Fox and His Friends (1975)

Fox and His Friends (1975) (Fustrecht der Freiheit)
Director Ranier Werner Fassbinder
Ranier Werner Fassbinder and Christian Hohoff
1975/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel
One of 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Di\

Max: [referring to Franz] He’s not the sort of guy whom money makes rich.

Fassbinder give us a savage critique of gay culture, materialism, and class division.

Franz Biberkopf (Fassbinder) works at a carnival as a talking fox head during a girlie show. He’s a simple working class guy who buys a 5 mark lottery ticket each week, usually by turning tricks.  One week he is short of money and picks up the elegant Max (Karl-Heinz Böhm – Peeping Tom (1960)). Max refuses to front the money and Franz ends up swindling it from a gay florist.

A month later Max invites Franz to a party with his cultivated gay friends.  Franz is immediately attracted to the snobby Eugen Thiess (Peter Chatel), who won’t give Franz the time of day until he finds out Franz has won 500,000 DM in the lottery.  The two eventually move in together in a ritzy apartment and Franz gets a job at Eugen’s father’s factory in exchange for a large loan to the business.  Even then Eugen is constantly criticizing Franz’s lack of manners, hygiene and lowly origins.  Everybody lives the high life until the money runs out.  There is one brief scene of non-sexualized full-frontal nudity.

This is the old old story set in a modern gay milieu.  Fassbinder always makes visually striking movies.  I prefer the more melodramatic ones but this is quite OK.

No sub-titled trailer so an analysis with numerous clips