Jackson Booth-Millard From director Rainer Werner Fassbinder (The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant, Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun) (also playing the title role), when I watched this film, listed as one of the 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, from the book, I didn't know what to expect, which made it all the more watchable. Basically Franz 'Fox' Bieberkopf (Fassbinder) is a working class homosexual carnival worker, and when he finds himself out of work and his boyfriend, the owner Klaus (Karl Scheydt), arrested for tax fraud, he is in need of money. He uses some tricks to get him a little bit of cash in order to buy a lottery ticket, convinced that because it is a lucky day he will win the jackpot, and with the help of sophisticated antique art dealer Max (Karlheinz Böhm) he does get one before the newsagents close. A month passes, and Fox did indeed win the lottery, a fortune of 500,000 marks, and he is trying to fit in the more upper class society as Max introduces him to his friends. This includes low on money Eugen Thiess (Peter Chatel) who dumps his boyfriend Philip (Harry Baer) to make his move and try and take advantage of him and his fortune. Max suggests to Fox that good things could happen if he invests in Phillip's company, so he does give him 100,000 marks, and then he ends up paying high amounts for apartment stuff and clothes, and then when he hears about Klaus being released he gives him 30,000 marks, so he really is being taken advantage of. After returning from a holiday to Marrakech, Morocco, they find out that the company is going bankrupt, and all Fox can do while trying to sort these problems is drink in bars, proposition other men, including some American soldiers, until the point where has a small heart attack. He eventually sees sense to break up with Eugen, and after some arguing with him and his sister Hedwig (Christiane Maybach), the only way he can make some of the money back that he has lost is to sell his car for 8,000 marks. In the end Fox sees no real reason to keep going, so he overdoses on his pills until collapsing and dying on the floor of the underground, and two young boys come along to steal his things, until interrupted by Max and Klaus walking past, but they carry on walking knowing he is dead and not wanting to get involved, and the two young boys continue stealing his money, golden watch and clothing. Also starring Adrian Hoven as Wolf Thiess - Eugen's father and Ulla Jacobsson as Eugen's mother. Fassbinder does a good job of directing, but he mostly excels playing the leading role of the ordinary gay man being propelled into high society and unsure of how to handle it, the film is full of the eerie stuff with all the homosexual material and the rich people's sleazy activities, and there is the prominent despair as well, but overall it is interesting drama. Good!

zipperaugo Man has mastered the art of wielding Power. Show him an inch and he will become your slave, give him an inch and he will become your master. And you watch while he takes the whole nine yards around your hearth & eventually your gravestone as well. Fox and his Friends resonates many themes from Ali: Fear eats the Soul, Fassbinder's soothing, Melancholic masterwork. In 'Ali' the protagonists Emi and Eli literally dance into each other's arms whereas in Fox Eugen and Fox clash and spar with unabashed animal magnetism. Franz Bieberkopf a.k.a Fox is a variety show entertainer named The Speaking Head. He is an "abnormal on an Itinerant stage," as one line introduces us to him. His lover is arrested, the show is packed off and so is Fox, who is too polite and cowardly to remonstrate the Manager's unfairness. A latter line alludes to Fox being picked up from a "pubic urinal." 'Fox and Friends' is unapologetic and brutal in its portrayal of Sexual Politics and Power Equations. That it bases its premise on homosexuality is a moot point. What the mood of the film conveys or what the acting styles convey is a hopeless, recursive, silent Machinery laughing away at genuine peoples efforts to wriggle out. Fox's luck changes after an escapade he engineers. His singular belief in winning a lottery drives him to the deed though he is initially mugged after he legally borrows an amount. Fox is picked up by an aristocratic gent named Max. This brief scene is memorable for the three lightning edit cuts and freeze frames that show a rendezvous being established through codes and signals.Fox is introduced to Max's friends and is promptly attracted to and simultaneously repulsed by Eugen Thiess, a vain and ambitious bourgeois upstart. These are probably Fox's most liberating moments; when his street gab and penny tricks help him parry Eugen's sarcasm. But these defenses are soon exhausted when Fox's limitations loom large. He is ugly, poor, unschooled and "unskilled," as Eugen later points out. He is a homosexual from the streets. He will find no sympathy in a society that compels one to find power and to use it. His "proletariat potency," he knows is transient and viewed as a natural disposition to "boozing, scoffing and screwing." Eugen is an opportunistic entrepreneur who is quick to move in on Fox's vulnerability to acquire all the trappings that will win him society's approval.The editing here has amaelstrom like effect; events unspooling at a breathless pace, sharply contrasting the layers being peeled off Max's slight persona. Eugentactfully manipulates Fox as he climbs the social ladder, rescuing a family business and acquiring tasteful 'possessions.' Fox is useful for as long as he has the prize money. Eugen's family is respectful to Fox when in need but quickly change colors when tides change. Fassbinder casts himself as Franz and his interpretation of the role is pitch perfect. Peter Chatel is suitably stoic as Eugen, the scheming lover. I could sense an icy chillness each time Karlheinz Bohm appeared on screen. It was no small surprise when my rusty memory discovered that my only introduction to his work was in Michael Powell's icy, voyeuristic 'Peeping Tom.' Bohm as Max the antiques dealer infuses a chilling, menacing air to his character. Intermittent and lurking, he lands up at important intervals in Fox's journey. Michael Ballhaus' (also a Kubrick and Scorsese regular) camera-work has a languid dexterity that together with Fassbinder's frames create moments of lingering pathos. Filters and geometrical motifs accentuate the fractured personalities and hollowness of meaningless lives. The contributions of other characters lend a dramatic weight to the final act of betrayal – the stampede of the Herd. Two performances merit special mention; Hans Zander as the snide barman Springer and Peter Kern as the lecherous florist 'Fatty' Schmidt. The subject matter of the film created a huge controversy upon release. Fassbinder was accused of being homophobic despite being openly homosexual. There are some nude male frontal scenes that have never been depicted so openly since. Some frames depict young boys as Adonis like props, objectified for sexual predators or as mute adornments in depraved Saturnalia. In one telling scene Fox blocks out the reflection of a nude boy to prevent Eugen from looking on. In a polarized world Fox is easy meat, even for the weakest of predators. His body is the only commodity he can sell and as Eugen explains " Fox is not the kind of guy money can make rich."With 'Ali,' Fassbinder floored me. With 'Fox' he has me hooked for life. My personal rating- 7.8/10

