Between Formalism and Theatricality: Rereading Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher

This article analyzes Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s film Katzelmacher (1969) in the context of the director’s early theatre work and the influence of the Bavarian 1920s writer Marieluise Fleißer. Focusing on the film’s formalism with the scarcity of the mise-en-scène, the essay argues that scholarship has overlooked Fassbinder’s appropriation of Fleißer’s style. The contribution negotiates the scholarly debate about the film’s anti-racism, arguing that Fassbinder’s performance as the Greek migrant Jorgos, what Katrin Sieg calls “ethnic drag,” undermines the film’s critique of xenophobia. Based on the insight of Frantz Fanon, the article concludes that Katzelmacher excludes the possibility of the migrant’s subjectivity and interiority.