#598: FASSBINDER, Rainer Werner: World On A Wire (1973)

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FASSBINDER, Rainer Werner (Germany)
World On A Wire [1973]
Spine #598
Blu-ray


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 Originally made for German television, this recently rediscovered, three-and-a-half-hour labyrinth is a satiric and surreal look at the world as tomorrow from one of cinema's kinkiest geniuses.

212 minutes
Color
Monaural
in German
1:33:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2012
Director/Writers


Based on the novel Simulacron-3 by Daniel F. Galouye.

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Sixteen-page booklet featuring an essay by film critic Ed Halter.

Commentary

None.

Fassbinder’s “World on a Wire”: Looking Ahead to Today

A fifty-minute documentary about the making of the film by Juliane Lorenz.
Interview

With German-film scholar Gerd Gemünden.
Trailer for the 2010 theatrical release

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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