The Merchant of Four Seasons [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Overview

Der Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (The Merchant of Four Seasons) is about the deterioration of a man's soul. Fruit vendor Hans (Hans Hirschmüller) cannot please his family. His mother harps on his failures. His wife is openly discontent. He must peddle produce to his beloved ex-girlfriend, and he is mocked by his customers for being shorter and fatter than his wife. He is withdrawn, crushed, and humiliated. He turns to drinking and violence, but his rage causes his wife and daughter to leave him. While desperately begging for their return, Hans suffers a debilitating heart attack. His family comes back, but Hans is unable to work and must hire help for his fruit stand. Hans' first employee is his wife's ex-lover, whom he fires for embezzling. He then hires a friend and hero from his legionnaire days, Harry (Klaus Löwitsch), out of pity. Harry is hardworking, diligent, and clever. He turns Hans' business around and enlivens his home life. Harry's success also begins to displace Hans -- with his fruit stand, with his wife, and even with his child. Hans becomes useless, a nothing -- exactly what his mother, his wife, and those around him set him up to be.

Product Details

Release Date:	05/26/2015
UPC:	0715515146616
Original Release:	1971
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion Collection
Region Code:	A
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Mono]
Language:	English
Time:	1:28:00
Sales rank:	18,076

Special Features

Audio commentary featuring filmmaker Wim Wenders New interviews with actor Irm Hermann and Hans Hirschmüller New interview with film scholar Eric Rentschier

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Hans Hirschmüller	Hans Epp
Irm Hermann	Irmgard Epp
Hanna Schygulla	Anna Epp, Hans's sister
Andrea Schober	Renate Epp, Hans's daughter
Gusti Kreissl	Hans's Mother
Heide Simon	Heide
Kurt Raab	Kurt
Klaus Lowitsch	Harry Radek
Karl Scheydt	Anzell
Ingrid Caven	Hans's `Great Love'
Peter Chatel	Doctor
Rainer Werner Fassbinder	Zucker
Elga Sorbas	Mariele Kosemund
Daniel Schmid	Job Applicant No. 1
Harry Baer	Job Applicant No. 2
Marian Seidowski	Job Applicant No. 3
Lilo Pempeit	Customer
El Ben Salem	The Arab
Hark Bohm	Policeman
Michael Fengler	Playboy
Walter Sedlmayr	Fruit cart salesman
Rocco Granata	Composer

Technical Credits

Rainer Werner Fassbinder

Rainer Werner Fassbinder	Producer,Director,Screenwriter
Ingrid Caven	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Der Händler der vier Jahreszeiten (The Merchant of Four Seasons) is one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's several "bourgeois films" that depict and critique middle-class society. The film deceptively unfolds like a standard bourgeois melodrama: there is the black sheep son, the disappointed mother, the unhappy wife, the sympathetic sister. Its protagonist, Hans (Hans Hirschmüller), deteriorates predictably: the love of his life marries another for prestige, his mother openly despises him, his wife manipulates him, he cannot run his business himself, and he drinks himself to death. Yet, these generic constructs match the middle-class ritual that emasculates and destroys men like Hans. When his loving sister defends him to his family, he hushes her. Hans has accepted his place as the pathetic character that they describe. He does not know enough to blame those around him for his emotional destruction, and (as brilliantly embodied by Hirschmüller) cannot leave them for a better life because they have already sucked up his courage and strength. Many films attack the bourgeois, but very few have the guts to show a heterosexual man as its victim. Hans' story is both different and effective.

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