Beware of a Holy Whore

Fassbinder ranked this work as his very best film. A bitterly self-critical portrait of authoritarianism, power, and the "holy whore" of cinema, it was his candid and caustic contribution to the films-about-filmmaking genre, à la Fellini's 8 ½, Truffaut's Day for Night, or Godard's Contempt. Beware of a Holy Whore is set in a hotel somewhere on the Spanish coast, where a German movie crew awaits the arrival of the director (Lou Castel, wearing Fassbinder's trademark leather jacket), the star (Alphaville’s Eddie Constantine, as himself), and the production money. When the director arrives, he finds everything in chaos, and his attempt to impose order leads to violence on the set of a film intended as a denunciation of violence. Inspired by Fassbinder's unhappy experiences shooting Whity the same year (the uncannily prolific director made seven features in 1970!), Beware of a Holy Whore also marked the end (and chronicled the breakup) of Fassbinder's original antiteater (Anti-Theatre) filmmaking collective, with which he had made all his early features. "One of the most devastatingly honest views of filmmakers and filmmaking ever put on screen...Self-indulgent, self-righteous, and self-pitying, it is also funny, provocative, and well made" (Bloomsbury Foreign Film Guide). Colour, 35mm, in German with English subtitles. 103 mins.