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Fox and His Friends
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780794201517
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
ISBN: 0794201512
Label: Fox Lorber
Languages: English (Subtitled), German (Original Language), Spanish (Published),
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
MPN: D5308D
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 02, 2002
Running Time: 123 minutes
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: February 02, 1976
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Editorial Review:
The original German title, Faustrecht der Freiheit, which roughly translates as "Might Makes Right," describes rather bluntly the crux of this compelling drama, one of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's most acclaimed films. Fassbinder takes a rare starring role as Franz--"Fox" to his friends--a gay carny thrown out of work when the cops close a fairground sideshow. Introduced to a group of cultivated homosexuals by an antique and art dealer (Karlheinz Böhm of Peeping Tom fame), he becomes involved with high-class dandy Eugen (Peter Chatel), who finds the naive, uneducated innocent easy prey when he unexpectedly wins 500 thousand marks in the lottery. Eugen alternately flatters and humiliates Fox, ridiculing his working-class manners and tastes while sponging off his fast-disappearing fortune. The story is partially autobiographical, inspired by Fassbinder's own relationship with an illiterate butcher, but the director casts himself as the victim in the cinematic incarnation and turns his tormentor into a veritable vampire. Biographical considerations aside, it remains one of Fassbinder's most affecting, accomplished, and personal films, and he delivers a sweet, wounded performance as the proletariat Fox in a den of cultured, upper-class hounds. His evocation of the affluent gay community is catty and brittle, but ultimately this powerful drama is less about sexual orientation than class, power, and sexual control. --Sean Axmaker
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - It's about class, not sexual orientation....
This is one of Fassbinder's best films, a really incisive, sad, and pointed commentary on class differences and exploitation. Fox, wonderfully played by Fassbinder himself, is a lower class carnival worker who wins the lottery, and is welcomed (or seduced) into the upper class gay culture. He naively and sadly believes that they genuinely like him, but they are just using him for his money. He essentially is used by the upper class until his money runs out. They jettison him, like an abattoir ... Read More
Rating: - A Fassbinder favorite: Fox and his "friends."
Among his 33 films, Fassbinder considered his 1974 film, Fox and His Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit), one of his personal favorites. It tells the compelling story of Franz Bieberkopf, a.k.a. Fox (Fassbinder himself in the leading role), a working-class young man who, after losing his carnival job, wins 500 thousand marks playing the lottery. Fox celebrates in Munich by mingling with an older gay man (Karlheinz Böhm) and his cultivated gay friends. By contrast, Fox has no polish or savoir-vivre. ... Read More
Rating:  - Another Memorable Fassbinder's film
In "Fox and His Friends" (1975) which Rainer Werner Fassbinder wrote and directed, he played a main character, Franz Bieberkopf alias "Fox" a lower class, uneducated circus worker who loses his job when his lover, the circus owner is arrested and sent to prison for tax fraud. Fox believes in his luck and strikes it rich by winning 500,000 marks in the lottery and very soon attracts the attention of an elegant, posh, and sophisticated Eugen who knows very well how to make Fox pay for his expensive habits ... Read More
Rating: - A GAY CLASSIC
"FOX AND HIS FRIENDS"
A Gay Classic
Amos Lassen and Cinema Pride
"Fox and His Friends" (Wellspring Video) caused a great deal of controversy when it was first released in 1975. Many thought that the story of a gay sideshow worker who won the lottery and was then exploited by his upper class lover was homophobic. Fassbinder, the famed gay German director even said that the movie could have been about a heterosexual couple but it would not have been as clear. Fassbinder ... Read More
Rating:  - If only Mom were still alive
I was very disappointed in this film. While it is well done and the acting and casting was good, frankly this film is not at all worth having to endure the subtitles for. Perhaps if it were in english it would have been better, but I found it very boring and depressing to watch. It drags on for over two hours with the same poor guy being ripped off at every turn. I can relate somewhat to the main character but it is certainly not entertaining or a "feel good" movie. Really the only part that wasn't good was ... Read More
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