cobbler, stick to your last
His first call is to his former mistress, Joanna (Hanna Schygulla), now a singer in a local nightclub, Lola Montes (named in deference to Max Ophüls’ 1955 masterpiece, one of numerous film references sprinkled throughout this movie*). And for a short period the film focuses on his continued infatuation with her former lover before Franz moves on, partly in search of his old friend, Gorilla (Günther Kaufmann, Fassbinder’s reluctant lover for several years), now in hiding and whom, he soon perceives has killed his brother. A second woman, Magdalena (Ingrid Cravven) briefly takes Franz into her bed, and a third woman, Margarethe (Margarethe von Trotta) soon appears as another would-be suitor to Franz. Indeed throughout this highly theatrical and somewhat slow-moving early part of the film, women quite literally hang on Franz’s shoulders and arms, undressing him like he were a play toy. Yet throughout Franz seems almost to be dead, saying little, responding sexually even less, often simply laying still as he were a traumatized survivor. He is the kind of figure, as one critic has noted, to which all the other film’s figures assign whatever desires or possible relationships they imagine.
At Joe’s country house, the three men
once more spring into life, rough-housing with each other in a manner that is more about
grabbing and holding on to one another than it is about a mock battle it
pretends. Using the tropes of dozens of film noir and crime movies, such as White Heat, Kiss Me Deadly, and The
Killing, Fassbinder reveals the misogynistic and homoerotic elements of the
genre. When the three travelers return home, we find them all bed together,
Franz dreaming aloud about a Greek paradise where the three might live, like
the Jules and Jim trio, hunting,
fishing, and drinking out their days together.
Throughout Gods of the Plague women also form quick lesbian-like alliances,
with Joanna embracing her rival Magdalena, and Margarethe briefly establishing
a close bond with Joe’s wife. But these relationships, compared with the long
term and far deeper homosexual bonds between Gorilla, Franz, and Joe, pale and
are short-termed. And, in the end, it is the women who feel betrayed by Franz’s
inability to fulfill them, and it is both Margarethe and Joanna, ultimately,
with the help of the pornographer Carla Aulaulu (Carla Egerer)—a woman with
whom Gorilla has been involved—who, in turn, betray their men.
Johanna and Margarethe both have
different reasons for the betrayal: the first, feeling shut out from Franz’s
life takes on the unattractive policeman (Jan George), and clearly wants
revenge, pleading with the policeman to shoot Franz; the second wants to
prevent Franz and Gorilla from robbing a supermarket, fearing that her lover
will be caught.
Franz’s last words, “Cobbler, stick to
your last,” is strangely enigmatic. The phrase suggests that one should do one
what knows best instead of taking on a new role. But here, the idiom somewhat
loses its significance since Franz has always been a small-time crook, and is,
even now, a film’s end. Does he mean that he should have remained in the penny-ante
world which has already resulted in his imprisonment? Surely not. Perhaps he
speaks that line not regarding his vocation, but his sexuality. But even here
it is unclear precisely what he means. Should he have stuck to Joanna instead
of turning to other women or, realizing that the women have betrayed him (just
as Joanna had in the previous film). Or does he mean he should have remained with
his male friends such as Gorilla or Bruno from the first of this trilogy?
Perhaps he is simply referring back to the cobbler of the earlier film, Love Is Colder Than Death, who sells
Franz and Bruno the weapons which end in Bruno’s death and Franz’s
imprisonment.
As if in answer to that question, the
seriously wounded Gorilla seeks out Carla Aulaulu, forces her to confess and
shoots her dead, hinting that now both sexes have wrought their revenge, transforming
the dirty little criminal figures of Munich night-life into near Shakespearian
figures.
Los Angeles, April 21, 2013
*Joanna,
herself sings a song much in the manner of Marlene Dietrich. When seeking out
the Gorilla, Franz discovers his dead brother in an apartment belonging to "Schlondorff.”
Another figure of the New German Cinema, who directed The Tin Drum.
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