments before it’s completely fallen.
The film
stars Rosel Zech as the title character, who was a famous film star before the
war, who we first see in a movie theater watching one of her old movies. It’s
now 1955, and she hasn’t worked in a long time. Her husband has left her, she
has run out of money, and she has become addicted to drugs. The drugs are
supplied by Dr. Katz (Annemarie Duringer), who keeps Veronika and her other
“patients” in her clinic, in small rooms, where she can control them – giving
them drugs, or withholding them as she sees fit. She’ll get all of Veronika’s
stuff – the houses, the art – when she dies, and the way things are going, it
won’t be long.
The other
major character in the film is Robert Krohn (Hilmar Thate) – a sportswriter,
who Veronika first meets on a streetcar, and assures him that she really is who
she says she is, and how embarrassing it must be for him not to recognize her.
He doesn’t know who she is, but is intrigued. This seems to be one last gasp of
hope for Veronika – perhaps one last person who can save her from herself, and
from Dr. Katz. Robert likes her – they see each, they sleep together, even if
he already has a girlfriend – Henriette (Cornelia Froboess), who is remarkably
understanding about her boyfriend’s new “friend”. Robert is intrigued by
Veronika – and outraged on her behalf. How can someone like Dr. Katz do this,
how can she get away with this? Like the other men in these movies, he seems
blind to the flaws of the woman he has fallen for – allows himself to be sucked
into her spiral, no matter what is costs him.
This is
the only film in the trilogy shot in black-and-white – and it’s a fitting
choice for the material. Many look at the film and see echoes of Billy Wilder’s
Sunset Blvd. (1950) – and it is true that Fassbinder is reaching back to that
kind of style with this film. You see it in the broad outlines – the older,
faded movie star, the younger man she controls, etc. You can also see it when
the pair of them go to Veronika’s house – which resembles a dusty museum – all
the furniture is covered with white sheets, the electricity is off, pieces are
piled up all over. It stands in stark contrast to Dr. Katz’s house – which is
almost blindly white, clinical and sterile.
This is
also the first of the three films to explicitly address the Holocaust. There is
an elderly couple – kindly, grandparent-like – who we see a few times, first
directing Robert to Dr. Katz in the first place, and later allowing Henriette
to take a lamp to replace one of Veronika’s that has gotten lost. They are also
“patients” of Dr. Katz, also near the end of their lives. The man will pull up
his sleeve and show Henriette the numbers tattooed on his arm. There ultimate
end is perhaps the saddest thing in a movie full of sad things.
In the
end, of course, Veronika Voss cannot be saved – doesn’t really want to be
saved. She spends much of the movie willfully deluding herself – her career is
going to turn around again. She loses a part she was never going to get, but
does talk herself into a role playing the starlet’s mother – but she cannot
remember even her couple of lines. Her big moment is at a farewell party, where
Fassbinder concentrates on her face as she sings a sad song. She is doomed by
that point and knows it.
Like the
other films, Veronika Voss is a cynical film – not one where good triumphs over
anything, and even if you make it to the end, nothing good has happened to you.
Here, Robert isn’t destroyed like Maria Braun’s lover was, nor on the path to
destruction like Lola’s lover – but he has grown resigned to corruption –
resigned to the fact that the bad guys win, and there is nothing he can do
about it. Two final shots sum up the end – when he looks through the window at
those who conspired, and got away with, destroying Veronika Voss – or at least
helping her along her self-destructive path, and the final one – as he reads a
newspaper, and the end we knew happened is confirmed – and just keeps right on
reading. More than before, this is how things end – and only sensible thing to
do is to leave it alone. You’ll be destroyed otherwise.
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