cobbler,
stick to your last
by Douglas Messerli
Rainer Werner Fassbinder Götter der Pest (Gods
of the Plague) / 1970, USA 1977
Often grouped in a loosely based
trilogy with Love Is Colder Than Death (of
1969), and The American Soldier, of
the same year, Gods of the Plague
begins soon after the earlier film ended, with the small-time crook, Franz
Walsch (this time played by the handsome Harry Baer rather than Fassbinder)
being released from a Munich prison.
His
first call is to his former mistress, Joanna (Hanna Schygulla), now a singer in
a local nightclub, Lola Montes (named in deference to Max Ophüls’ 1955
masterpiece, one of numerous film references sprinkled throughout this movie*).
And for a short period the film focuses on his continued infatuation with her
former lover before Franz moves on, partly in search of his old friend, Gorilla
(Günther Kaufmann, Fassbinder’s reluctant lover for several years), now in
hiding and whom, he soon perceives has killed his brother. A second woman, Magdalena (Ingrid Craven)
briefly takes Franz into her bed, and a third woman, Margarethe (Margarethe von
Trotta) soon appears as another would-be suitor to Franz. Indeed, throughout
this highly theatrical and somewhat slow-moving early part of the film, women
quite literally hang on Franz’s shoulders and arms, undressing him like he were
a play toy. Yet throughout Franz seems almost to be dead, saying little,
responding sexually even less, often simply laying still as he were a
traumatized survivor. He is the kind of figure, as one critic has noted, to
which all the other film’s figures assign whatever desires or possible
relationships they imagine.
The film finally quickens its pace when Franz suddenly encounters
Gorilla on the street and seemingly snaps out of his trance, the two deeply
hugging one another and quickly determining to take a trip into the country to
visit a friend Joe (Micha Cochina). At this point the dark, dreary scenes of
city life quickly disappear as they go “on the road,” so to speak, inviting
Margarethe, at the last moment, to join them. Here, for the first time, a
series of real conversations begin, where Gorilla admits he has killed Franz’s
brother (“It was just business.”). After a series of pauses, Franz asks
Gorilla, “Did you sleep with Joanna while I was gone?” Another long pause
occurs, as if the question has been asked of Margarethe rather than Gorilla.
When Gorilla replies “yes,” Franz responds, “I love you.” Obviously, he could
be saying that to Margarethe, but it is clear that it is Gorilla to whom he is
addressing his remark. At Joe’s country house, the three men once more spring into life,
rough-housing with each other in a manner that is more about grabbing and
holding on to one another than it is about a mock battle it pretends. Using the
tropes of dozens of film noir and crime movies, such as White Heat, Kiss Me Deadly, and
The Killing, Fassbinder reveals the
misogynistic and homoerotic elements of the genre. When the three travelers
return home, we find them all bed together, Franz dreaming aloud about a Greek
paradise where the three might live, like the Jules and Jim trio, hunting, fishing, and drinking out their days.
Throughout Gods of the Plague women
also form quick lesbian-like alliances, with Joanna embracing her rival
Magdalena, and Margarethe briefly establishing a close bond with Joe’s wife.
But these relationships, compared with the long term and far deeper homosexual
bonds between Gorilla, Franz, and Joe, pale and are short-termed. And, in the
end, it is the women who feel betrayed by Franz’s inability to fulfill them,
and it is both Margarethe and Joanna, ultimately, with the help of the
pornographer Carla Aulaulu (Carla Egerer)—a woman with whom Gorilla has been
involved—who, in turn, betray their men.
Johanna and Margarethe both have different reasons for the betrayal: the
first, feeling shut out from Franz’s life takes on the unattractive policeman
(Jan George), and clearly wants revenge, pleading with the policeman to shoot
Franz; the second wants to prevent Franz and Gorilla from robbing a
supermarket, fearing that her lover will be caught.
Even the supermarket manager seems to be a former friend of Franz’s,
suggesting by his open acceptance of the two men into the nearly empty store,
that he may also be under the thrall of the handsome Franz. When Franz and
Gorilla turn on the supermarket friend, the policeman, who has followed them
into the store, takes Johanna’s plea to heart, shooting Franz dead and wounding
the escaping “Gorilla.”
Franz’s last words, “Cobbler, stick to your last,” is strangely
enigmatic. The phrase suggests that one should do one what knows best instead
of taking on a new role. But here, the idiom somewhat loses its significance
since Franz has always been a small-time crook, and is, even now, a film’s end.
Does he mean that he should have remained in the penny-ante world which has
already resulted in his imprisonment? Surely not. Perhaps he speaks that line
not regarding his vocation, but his sexuality. But even here it is unclear
precisely what he means. Should he have stuck to Joanna instead of turning to
other women or, realizing that the women have betrayed him (just as Joanna had
in the previous film). Or does he mean he should have remained with his male
friends such as Gorilla or Bruno from the first of this trilogy? Perhaps he is
simply referring back to the cobbler of the earlier film, Love Is Colder Than Death, who sells Franz and Bruno the weapons
which end in Bruno’s death and Franz’s imprisonment.
As if in answer to that question, the seriously wounded Gorilla seeks
out Carla Aulaulu, forces her to confess and shoots her dead, hinting that now
both sexes have wrought their revenge, transforming the dirty little criminal
figures of Munich night-life into near Shakespearian figures.
*Joanna, herself sings a song much
in the manner of Marlene Dietrich. When seeking out the Gorilla, Franz
discovers his dead brother in an apartment belonging to "Schlondorff.”
Another figure of the New German Cinema, who directed The Tin Drum.
Los Angeles, April, 3, 2013
Reprinted from World Cinema Review (April 2013).
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