Querelle (Fassbinder, 1982) uncut

[Lino]

Fnac in Spain has started to sell an exclusive line of DVDs not available anywhere on that country. One of them is Fassbinder's last and much maligned opus (though I would have to disagree on that one...).

The thing is, this is apparently a 2xDVD in which the second disc contains the uncut version of this film...!

La película cuenta la historia del marinero Querelle, De su poder de fascinación y de seducción sobre las personas con las que se cruza. Una belleza y una personalidad a las que nadie puede resistirse, encarna a la bella y la bestia en uno; tan bello, apuesto y seductor como egocéntrico, ladrón y asesino

Contenido del DVD 1
Biografías
Ficha técnica y artística
Galería de fotos

Contenido del DVD 2
Querelle (versión íntegra)

I was not aware that this even existed - can anyone comment on this one? And what would the major differences be? Still, this is one to further investigate as in my opinion this is one film that really needs a serious reassessment from the part of the film community in general.

[cafeman]

In Spain, when a movie isn`t dubbed, it`s called version integra, so that would be my guess.

[Dadapass]

Did the R1 Columbia/Tri-Star DVD of Querelle go out of print? It is going for up the $50 new at Amazon Marketplace.

[flashboy]

Not many knows this, but there is a longer version of Querelle, but it was never released because Warner didn't thought the film wouldn't do so well in the cinemas in the US if it would be to long. The film where shorten about 40 minutes and Fassbinder where paid about 5000 USD for the extra work, this where done just before his death. This version where never released official and when I where in contact with Lorenz for about four or five years ago, she mentioned that she would very much like to do a directors cut of Querelle but had some problems with the copyright. She also told me that she had an VHS with the longer version, but it was an dubbed version in german. But since then, not much has happened when it comes to Querelle, but there has been a release of Berlin-Alexanderplatz and World on Wire. I don't think that Fnac has released the longer version of Querelle. It could have been an interesting release if the documentery Der Bauer von Babylon - Rainer Werner Fassbinder dreht Querelle where included, directed by one of Querelles producer Dieter Schidor and includes Fassbinders last Interviews, made just some hours before his death.

[Stefan Andersson]

Very interesting info, flashboy. I´m sure Juliane Lorenz would still like to release the longer version. If Sony or WB has/had US rights they might be interested in co-financing a restoration. A long shot, but worth mentioning.

[rohmerin]

No, be careful.

Versión íntegra means "uncut", in 99% of cases it reffers to the censorship under Franco regime with alterations and cuts not only in the running time, but most important, in the dialogues, in the dubbing.

Versión original means not dubbed. V.O
V.O.S.E means Original soundtrack with Spanish subtitles

I think even after Franco's death Querelle was too fag for our machos country, so the distribuitore cutted it. Let me search for more information.
I swear It was re-released in Madrid in 2001, so I imagine the uncut version means that includes the cuts of the 80's first release.

Edit: La version integra cuenta con unos 5 min. y medio mas de metraje.
Integra 103 minutes.
Cut and dubbed 97 min.

[Stefan Andersson]

An interview with Juliane Lorenz can be found here. At the end she says both Despair and Querelle were cut down as per distributors´ wishes. Her wish to restore the films is mentioned briefly. She thinks they work better when longer.

A work cut of Despair, nearly three hours long, is mentioned here.

[j99]

It could have been an interesting release if the documentery Der Bauer von Babylon - Rainer Werner Fassbinder dreht Querelle was included, directed by one of Querelle's producer's Dieter Schidor, and includes Fassbinders last Interviews, made just some hours before his death.

I remember seeing this documentary on Channel 4 (UK) around the time of the film's release, and always hoped it would eventually surface on a special edition DVD, but all that's been available, in the UK, is the basic Second Sight version.

Has Despair ever made it on to DVD?

[knives]

Has Despair ever made it on to DVD?

It will soon.

[j99]

It looks like a basic version. Anyone heard of Olive Films? At least it is being made available. I'll have to check reviews for quality, but it won't be any worse than my secondhand VHS copy.

[AlexHansen]

Anyone heard of Olive Films?

Olive Films

[j99]

Olive Films

Thanks for the link.

