From Censors to Sex Cinemas: Exploiting Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Wildwechsel

This article is the first in-depth study of Wildwechsel, one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s least-known films. Based on a stage play by Franz Xaver Kroetz, the film, which originally aired on television, became controversial owing to its sexual explicitness. Following a lawsuit initiated by Kroetz, the film underwent a series of cuts, and Kroetz acquired the rights to it. He granted Hanns Eckelkamp’s Atlas Film permission to release it in sex cinemas in the late 1970s, after which it virtually disappeared. Although critics largely rebuked the film, this article argues that the turbulent history of the film supports its critique of the perpetuation of patriarchal violence and exploitation after fascism, a critique that runs through Fassbinder’s oeuvre.