30-some feature films. 24 plays. 3 tv miniseries. Many drugs, many relationships. Dead at 37. Rainer Werner Fassbinder was a chaser (in more ways than one), and remains among that rare class of film artists that turned cinema into a verb, into an ongoing process and processing of the world around him. What’s astounding is that his films, while so specific to postwar german society, have a universal resonance that makes them just as worthwhile today.

In talking about his most well-regarded film about the unlikely romance between a moroccan immigrant and an older german woman, Angst essen Seele auf, we untangle the association with Douglas Sirk’s hollywood films, how Fassbinder broke new ground with subjects under-seen in movies, and how immigration and xenophobia remain so fraught in the age of nation-states.

Afterwards (56:00), Zach shares 5 albums from 1974 worth listening to.

Next week: A Woman Under the Influence (1974) by John Cassavetes

UnauthorizedPod.com for more. Hosted by Zachary Domes and J Brooks Young. Intro music by hetchy

If Godard and Truffaut busted down the door for a new generation of french filmmakers, Jean Eustache followed them in and stood in the corner and received little attention. After making a few docs and shorts, he finally made a bid for cinematic immortality with this first-person-epic (longer than Jeanne Dielman!), La Maman et la Putain. It stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, the avatar-du-jour for many autobiographical directors, and in this episode we compare Eustache’s film with another experimental french film featuring Léaud’s antics, Jacques Rivette’s Out 1. Why do these films now reside on the Sight and Sound Top 250? We sort out our very different reactions to the Eustache film, talk about his life and philosophy, and grapple with how alien this caustic ‘70s behavior feels today.

Next week: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974) by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

UnauthorizedPod.com for more. Hosted by Zachary Domes and J Brooks Young. Music by hetchy

George Lucas’s breakout Best Picture nominated film reanimated a time barely a decade past, 1962, before a generation of boys went to Vietnam, before rock and roll went psychedelic, and before baby boomer nostalgia was an entire industrial complex. Less melodramatic and more laid back than the teen films of his youth, American Graffiti was exactly realistic enough, misogynist warts and all, to catch fire at the box office and set the template for the teen hangout genre.

On this episode, we discuss the film’s strengths and weaknesses with the hindsight of today, the consequences of american car culture post-WWII, and the new hollywood savviness of guys like Lucas and Coppola, and what it means to consciously chase mainstream success.

Next week: The Mother and the Whore (1973) by Jean Eustache

UnauthorizedPod.com for more. Hosted by Zachary Domes and J Brooks Young. Music by hetchy