[Blast]

Ah, yes, and the word of Juliane Lorenz on a film that she has publicly trashed for decades (with homophobic rants, no less) should totally be taken seriously.

This woman has made it clear that she hates this film, as she does the very gayness of Fassbinder. We should all consider ourselves lucky that she doesn't have access to it.

Are the missing scenes in the script in the Film Book? I don't remember, but possibly? It's been more than awhile since I've read it. I'll have a look when I'm next in my office.

[nolanoe]

Lorenz trashed it? News to me...

It seems like Gaumont is about to re-release a BD of this, but the only source I found for this was a remark over in the Criterion-rumors-thread. Hm.

[Peacock]

It seems like Gaumont is about to re-release a BD of this, but the only source I found for this was a remark over in the Criterion-rumors-thread. Hm.

Here

[jorencain]

Ah, yes, and the word of Juliane Lorenz on a film that she has publicly trashed for decades (with homophobic rants, no less) should totally be taken seriously.

This woman has made it clear that she hates this film, as she does the very gayness of Fassbinder. We should all consider ourselves lucky that she doesn't have access to it.

Lorenz doesn't seem to hate the film in this 2010 interview (scroll down for interview):

TNC: Did Fassbinder ever get to see the finished version of “Querelle”?
JL: We did a final cut, but he didn’t see the sound mixed version. I did that together with the mixing department. It was a good film when we offered the finished two and a half hour cut to the producers. But we had to cut it down by thirty more minutes from that. I don’t have rights to that film, so unfortunately I don’t have the power to do the director’s cut, even though I have the only tape of the original two and a half hour version. The heir to the rights of the film, Mr. Gundram Göring is not a wise man and the version that we wanted to release never happened as he didn’t included me in any of the DVD editions… I wish this guy was a cineaste and more respectful to the directors vision, but he is not. Since the beginning when I started to do the foundation I tried to get in contact with him, but he does not get it that I am the only one who knows how the film originally was intended to be. But it was a horrible situation after Rainer’s death because the producers wanted to change the film and I fought so much, even just for the version we have today. The version that’s out, is the one we cut down to two hours. Even Gaumont, who has the French rights never called me. And I am not sure if the new Sony version included the outtakes, maybe as a supplement. I am very sad about that situation, but there have been so many other problems. Rainer wanted to have a different score, an oratorio by Peer Raben, which he didn’t get. Two days before Rainer died we listened to the music Peer Raben had made and Rainier was out of his mind because it was not the music that he asked for. “I didn’t want to make a gay opera” he said. For him it was not a film about homosexuality, it was a film about love and about myths and human rituals … something totally different. He asked me not to use most of the music so that’s what I did.

[nolanoe]

Two days before Rainer died we listened to the music Peer Raben had made and Rainier was out of his mind because it was not the music that he asked for. “I didn’t want to make a gay opera” he said. For him it was not a film about homosexuality, it was a film about love and about myths and human rituals … something totally different. He asked me not to use most of the music so that’s what I did.

Oh wow!!!

To repeat so may others before me. Julian is stark raving mad.

It is nothing BUT a film about homosexuality. In all our permutations, stylistic, oneiric, sensual, mythic. The enitre fucking production design is arranged around dicks and dick heads. And the color purple.

She is a madwoman.

Sorry David, but that is not true. Proof? I have here one of the last interviews Fassbinder ever gave, shortly before his death (it says 9th June 1982), and asked if the film is about homosexuality, he says "Homosexuality is no theme (Thema) in Querelle. The theme is the identity of an individual, and how he achieves it."and in another one I once read, he said "The only homosexual character is Franco Nero's, the captain."

I think it is true also considering that DESPAIR was made in a longer cut (as acknowledged by cinematographer Ballhaus) and cut down to a film which brought "tears into (Ballhaus') eyes".

[nolanoe]

Wow, some interesting thoughts, what to say about that...

First of all, I am not gay, so I can't really speak as somebody who's in on the issue, but I can surely tell that "Born this Way" is certainly neither my aesthetical or political thing. I think the problem that you describe has less to do with "like the heterosexuals" than a stance of positioning (yet, as can be observed from the 40s on, hipster culture has emulated gay culture ever since it became a sub-culture in terms of style and aesthetics).

