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Rainer Werner Fassbinder, sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Versatile and prolific, his over 40 films span a variety of genres, most frequently blending elements of Hollywood melodrama with social criticism and avant-garde techniques. His films, according to him, explored "the exploitability of feelings". His work was deeply rooted in post-war German culture: the aftermath of Nazism, the German economic miracle, and the terror of the Red Army Faction. He worked with a company of actors and technicians who frequently appeared in his projects. Fassbinder began leading the acting troupe Anti-Theater in 1967, with whom he staged some of his earliest productions. His first feature-length film was a gangster movie called Love Is Colder Than Death (1969); he scored his first domestic commercial success with The Merchant of Four Seasons (1972) and his first international success with Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), both of which are considered masterpieces by contemporary critics. Big-budget projects such as Despair (1978), Lili Marleen and Lola followed.
His greatest success came with The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979), chronicling the rise and fall of a German woman in the wake of World War II. Other notable films include the lesbian chamber drama The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (1972), Fox and His Friends (1975), Satan's Brew (1976), In a Year of 13 Moons (1978), and Querelle (1982), all of which dealt with homoerotic themes. He also directed the TV series World on a Wire (1973) and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980). Fassbinder died on 10 June 1982, at age 37, from a lethal cocktail of cocaine and barbiturates. His career lasted less than two decades, but he was extremely prolific; between 1967 and 1982, he completed over 40 feature films, 24 plays, two television serials, three short films, and four video productions, winning five of the most prestigious prizes for feature film in Germany, including the Golden Bear and multiple German Film Awards. His premature death is often considered the end of the New German Cinema timeframe.