Literatur-Film-Beziehungen im Werk von Pier Paolo Pasolini und Rainer Werner Fassbinder

The thesis takes as a starting point Pasolini’s and Fassbinder’s theoretical writings (collected esp. in Empirismo eretico (1972) and Filme befreien den Kopf (1984)). It argues that these essays converge in their cognitive and phenomenological orientation, which becomes particularly clear in the authors’ reflections on the relationship between literature and film. Anticipating concerns of today’s film theory, both focus on the writer’s/director’s and the spectator’s body and mind. What unites literature and film, in Pasolini and Fassbinder’s perspective, is their mental representation. The discovery of an analogy between literary evoked sequences of “inner images” and the dream- or memorylike sequences of the cinematic medium leads them to an innovative technique of literary adaptation. Chapter 1 concludes with the finding that, in Pasolini and Fassbinder’s view, only a film which functions according to a literary mode of reception can convey effective social criticism: literary abstraction makes it possible for the reader to activate his individual imagination and reflection, to assume different points of view and to relate the work of art to his own social reality. As chapter 2 proves through a comparative analysis of selected works, the “contamination” of differing points of view constitutes a common denominator, which both authors carry over from writing to film. The disconcerting multiperspectivity, which already characterised their early literary work, only achieves its full potential in the cinematic medium. In conclusion chapter 3 demonstrates through the investigation of Pasolini’s and Fassbinder’s literary adaptations how their films suggest a literary mode of reception to the viewer. By means of multifaceted aesthetic devices, the directors successfully pursue the aims outlined in their theoretical essays. The innovative theories and techniques employed by Pasolini and Fassbinder in translating literature into film forge a crucial link between them which has been neglected by previous studies and which proves their surprising topicality.