The American Soldier
(Der amerikanische Soldat)

Screening on Film

Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder.
With Karl Scheydt, Elga Sorbas, Margarethe von Trotta.
West Germany, 1970, 35mm, black & white, 80 min.

A full-scale, mood-thick homage to the world of Humphrey Bogart and great American action directors like Raoul Walsh and Sam Fuller, Fassbinder’s film centers on a hired gunman named Ricky, a charismatic figure in a rakish hat and white suit. Recently returned from a Vietnamized America, Ricky carries out the murders he has been assigned with a startling lack of interest and emotion, all the while trying to reconnect with his old neighborhood and his family. The amazing final shoot-out is probably the most startling of Fassbinder’s patented off-beat endings.