In this respect... Hmm... I know what you mean about Querelle, but then one has to ask what homosexuality is. Is it sleeping with another man or loving another man? Is it identifying with homosexuality or is it identifying with yourself? If we take Fassbinder's word at face value, maybe the work was actually not meant as an observation of homosexuality, but what Fassbinder perceived to be the identity crisis of those drawn to men at one point in their lives or another (after all Querelle himself says he isn't gay and only has sex with men because he likes the "felling" of it, if I recall).

Either way, I think what we can agree on, one way or another, is that there was more filmed than was shown in the done film. The question is if Lorenz cut the film and the producers handed in a sheet that it was meant to be as long as it is now without Fassbinder caring, or if he actually saw it "finished" as a long cut, and only cut it on the prod's behalf, as Lorenz claims. I guess the truth is probably in-between, and ends up near to Eyes Wide Shut (a film released in a slightly rougher cut than what it might have been).

[nolanoe]

The Blu-Ray is out for a while (can't believe this wasn't touched upon??), so...

It's great. The look of the film is MILES better than that horrible, horrible DVD.

Reading some things Lorenz has written... I personally have to say that I am on her side of things. Many remarks are strikingly personal, but Fassbinder was well known for keeping people at arm's length, with many accounts of him openly discrediting others. Her statements are the one closest to the source, and with the mess around Despair, I might as well believe that a longer cut was finished.

[twicebilled]

The Blu-Ray is out for a while (can't believe this wasn't touched upon??), so...

It's great. The look of the film is MILES better than that horrible, horrible DVD.

Not only is it a revelation that we have such a nice version of the film, its criminal that it gets little discussion. This is one of Fassbinders strongest works in my opinion, I would love the chance to see the full cut someday but for now I will gladly hold onto my Gaumont release.

[j99]

Are there any extras on the bluray? I notice it's getting a region 2 release in September, and I'm hoping the Channel 4 documentary will be included, although it's probably wishful thinking.

[twicebilled]

Are there any extras on the bluray? I notice it's getting a region 2 release in September, and I'm hoping the Channel 4 documentary will be included, although it's probably wishful thinking.

Présentation du film par Volker Schlöndorff (6')
"Le crépuscule des corps : Fassbinder cherche Querelle" : documentaire (34')
Entretien avec Franco Nero (18')
Bande-annonce

[j99]

Présentation du film par Volker Schlöndorff (6')
"Le crépuscule des corps : Fassbinder cherche Querelle" : documentaire (34')
Entretien avec Franco Nero (18')
Bande-annonce

Thanks for the info.

[jsteffe]

Nola, never trust the author, trust the work. My eyes tell me screamingly it is a movie about nothing but homosexual desire and frustration. Just like the Genet. And one of the layers of visual commentary it provides is also a sardonic representation of that prototypical gay "Macho/SM/Leather bar/clone" culture which had become ubiquitous by the late 70s early 80s.
[...]
Rainer's pronouncements towards the end of his life are all mischievous firecrackers he left to blow up in people's faces, like the garbage even Ingrid Carven used to spout claiming Rainer was "really heterosexual".

I don't buy revisionism.

You are 100% right on this one. I finally received the French Blu-ray, after not having seen the film for twenty years. (Very nice to rediscover it on Blu-ray!) Everything about it, from Genet's story to the cast, production design and costumes, is soaked through with a gay sensibility and perspective. I don't think I'm taking much of a leap to call this is the "gayest" European art film ever made. It could have been directed by Joe Gage or Tom of Finland! Any protestations otherwise, particularly by people who knew Fassbinder, can be dismissed out of hand as either dissimulation or deeply internalized denial.

I also think you're also on the money about its "sardonic representation of that prototypical gay 'Macho/SM/Leather bar/clone' culture," especially in the context of when the film was made.

Also... the film is dedicated to El Hedi ben Salem!

[nolanoe]

I think you guys give Fassbinder a bit little credit in terms of how schizophrenic his behavior often was (as schizophrenic as the characters in Querelle, actually).
So yeah, I can imagine him go one way and then another. One day, he wants to make a film, the next he doesn't show up. So maybe one day he wanted to make "an observation on malehood and power struggles", the next day "europe's gayest film". Who knows?