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Veronika Voss (2 disc)

 

  Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

West Germany 1982 / Drama / 105 min / Black & White /  Monaural / 1.33: 1 / NTSC /  In  German with Optional  English Subtitles

Rosel Zech , Hilmar Thate , Annemarie Dringer , Doris Schade , Cornelia Froboess , Erik Schumann , Armin Mueller-Stahl , Peter Luehr 

Originally Die Sehnsucht de Veronika Voss, this Rainer Werner Fassbinder spin on Sunset Boulevard stars Rosel Zech as film actress Veronika Voss. Once the toast of Germany, Veronika had allegedly been an intimate of Joseph Gobbels. But the Third Reich is dead...and Veronika may as well be. Playing to an increasingly diminishing fan following, Veronika turns to drugs to cushion her against the cruelties of life. Her self-destruction is accelerated by her "Doctor Feelgood" Annemaire Duringer, who plys Veronika with morphine in order to gain control of the actress's money and property. Well-meaning sportswriter Hilmar Thate tries to save Veronika from herself, sacrificing his own personal happiness -- and the life of his girlfriend Cornelia Froeboess -- in the process. Allegedly an amalgam of several true stories, Veronika Voss is the last of Fassbinder's "postwar trilogy" (the first two were The Marriage of Maria Braun and Lola)

 
       

Bonus Features:

◦ Audio commentary by Fassbinder scholar Tony Rayns
◦ New video conversation with star Rosel Zech and editor Juliane Lorenz
◦ Dance with Death, a one-hour portrait of UFA Studios star, Sybille Schmitz, Fassbinder's inspiration for Veronika Voss