Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven
Encyclopedia
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven is a 1975
German
film
written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
. It stars Brigitte Mira
, Ingrid Caven
, Karlheinz Böhm
and Margit Carstensen
. The film was shot over 20 days in February - March 1975 in Frankfurt am Main.
woman lives in Frankfurt
with her son and daughter-in-law. While she is doing outreach work assembling electric plugs, Frau Küsters learns that her husband Hermann (a tire
-factory worker for twenty years) has killed his supervisor and then committed suicide. It later becomes apparent that Mr. Küsters had become temporarily insane after hearing layoff announcements.
A group of reporters take advantage of the grieving Mother Küsters to sensationalize the deaths. Finding no solace from her son Ernst (Meier), daughter-in-law Helene (Irm Hermann
), who promptly go on holiday, or daughter (Caven
), Küsters turns to Karl and Marianne Thälmann (Böhm
and Carstensen
), two members of what turns out to be the German Communist Party
(DKP). They introduce themselves at Hermann's funeral, and invite her to their home, which Marianne had inherited.
The Communists see Küsters' husband as a 'revolutionary' and a misguided victim of capitalism
, but she is initially unpersuaded; her husband saw communists as troublemakers. Her daughter Corinna advises her mother to have nothing to do with them, and points out the differing conditions enjoyed by the authorities and the people in the East. An article on the tragedy by Niemeyer (Gottfried John), a photojournalist who had earlier shown a particular interest in the family, appears in a magazine. Emma finds the article objectionable, but her daughter, who has embarked on an affair with Niemeyer, defends him on 'earning a living' grounds. At the factory, Emma Küsters finds that the company pension scheme will not apply in her case; the workers' council
and the company board are at one on the issue. Her daughter leaves, and Ernst and Helene, newly returned from holiday, announce they are to set up home on their own. Helene, expecting a child, does not get along with her sister-in-law.
Emma Küsters now joins the Communist Party, having found Karl's newspaper article more sympathetic, but after Küsters speaks at her first DKP political gathering she meets a young male paper seller who claims to really have her interests at heart in clearing her husband's name. He gives her his contact details. She quickly grows impatient with the communist's passive tactics; they have to campaign in the forthcoming elections Karl explains. She connects with a small group of anarchists
, who though even smaller in number than the communists, claim to have more spirit.
There are two very different endings to the film:
Fassbinder's film criticizes the blood-thirst of the 1970s German media
in a similar manner to The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
(directed by Volker Schlöndorff
and Margarethe von Trotta). However, Fassbinder's film goes further by criticizing the overwhelming selfishness present in contemporary society. Nearly everyone who Mother Küsters encounters is self-serving and unconcerned with comforting her. Fassbinder also clearly criticizes the small German Communist Party's
moderation and "armchair activism
."
1975 in film
The year 1975 in film involved some significant events, with Steven Spielberg's thriller Jaws topping the box office.-Events:*March 26 - The film version of The Who's Tommy premieres in London....
German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
. It stars Brigitte Mira
Brigitte Mira
Brigitte Mira was a German actress. She worked in both theater and film, often with Rainer Werner Fassbinder....
, Ingrid Caven
Ingrid Caven
Ingrid Caven is a German film actress and singer. Her younger sister Trudeliese Schmidt was an opera singer and also an actress.Caven has appeared in over 50 films since her film debut in 1969 in the short film...
, Karlheinz Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...
and Margit Carstensen
Margit Carstensen
Margit Carstensen is a German theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.-Theater career:...
. The film was shot over 20 days in February - March 1975 in Frankfurt am Main.
Synopsis
Emma Küsters (Mira), a working-classWorking class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
woman lives in Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
with her son and daughter-in-law. While she is doing outreach work assembling electric plugs, Frau Küsters learns that her husband Hermann (a tire
Tire
A tire or tyre is a ring-shaped covering that fits around a wheel rim to protect it and enable better vehicle performance by providing a flexible cushion that absorbs shock while keeping the wheel in close contact with the ground...
-factory worker for twenty years) has killed his supervisor and then committed suicide. It later becomes apparent that Mr. Küsters had become temporarily insane after hearing layoff announcements.
A group of reporters take advantage of the grieving Mother Küsters to sensationalize the deaths. Finding no solace from her son Ernst (Meier), daughter-in-law Helene (Irm Hermann
Irm Hermann
-Biography:Hermann became a publishing clerk after finishing school and worked as a secretary for ADAC when she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1966, who convinced her to quit her job to work with him, despite her lack of formal training as an actor...
), who promptly go on holiday, or daughter (Caven
Ingrid Caven
Ingrid Caven is a German film actress and singer. Her younger sister Trudeliese Schmidt was an opera singer and also an actress.Caven has appeared in over 50 films since her film debut in 1969 in the short film...
), Küsters turns to Karl and Marianne Thälmann (Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm
Karlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...
and Carstensen
Margit Carstensen
Margit Carstensen is a German theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.-Theater career:...
), two members of what turns out to be the German Communist Party
German Communist Party
The German Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist party in Germany.-History:The DKP was formed in West Germany in 1968, in order to fill the place of the Communist Party of Germany , which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956...
(DKP). They introduce themselves at Hermann's funeral, and invite her to their home, which Marianne had inherited.
