Starring: Wim Wenders, Hanna Schygulla, Ulli Lommel, Rainer Werner Fassbinder Script: Robert Fischer Ulli Lommel Original Title: Fassbinder in Hollywood Running Time: 1:00 Country: Germany Year: 2002 Official Site: Fassbinder in Hollywood

It is not a secret that the most influential German—and European—filmmakers have always been very wary of Hollywood, assimilating Tinseltown to a big and greedy ogre who sucks the artistic marrow out of filmmakers, chews them up to finally give life to some manufactured mechanical baby. Except for Fritz Lang (Metropolis), who was accused of selling out at some point, directors such as Werner Herzog (Nosferatu the Vampyre, Ten minutes older: The Trumpet) and Wim Wenders (Million Dollar Hotel, Buena Vista Social Club) made sure to keep their identity as European auteurs. Not surprisingly, Werner Fassbinder hated a lot of things Hollywood stands for.

Co-written by actor/director Ulli Lommel, a close friend of Fassbinder's, and directed by Robert Fischer (who oversees the DVD production of Fassbinder's films for the Criterion collection) the documentary focuses on the relationship between Hollywood—and the US to an extent—and the filmmaker. While the latter grew up, feeding his cinematographic imagination with the works of Douglas Sirk and Sam Fuller, his contemporary American aspirations would come closer—through the intermediary of Lommel—to the New York scene, especially the factory and Warhol, than they ever would have been to Los Angeles.

The 60 minute look at this period of Fassbinder's life is intertwined with interviews with Lommel, iconic actress Hanna Schygulla and Wim Wenders as well as a few sequences from his films. It's probably Wenders who gives the most heartfelt testimony, making the director's absence felt in today's cinema. We learn a few amusing anecdotes about the colorful figure but also get a glimpse at his attempt to make a film with big Hollywood stars, just before his unexpected death.

Fassbinder in Hollywood is in no way, by its specific theme, an exhaustive and complete look at the filmmaker's life, even being cannibalized by the omnipresent Lommel (who often takes center stage—just check out the poster). It is an informative but anecdotal piece, mostly of interest to fans and cinephiles, which will probably find its right place as an extra on some DVD. Did I hear anybody say "Criterion"?