Love Is Colder Than Death (film)

Infobox Film
name =Love Is Colder Than Death


image_size =
caption =poster
director =Rainer Werner Fassbinder
producer =Peer Raben,
Thomas Schamoni
writer =Rainer Werner Fassbinder
narrator =
starring =Rainer Werner Fassbinder,
Ulli Lommel,
Hanna Schygulla,
Ingrid Caven
music = Holger Münzer,
Peer Raben
cinematography =
editing =
distributor =
released =1969
runtime =88 min
country =
language =
budget =DEM 95,000
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id =0064588

"Love is Colder than Death" (German: " _de. Liebe — kälter als der Tod") is a 1969 German film directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It is his first feature film. It stars Fassbinder himself as a petty hood, Franz, and Ulli Lommel as his friend who has been ordered to kill Franz by a crime syndicate. The cinematographer Dietrich Lohmann and the cast as an ensemble won an award at the German Film Awards in 1970.

The reception was generally negative, and the film was even booed at the 1969 Berlin Film Festival. [http://www.cinematheque.bc.ca/archives/fassbind.html] Today, it is seen as a fine example of Fassbinder's early style, with a heavy nouvelle vague influence.

Trivia

* Fassbinder's character's name in the film, Franz Biberkopf, is the same as that of the main character in Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz. Fassbinder included many references to this work through his entire filmography and eventually adapted a 15½ hour miniseries of it. Franz Biberkopf is also the name of the main character (also played by Fassbinder) in "Fox and His Friends".
* The film is dedicated to "Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jean-Marie Straub, Linio and Cuncho." The last two are characters in Damiano Damiani's 1966 film "Quien sabe?"

External links

* [http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2007/09/923-zelig-love-is-colder-than-death.html#i2 Review by Ed Howard at Only The Cinema]