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Fassbinder’s work, however, is something current undergraduates have the deck stacked against them if they want to appreciate properly. Film studies courses nowadays invariably only show either one of two films –”Ali: Fear Eats the Soul” or “The Marriage of Maria Braun” — the only two of his films that, taken in isolation, can be used to inculcate misinterpretations of what he was really about. The former is often distorted into a parable of sentimental liberal humanism, and the latter seems simply to conform to the conventions of the well-made historical re-creation. This is exactly the sort of travesty you’ve railed about in connection to Emily Dickinson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Mapplethorpe and numerous others. I don’t know if you’d appreciate being reminded of one more, but this is one that has piqued me recently.

Malcolm Morton
Toronto

Thank you so much for sending up this alarm about Fassbinder. I am very distressed to hear that his films are being in effect censored to fit into the bromide-filled film studies curriculum. Fassbinder was a cardinal figure in my thinking throughout the 1970s, when I was teaching at my first job at Bennington College. My philosopher friend James Fessenden and I were avid Fassbinder fans. It would be difficult to reconstruct just how daring “The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant” was at its release in 1972 — from the claustrophobic yet baroque set to the bizarre costumes and seething lesbian S/M drama. (In retrospect, it must partly have been Fassbinder’s homage to Wilde’s “Salome.”) I was also very grateful to Fassbinder for recovering Douglas Sirk, whose sensationalistically supercharged Hollywood films I had always loved. But curious gay film fans should probably start with “Fox and His Friends” (1975), where Fassbinder himself plays a gritty piece of working-class rough trade.

I agree with you about “The Egyptian” — it’s a very underrated epic. You may already know this, but the casting of Bella Darvi, and her effect on the doctor, mirrored her effect on the movie itself. When she was cast, the movie had been intended as a vehicle for Marlon Brando who had committed to the picture. That’s why there were many other name stars like Victor Mature (why haven’t you discussed him? He’s a unique image in films also) and big-budget production values. Brando withdrew after hearing of Darvi’s casting, and that crippled the film.

The film seems just fine with Purdom, and I’ve seen it several times since first seeing it as a kid. It’s an epic that seems to stay fresh, and stands up to repeated viewings every couple or few years. Easily better than “Spartacus” (although it was hard to beat the cynical Crassus) or “The Robe” (although Caligula was done as well as well as Robert Graves could have ever visualized).

Al Handa

No, I had not realized until I wrote about “The Egyptian” in Salon that the casting of Darryl Zanuck’s mistress, Bella Darvi, had caused Brando’s flight from the film. And yes, the disorder that Darvi spread in production amazingly replicates the destructiveness of the Babylonian femme fatale whom she plays. There was also a lot of griping at the time about Darvi’s heavy Eastern European accent and how hard she had to work for her lines to be even minimally comprehensible. Darvi’s gotten a bad rap: I think she does a terrific job, and so does Edmund Purdom as her smitten victim.

You confirmed our vision alignment with your wonderful tribute to Daniela Mercury. I have been listening to her for 15 years, since I married my Brazilian wife, Valeria. On our frequent trips to Brazil,Daniela is often the soundtrack (or Ivete Sangalo, who is whipping a quarter-million people into a frenzy at Maracana here or gracefully sharing a stage with Daniela Mercury). My wife, and so many women in Brazil, can bring so much warmth, sex appeal and character to a room that, well, they stand out. My own special carioca has an MS in computer science, a black belt, and has danced in the carnival parades several times. When I go dancing with her, I am like the kid with a fresh driver’s license trying to drive a Ferrari, although I have learned a bit over the years.

I am amazed at the culture in Brazil in many ways beyond the wonderful women. Brazilian teenagers are happy! The angst, rebellion and binging behavior that is (and was for me and my generation) the norm here is mostly nonexistent. A 23-year-old can live at home with his parents and have a warm and respectful relationship going both ways. A 13-year-old girl can wear a tiny bikini and look like a blossoming young woman without being hooted at by drunken guys or sneered at by disapproving women.

John Moore
Boulder, Colo.

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