Fassbinder 77th birthday, part 1: ‘Last Train to Harrisburg,’ Udo Kier as director-star (with Fassbinder as narrator)

Female Udo in "Last Train..."

When YouTube kicked into high gear in the mid-2000s I was flabbergasted. I knew of it as a “viral videos” site, but suddenly friends began sending me links to clips from cult British acts (most notably the Bonzos and Cook & Moore) that were being posted by fans with crazy video collections. During that time there were two Rainer Werner Fassbinder-related clips that went up quickly and went down even faster. I didn’t know how to save anything from the site that early on, but now, years later, I have been able to rewatch both of the clips, and I offer the second one to you in celebration of the 77th anniversary of Fassbinder’s birthday today (May 31).

The first one is the magic act that Fassbinder did with Hanna Schygulla (as promotion for Lili Marleen, still unreleased in the U.S. on disc!), tucked away in a German documentary on Fassbinder. The second is a more complex creation that needs explaining and unfortunately is up with no English subs on YT — but at this point I’m so glad to resee the item that I’m okay with it in any condition.

The video in question is a short b&w film directed by and starring Udo Kier called “Last Train to Harrisburg.” Now, anyone who has followed film in the last nearly four decades knows Udo, and knows of his power to steal scenes away from higher-paid stars. (His bit as the angry wedding planner in Melancholia is just one of dozens.) He can literally make a film worth watching even when it is terrible – and he has admitted that just a small percent of his films were actually good, and an even smaller percent were great.

Udo Kier
and RWF.

However, “Harrisburg” is a very special case. It’s a short that has reportedly only been shown theatrically three times, in film festival settings. It is also the only directorial effort by Udo, and it contains him as 2/3rds of the cast, playing both a man and a woman having a fevered conversation in a train. If that isn’t enough to make the film incredibly special (and wild, truly wild), it moves from must-see to “Wow, that actually happened?” when one finds out that male-Udo and female-Udo in the film are both lip-synching to the voice of another artist — namely Rainer Werner Fassbinder, who participated in this short by reading apocalyptic passages from the Bible.

In the case of “Harrisburg,” though we do not have subtitles, we do have a document written by a film historian who saw it at a film festival that sheds some light on its making and its contents.

Roberta Hofer, a professor of film at the University of Innsbruck, Austria, wrote an account of the film’s screening at the 2012 Munich Film Festival that was shared by the /slash Film Festival in 2018, when they were showing “Last Train.” Udo had appeared at the Munich fest with Ed Lachman, who shot the film and is a master-d.p. who has worked with Wenders, Herzog, Schlondorff, Shirley Clarke, Paul Schrader, Steven Soderbergh, Todd Haynes, and Robert Altman. The credits say that “Last Train” is "a film by" Kier, Lachman, and filmmaker Bernd Brummbär, but then the direction is credited to Kier alone.

Hofer’s account notes that the film was shot at Ostbahnhof, a railway station in Berlin. Kier was in Munich to make a film for the author Wolf Wondratschek with Fassbinder actress (and one-time wife) and renowned torch singer Ingrid Caven. Wondratschek dropped the project two days before it was to start. Hofer continues: “But Udo Kier had already arrived, so Wondraschek left him all the material, including the cameraman. Kier had to improvise. He was ambitious, he smirks, wanted to be a producer, director, and actor all in one.”

Male Udo in "Last Train..."

Kier’s age during the filming is given as being “in his early Thirties” so we can assume (given that he was born in 1944) that it was shot in the late Seventies. The final date given for the film at film festivals is “1976–1984,” presumably because Kier finally put the finishing touches to it in ’84.

It is stressed that the title for the film was to reflect the meltdown at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. “A voyage to extermination,” said Kier, according to Hofer. Fassbinder was then recruited to provide a narration (and thus, dialogue) for the film. At first RWF wanted to read from Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet, but that could’ve created copyright problems, so it was decided he would read from the Bible. Kier said (via Hofer): “And then we found some really nasty things in it. The hands of merciful women cook their own children. Things like that are in there, you wouldn't believe it. We thought, we will surely get an award from the Catholic Church."

At this point Hofer describes the film, which consists of an opening with a man in a Biblical outfit (read: fur pieces on his shoulders, arms, groin, and legs) who kills a sheep in what looks to be an empty slaughterhouse. Then we see Kier in his dual roles as both a man and a woman (American soldier and dignified lady) who are seemingly not a couple (or were long ago) arguing in a railway compartment. The film finishes with the man who killed the sheep going up to a lectern to speak. Throughout we do hear RWF reciting Bible passages (although his voice turns to that of a young boy toward the end of the train sequence).

Udo Kier in
Berlin Alexanderplatz.

Here is where the translation of Hofer’s document and the Bible quotes mentioned in the film (which, yes, I followed, dimly, using the ridiculousness that is the Google “auto-translate” feature on Closed Captions in YT) might lead the way to decipher when the film was actually shot (as well as a second element I will go into below). Although Kier dates the film as beginning in 1976, it would seem from both the title — which refers to an event (the Three Mile Island accident) that occurred in 1979 — and the Bible quotes mentioned, that Kier made his film after Berlin Alexanderplatz (in which he appears in a small role), which is narrated by Fassbinder and in which he reads passages from Alfred Doblin, and at points other elements creep in, such as Bible quotes.

Hofer states that the man and woman are quoting the Book of Revelation to each other (with Kier, again, lip-synching to Fassbinder’s voice). The first passage she quotes, though, is from Jeremiah: “Wild donkeys stand on the barren heights and pant like jackals” (14:5-6). Jeremiah is also read from in the narration of Alexanderplatz (Jeremiah 17: 6-9) as noted here. Was it perhaps the case that Fassbinder did his narration for Kier’s short film while also doing the narration for his own epic masterwork? (Or did he give Kier outtakes from the Alexanderplatz audio recording?)

Hofer’s account of the film also provides a quotation that definitely comes from the book of Revelations 8:8: “And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood.” A final quotation, starting “Cursed be the day I was born!” come from Jeremiah 20:14. Hofer then notes that, after the screening ended, Kier thanked RWF for his work on the film. He is asked when he last saw the film and answers, “Twenty-five years ago.” (1987) Hofer concludes, “Kier's voice breaks, he turns away. He doesn't want to succeed in sounding casual now.”

From Berlin Alexanderplatz.

From "Last Train
to Harrisburg."

A final note on a discovery that I couldn’t find any mention of online. The footage of the man killing the sheep in the empty slaughterhouse appears in Berlin Alexanderplatz, episode 4 from 33:36 to 34:38. Kier and/or Lachman “flipped” the image, as the footage in Kier’s film is a mirror image of the footage from the Fassbinder original. (And also in b&w.)

This ties Udo’s film even closer to Fassbinder at the time of Berlin Alexanderplatz and makes me wish he had officially released the film online and discussed its making at some length. It’s a compelling piece, even untranslated as it now sits on YT. And it certainly is an interesting footnote to Fassbinder’s filmography.

 

Thanks to superior cineaste and friend Paul Gallagher for finding the Hofer document and saving the video clip for me, for further perusal.