>
>Fassbinder (in my view) is not that far outside the
>mainstream of the arthouse movie. To declare him
>part of the tradition of Truffaut, Rohmer, Godard,
>Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa etc. would not be to make
>a radical statement. THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN
>ran for a year at the Cinema Studio in New York (sigh).
>
>But for some reason RWF is seen (and this is where I
>agree with Dennis) as being an acquired taste within
>this cinematic subset.
Of the names you mentioned I'd say Godard was closest to Fassbinder in terms of what I meant by acquired taste. A lot of Fellini's movies would also fall in there. But most of the movies I've seen by Kurosawa were pretty "accessible" as they say.
>But why? Subject matter? Bizarre/repugnant lifestyle?
>
>Brian
Maybe people just find them tedious and not worth the effort? I'd say again, their loss. Maybe in some of the movies the backstory gets in the way, like some bizarro John Ford set with a dozen little psychodramas happening offscreen and on between players and director?