The Anarchy of the Imagination

In Rainer Werner Fassbinder's A Year of Thirteen Moons, the camera watches the prostitute Red Zora as she watches Fassbinder in a television interview. The actress is Ingrid Caven, the director's former wife and the woman with whom he claims to have his most important "elective affinity." At once provocative and revealing, the scene illustrates Fassbinder's interest in blurring the boundaries between art and life, between fiction and autobiography. His public comments - like his films and plays - were occasions for aesthetic experimentation rich in irony and drama.