The Cinematheque

New Restoration

“Eight Hours arrives like a gift from the movie gods.”

Ben Sachs, Chicago Reader

Rainer Werner Fassbinder, the late, great German wunderkind, was the very definition of a prolific artist. In a brief but brilliant 13-year career—cut short by his sudden death from a drug overdose in 1982, at age 37—Fassbinder directed more than forty feature-length works for cinema and TV. One of those, Berlin Alexanderplatz, was by itself 15 hours long. In 1970 alone, he made seven features! And Fassbinder’s extensive catalogue, it seems, still has masterpieces to reveal. Cinephiles were agog earlier this decade with the rediscovery and restoration of Fassbinder’s 1973 sci-fi epic World on a Wire, a virtually unknown four-hour telefilm. Now comes another epic surprise: Eight Hours Don’t Make a Day, an eight-hour, five-part miniseries originally broadcast on West German television in 1972–73, and rarely seen since. (It has never before been released in North America.) Made with members of Fassbinder’s regular troupe of actors, including Gottfried John, Hanna Schygulla, Irm Hermann, and Kurt Raab, Eight Days is an ambitious, stylish melodrama of working-class family life. Its sprawling tale concerns a young toolmaker (John); the woman he loves (Schygulla); his eccentric family (including Fassbinder first-timer Luise Ullrich, marvellous, as the grandmother); and the fellow workers he attempts to organize. The series tackles the director’s pet themes—social class, power dynamics, oppression, our desperate desire for love—but (yet another surprise!) does so with a feel-good warmth, optimism, and humour not usually associated with his work. This new restoration, made possible by the Fassbinder Foundation and New York’s Museum of Modern Art, premiered at Berlin in 2017.

“A neglected masterpiece … A complete surprise … A work that makes Fassbinder look more inventive than just about any filmmaker working today.” Ben Kenigsberg, New York Times

“The discovery of a major work, on a par with the director’s greatest.” Nick Pinkerton, Sight and Sound

“A thrilling new peak in Fassbinder’s towering career … Multifaceted, provocative, and meaningful.” Aliza Ma, Film Comment

“A vital missing link in a brilliant artist’s oeuvre … Eight Hours debuts in America at an imperiled time to remind audiences what real political filmmaking is.” Chuck Bowen, Slant Magazine

Part I: Jochen and Marion (103 min.) Part II: Oma and Gregor (101 min.) Part III: Franz and Ernst (93 min.) Part IV: Harald and Monika (91 min.) Part V: Irmgard and Rolf (90 min.)