Kowalski

Rainer Werner Fassbinder on being attacked by the left wing for his movies: "Interviewer: Some factions of the left have also attacked your films quite vehemently. Fassbinder: No one who thinks according to an ideology that comes from outside himself can like my films. I make films for people that don't think in terms of pre-formulated doctrine; the others go to see my films and they must hate me because they understand. Interviewer: "Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven" (1975), in particular, caused quite a stir among the left: its screening at the Forum during the 1975 Berlin Film Festival was disrupted by protests. You were very sarcastic towards the communist couple in the film: the ostentatiously expensive furniture. . . Fassbinder: That's not sarcasm, that's realism. What's important is not the fact that they have a color TV or whatever but that they're ashamed of having it. They need to justify their possessions by saying that the wife inherited it. I don't think that the revolution necessitates poverty." (Fassbinder's interview with Norbert Sparrow, Cinéaste, 1977)