Beware of a Holy Whore

In Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s brazen depiction of the alternating currents of lethargy and mayhem inherent in moviemaking, a film crew—played by, and not so loosely based on, his own frequent collaborators—deals with an aloof star (Eddie Constantine), an abusive director (Lou Castel), and a financially troubled production. Inspired by the hellish process of making Whity earlier the same year, this is a vicious look at behind-the-scenes dysfunction.

Germany
1970
104 minutes
Color
1.33:1
German

Available In

Collector's Set

Early Fassbinder

DVD Box Set

5 Discs

$55.96

Cast & Credits

Cast

Lou Castel: Jeff
Eddie Constantine: Himself
Marquard Bohm: Ricky
Hanna Schygulla: Hanna
Rainer Werner Fassbinder: Sascha
Margarethe von Trotta: Babs
Hannes Fuchs: David
Marcella Michelangeli: Margret
Karl Scheydt: Manfred
Ulli Lommel: Korbinian
Kurt Raab: Fred
Monika Teuber: Billie
Katrin Schaake: Script girl
Magdalena Montezuma: Irm

Credits

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Screenplay: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Cinematography: Michael Ballhaus
Art direction: Kurt Raab
Editor: Rainer Werner Fassbinder (as Franz Walsch)
Editor: Thea Eymèsz
Music: Peer Raben

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Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Writer, Actor, Director

Rainer Werner Fassbinder made an astonishing forty-four movies—theatrical features, television movies and miniseries, and shorts among them—in a career that spanned a mere sixteen years, ending with his death at thirty-seven in 1982. He is perhaps remembered best for his intense and exquisitely shabby social melodramas (Ali: Fear Eats the Soul)—heavily influenced by Hollywood films, especially the female-driven tearjerkers of Douglas Sirk, and featuring misfit characters that often reflected his own fluid sexuality and self-destructive tendencies. But his body of work runs the gamut from epic period pieces (Berlin Alexanderplatz, the BRD Trilogy) to dystopic science fiction (World on a Wire) as well. One particular fascination of Fassbinder’s was the way the ghosts of the past, specifically those of World War II, haunted contemporary German life—an interest that wedded him to many of the other artists of the New German Cinema movement, which began in the late 1960s.