Angst essen Seele auf

With this film Fassbinder achieved a major milestone in his career and made one of the great works of the New German Cinema. The origin can be traced to two films. In Fassbinder’s own THE AMERICAN SOLDIER (1970), a hotel chambermaid recounts the story of Emmi, a cleaning woman who met Ali, a Turkish immigrant worker, in a bar, married him, and was later found strangled, the imprint of the letter A from a signet ring on her throat. Shortly after making THE AMERICAN SOLDIER, Fassbinder encountered the Hollywood melodramas of Douglas Sirk and found proof that it was possible to make beautiful, personal films that registered with the public. In adapting the story of ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Fassbinder simplifies it, makes its contrasts more extreme, turns it away from melodrama and toward fable, and intensifies its motive forces: the love of the couple and the oppression acting on them. (Chris Fujiwara)