Graham Greene Fox and his Friends - also known as Fox and First-Right to Freedom - is one of the key-works in the cinema of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The film, like many of the director's other great works, focuses on a torturous relationship - this time between a working class youth and the older son of a wealthy factory worker - and how their differences in class and upbringing can begin a tragic chain of events that lead, ultimately, to personal despair. As a film, Fox and his Friends works best as an unflinching exposé of the class-system, and offers a new variation on one of Fassbinder's key motifs; the idea of human suffering and the causes of such.Like the characters in past Fassbinder films, like The Merchant of Four Seasons and Fear Eats the Soul, Fox is led to his downfall, but also embraces it. As a character, he is blinded by love; and although we know that he regrets his actions the moment he has taken them, he proceeds regardless... convinced that he's doing the right thing for the person he loves. Fassbinder also makes light of the idea of how money changes people. Not just those that have come into money, but those 'surrounding' people who have come into money. At the beginning of the film, Fox tries desperately to collect enough money for his weekly lottery ticket... begging friends and family for loose change and convinced that this week he's going to win. In these first few scenes, Fassbinder has painted Fox as a lovable loser; so, when we find out later that the character has indeed won the grand jackpot of 500,000 German marks, we, as an audience, are ultimately as shocked as the upper-class gay sophisticates that Fox has subsequently fallen in with.It is here that Fassbinder begins to expose the dark heart of his story, as these characters descend on the course and immature Fox and begin to force their own ideals and ideologies on him... even going so far as to belittle him in front of his old friends who still hang out in the same dimly-lit, low-rent cabaret club as before. This is innocent enough, but when Fox takes up with Eugene, one of the key-characters in the upper-class gay milieu, Fassbinder pushes the melodrama to the next emotional level... destroying everything that Fox had always wanted and had finally achieved, leaving him as penniless, loveless and hopeless as he was when we first met him. Fassbinder doesn't sugarcoat his message here; with 'Fox' standing as one of the most depressing and hopeless films ever made (perhaps rivalled only by the director's own later film, In a Year with 13 Moons).The mood of the film throughout is caustic and claustrophobic, with the director and his cinematographer Michael Ballhaus using tight, fragmented composition to separate the characters constantly. There's also a great deal of mirror symbolism, with Fassbinder getting at the notion of personal reflection and the idea of seeing beyond the façade (...whether the façade you put up to hide true feelings for others, or the façade that others present to you, etc). The use of colour and overall production design seems more drab and uninviting too; all adding to the general mood of oppression and spiralling despair so central to the script. With this film, Fassbinder seems to have an important message to convey about the class system, and how the working class will always be seen as inferior to those born with a silver spoon in their mouths, even if they eventually attain to the same social and financial level as them!! It is, on the one hand, a relationship drama, but is a relationship drama entirely tied to the idea of class exploitation. One shouldn't let the use of homosexuality deter them from watching the film, as this is really secondary to the ideas discussed above (and yes, the film does feature some mild love scenes and frontal male nudity... but it's hardly Sebatianne or Taxi Zum Klo!!), with Fassbinder much more concerned with the idea of abuse in the face of love.The central performance by Fassbinder here is a real revelation, as he manages to make Fox seem real and sympathetic... never the tragic or pathetic figure that he could have become in the hands of certain other filmmakers. He begins the film confident, arrogant and to some extent happy with the life he has been leading... but ends up a broken shell, with no money, no friends and no hope. I won't go in to too much detail surrounding the ending, though, needless to say, it's like the last kick to the guts when you're already at you're lowest point; with the director taking his melodrama beyond the required level of despair and into something much more heart wrenching. It obviously won't be to everyone's taste, with the idea of spiralling desperation and depression sure to put a lot of people off... but it's no less a powerful film, one of the many masterpieces that Fassbinder directed before his untimely death in 1982.

tresdodge A homosexual fair ground performer Franz Fox wins the lottery and is soon seduced by an upper class man Eugen who appears to be after only one thing, Franz's money.Not a bad film, just a bit long and at times rather dreary. There is not much of a story to it but there are numerous interesting characters along the way that Fox encounters.The hideous character of Eugen is played rather well by Peter Chatel, a snob who looks down his nose at the working class Fox. In addition, Max (played by Karlheinz Bohm of 'Peeping Tom' fame),plays the older man who seems to care for Fox to some extent. Rainer Fassbinder plays Fox very well and one cannot help feeling sorry for Fox who has fallen for a sneaky and deceitful man. An OK film, a little trippy at times but not recommended particularly highly by this viewer.