The Communists see Küsters' husband as a 'revolutionary' and a misguided victim of capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
, but she is initially unpersuaded; her husband saw communists as troublemakers. Her daughter Corinna advises her mother to have nothing to do with them, and points out the differing conditions enjoyed by the authorities and the people in the East. An article on the tragedy by Niemeyer (Gottfried John), a photojournalist who had earlier shown a particular interest in the family, appears in a magazine. Emma finds the article objectionable, but her daughter, who has embarked on an affair with Niemeyer, defends him on 'earning a living' grounds. At the factory, Emma Küsters finds that the company pension scheme will not apply in her case; the workers' council
Works council
A works council is a "shop-floor" organization representing workers, which functions as local/firm-level complement to national labour negotiations...
and the company board are at one on the issue. Her daughter leaves, and Ernst and Helene, newly returned from holiday, announce they are to set up home on their own. Helene, expecting a child, does not get along with her sister-in-law.
Emma Küsters now joins the Communist Party, having found Karl's newspaper article more sympathetic, but after Küsters speaks at her first DKP political gathering she meets a young male paper seller who claims to really have her interests at heart in clearing her husband's name. He gives her his contact details. She quickly grows impatient with the communist's passive tactics; they have to campaign in the forthcoming elections Karl explains. She connects with a small group of anarchists
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
, who though even smaller in number than the communists, claim to have more spirit.
There are two very different endings to the film:
- In one ending, the anarchist's leading member, Horst Knab demands to see Niemeyer at the magazine's offices, but the secretary ('Lilo Pempeit', Fassbinder's mother) says he is unavailable. The editor suggests Küsters send in a letter which he might publish. The anarchist's stage a sit-down strikeSitdown strikeA sit-down strike is a form of civil disobedience in which an organized group of workers, usually employed at a factory or other centralized location, take possession of the workplace by "sitting down" at their stations, effectively preventing their employers from replacing them with strikebreakers...
at the magazine which defamed her husband. The anarchists take the staff hostage at gunpoint, including Niemeyer, now living with Corinna, who arrives unaware how far the situation has developed. The anarchists, demand the release of all political prisoners in West Germany, a Mercedes 600 to take them to the airport and a Boeing 707 to take them out of the country. Küsters, looks horrified at the anarchists demands, but is killed in a subsequent clash with the police. Knab kills Linke, the editor, but Knab is also shot. (The last stages of the narrative are detailed with captions.) - In another ending (primarily used for the American edition), Niemeyer is at the magazine offices, but as the staff start to leave at the end of their working day, the two anarchists grow bored with the sit-down strike and leave, with Küsters remaining seated. After being told by her daughter Corinna, clearly now living with Niemeyer who has 'phoned her, that she is making herself ridiculous, Emma Küsters meets the friendly janitor of the newspaper's offices, whose wife died years earlier. The widow and widower leave to have dinner together, apparently beginning a romantic relationship.
Fassbinder's film criticizes the blood-thirst of the 1970s German media
Mass media
Mass media refers collectively to all media technologies which are intended to reach a large audience via mass communication. Broadcast media transmit their information electronically and comprise of television, film and radio, movies, CDs, DVDs and some other gadgets like cameras or video consoles...
in a similar manner to The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum (film)
The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum is a 1975 film adaptation by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta of the novel of the same name by Heinrich Böll...
(directed by Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff
Volker Schlöndorff is a Berlin-based German filmmaker who has worked in Germany, France and the United States...
and Margarethe von Trotta). However, Fassbinder's film goes further by criticizing the overwhelming selfishness present in contemporary society. Nearly everyone who Mother Küsters encounters is self-serving and unconcerned with comforting her. Fassbinder also clearly criticizes the small German Communist Party's
German Communist Party
The German Communist Party is a Marxist-Leninist party in Germany.-History:The DKP was formed in West Germany in 1968, in order to fill the place of the Communist Party of Germany , which had been banned by the Federal Constitutional Court in 1956...
moderation and "armchair activism
Slacktivism
Slacktivism is a portmanteau formed out of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel satisfaction...
."
Cast
- Brigitte MiraBrigitte MiraBrigitte Mira was a German actress. She worked in both theater and film, often with Rainer Werner Fassbinder....
- Emma Küsters - Ingrid CavenIngrid CavenIngrid Caven is a German film actress and singer. Her younger sister Trudeliese Schmidt was an opera singer and also an actress.Caven has appeared in over 50 films since her film debut in 1969 in the short film...
- Corinna Corinne, aka Corinna Küsters - Armin Meier - Ernst Küsters
- Irm HermannIrm Hermann-Biography:Hermann became a publishing clerk after finishing school and worked as a secretary for ADAC when she met Rainer Werner Fassbinder in 1966, who convinced her to quit her job to work with him, despite her lack of formal training as an actor...
- Helene Küsters - Karlheinz BöhmKarlheinz BöhmKarlheinz Böhm is an Austrian actor. The son of conductor Karl Böhm, he is best known internationally for his role as Mark, the psychopathic protagonist of Peeping Tom, directed by Michael Powell...
- Karl Tillmann - Margit CarstensenMargit CarstensenMargit Carstensen is a German theatre and film actress, best known outside Germany for roles in the works of film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder.-Theater career:...
- Frau Marianne Tillmann - Gottfried JohnGottfried John-Life and work:During the 1970s and early 1980s, Gottfried John played various roles in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, notably that of Reinhold in the epic Berlin Alexanderplatz . He is internationally known for his portrayals of General Ourumov in the James Bond film GoldenEye and Julius...
- Niemeyer - Matthias Fuchs - Horst Knab
External links
- Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
- Review of the Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven DVD at the World Socialist Web Site