Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1973 • Germany
Starring Klaus Löwitsch, Barbara Valentin, Mascha Rabben
WORLD ON A WIRE is a gloriously paranoid, boundlessly inventive take on the future from German wunderkind Rainer Werner Fassbinder. With dashes of Stanley Kubrick, Kurt Vonnegut, and Philip K. Dick, Fassbinder tells the noir-spiked tale of reluctant hero Fred Stiller (Klaus Löwitsch), a cybernetics engineer who uncovers a massive corporate conspiracy. At risk? (Virtual) reality as we know it. Originally made for German television, this recently rediscovered, three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the world of tomorrow from one of cinema’s kinkiest geniuses.
This interview with Rainer Werner Fassbinder scholar Gerd Gemünden was recorded in 2011.
Directed by Juliane Lorenz, this 2010 documentary about the making of WORLD ON A WIRE features interviews with cinematographer Michael Ballhaus, coscreenwriter Fritz Müller-Scherz, and actor Karl-Heinz Vosgerau.
