James Tait Black Memorial Prizes
Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors
This book reframes the work and mythology of filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder through fragments of criticism and recollection. It goes beyond film history, allowing the critic's own memory and sensibility to give the portrait of Fassbinder greater depth.
Work Information
Fragmented criticism brings Fassbinder's figure and his era into focus.
This critical book gathers film history, cultural history, and personal recollection around Fassbinder in brisk fragments. It leaves a sharp afterimage whether read as biography or as critical essay.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Fitzcarraldo Editions
- Published
- 2023-04-19
- Pages
- 200 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 12.5 x 1.07 x 19.71 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781804270424
- ISBN-10
- 1804270423
- Price
- 3052 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Literature & Fiction/Essays & Correspondence/Essays
Melodrama, biography, cold war thriller, drug memoir, essay in fragments, mystery – Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors is cult critic Ian Penman’s long awaited first original book, a kaleidoscopic study of the late West German filmmaker Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945–1982). Written quickly under a self-imposed deadline in the spirit of Fassbinder himself, who would often get films made in a matter of weeks or months, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors presents the filmmaker as a pivotal figure in the late 1970s moment between late modernism and the advent of postmodernism and the digital revolution. Compelling, beautifully written and genuinely moving, echoing the fragmentary and reflective works of writers like Barthes and Cioran, this is a story that has everything: sex, drugs, art, the city, cinema and revolution.
Ian Penman is a British writer, music journalist and critic. He began his career at the NME in 1977, later contributing to various publications including The Face , Arena , Tatler , Sight & Sound , The Wire , the Guardian , the London Review of Books , Harper’s and City Journal . He is the author of the collections Vital Signs: Music, Movies, and Other Manias (Serpent’s Tail, 1998) and It Gets Me Home, This Curving Track (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2019). His first original book, Fassbinder Thousands of Mirrors (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2023), won the RSL Ondaatje Prize for Literature and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography in 2024.
Reviews
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Pretentious world salad.
It's not really about Fassbinder but a set of short sections ppof personal recall, other people's quotes and lists showing how clever the writer is. Ian Penman is one of the journalists who turned the New Musical Express into a counter culture and lost all its readers. Having read this I can see how that happened.
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Good quality
Interesting book I wasn’t expecting what was written, but I’m very glad I got it.
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Will it revive RWF?
Fassbinder mysteriously disappeared as a cultural influence, this could be the book to bring him back. It certainly revived my interest
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Enjoyable exploration of Fassbinder and his influence
Important to note that this is not a biography of Fassbinder but Penman's own interpretation of his life, work and how he relates to the wider culture. Penman is comfortable jumping from topic to topic and the effect is a slightly disjointed but never boring critique of the great RWF.
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Fassbinder, the much-needed holiday before Billie?
Penman is Penman. He plays around, knows his worth, but I wonder what enormous effort goes into his books / articles. Does he still have self-doubt? Does he cavort and quietly celebrate when a good line comes into his head? Does he torture himself over what could have been? This is a strangely constructed book, yet he charms us, occasionally crosses that invisible, pretentious line, but ultimately ends matters as a 1500m runner would - full of sweat and satisfaction. We still await his great book about Billie Holiday, but he keeps us merry and content in the meantime. Each Penman project is an 'event', an LRB critic once stated. That's a lot to live up to. It must make a man shiver at night. Penman can sleep peacefully knowing that he has enriched a cult crowd, but - like all good authors - I'm sure he wants to do more and more, and surpass those few writers (dead or alive) whom he considers more skilled. An original, tantalising book from a man very much in the groove.