Rainer Werner Fassbinder, already the director of almost twenty films by the age of twenty-nine, paid homage to his cinematic hero, Douglas Sirk, with this updated version of Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows. Lonely widow Emmi Kurowski (Brigitte Mira) meets Arab worker Ali (El Hedi ben Salem) in a bar during a rainstorm. They fall in love––to their own surprise––and to the shock of family, colleagues, and drinking buddies. In Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen seele auf), Fassbinder expertly uses the emotional power of the melodrama to underscore the racial tensions threatening German culture.
Cast
| Emmi Kurowski | Brigitte Mira |
| Ali | El Hedi ben Salem |
| Barbara | Barbara Valentin |
| Krista | Irm Hermann |
| Mrs. Kargus | Elma Karlowa |
| Mrs. Ellis | Anita Bucher |
| Paula | Gusti Kreissl |
| Mrs. Angermeyer | Doris Mattes |
| Hedwig | Margit Symo |
Credits
| Director | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Screenplay | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Producer | Rainer Werner Fassbinder |
| Cinematography | Jürgen Jürges |
| Assistant cameraman | Thomas Schwan |
| Assistant director | Rainer Langhans |
| Editing | Thea Eymèsz |
| Sound | Fritz Müller-Scherz |
| Makeup | Helge Kempke |
| Still photographer | Peter Gauhe |
| Lighting | Ekkehard Heinrich |
| Production manager | Christian Hohoff |
SPECIAL EDITION DOUBLE-DISC SET:
- New high-definition digital transfer
- Video introduction by director Todd Haynes (Far From Heaven, Velvet Goldmine, Safe)
- Interviews with actress Brigitte Mira and editor Thea Eymèsz
- Short film Angst isst Seele auf (2002)
- Signs of Vigourous Life: New German Cinema, a 1976 BBC television program
- Excerpt from The American Soldier starring Margarethe von Trotta
- Original theatrical trailer
- New and improved English subtitle translation
- Optimal image quality: RSDL dual-layer edition
by Chris Fujiwara
Jun 23, 2003
The origin of Ali: Fear Eats The Soul (1974), a breakthrough in Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s career and one of the great films of the New German Cinema, can be traced to two earlier films. In Fassbinder’s The American Soldier (1970), a hotel chambermaid (played by Margarethe von Trotta...
by Michael Töteberg
Jun 23, 2003
The following text is from Michael Töteberg’s presentation of a collection of Fassbinder screenplays (The Merchant of Four Seasons, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, Fontane Effi Briest), which were published in Germany as Fassbinders Filme, Band 3 (Fassbinder’s Films, Vol. 3) by...
