The Defiant Ironies of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Third Generation (opens in new tab)

Deep Dives You look at Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s The Third Generation (1979), and you see the snarky, risky spirit of the New Wave movements that emerged around the world in the 1960s and ’70s in full, defiant bloom. But what does that mean, exactly, and what is this crazy, goofy, pugnacious movie-movie really up to? This particular late RWF is, in its appetite for farcical social critique and artfully canned melodrama, typical of its manically prolific filmmaker. (Let’s recall the deluge: o...