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Epicurus.com - Fox and His Friends
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List Price: $19.98
Our Price: $19.98
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Starring: Harry Baer, Marquard Bohm, Karlheinz Böhm, Peter Chatel, Adrian Hoven
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9780794201500
Format: Color
ISBN: 0794201504
Label: Fox Lorber
Manufacturer: Fox Lorber
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Fox Lorber
Release Date: 2002-06-25
Running Time: 123
Studio: Fox Lorber
Theatrical Release Date: 1976-02-02
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Editorial Reviews:
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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
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: It's about class, not sexual orientation....
Comment: 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 does with the carcases of cows.
Many have made hay of the fact that the main character here is homosexual. There weren't too many films at the time about homosexuality, but the strange thing is that Fox's sexual orientation really doesn't matter here. The film is about class and class exploitation, not sexual orientation. It never becomes a "gay" film. It is a human film, showing that (shock!) homosexuals can succumb to greed, cruelty, coldness, and indifference like everyone else can. I always find films that show "minorities" (for lack of a better term) as deeply human and flawed, because it shows that they are just as human as the so-called "majorities" are. It is the polar opposite of political correctness, which serves to dumb us down and makes us all the same. I prefer the polar opposite. It is refreshing and much more though provoking than bland, PC portrayals.
This is a very sad film. Even in high school (when I first saw this), I was really moved by it. I adore Fassbinder. I think he's one of the greatest directors that Germany ever produced. It's a shame he died, but his films still amaze people even today.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Fassbinder favorite: Fox and his "friends."
Comment: 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. He is portrayed as an innocent, and the portrayal is poignant. After spending the night with one of the men, Eugen (Peter Chatel), Fox goes into a slow downward spiral, squandering most of his lottery winnings in the company of Eugen and his gay friends by investing in Eugen's company, buying furniture and clothing, vacationing in Marrakech, and spending what he has left on prostitutes and flowers. Ultimately, Fassbinder is not as interested in the sexual orientation of Fox and "his friends," as he is in their values, obsession with money, and exploitation of Fox. By the end of the movie, it is clear that without money, Fox really has no friends. Highly recommended.
G. Merritt
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Another Memorable Fassbinder's film
Comment: 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 and how to make him invest a lot of money in his father business that is not very successful to say the least. What fascinated me the most - how convincingly Fassbinder - one man production company who came up with the idea, wrote the screenplay and directed the movie- played seemingly tough but as it turned, confused and vulnerable Fox. Another interesting aspect of the movie is the way Fassbinder describes the gay community in Germany of the early 70s. He does not make any excuses and he does not make his characters complete villains or innocent victims. The story he tells could've happened in any community.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A GAY CLASSIC
Comment: "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 also plays the central character, Fox, and his street skills and humor do not reach full potential because of his naiveté as his snobbish boyfriend scams him out of his lottery winnings. As Fox becomes more and more demoralized the movie moves along to its inevitable conclusion. What sounds so depressing here is really quite the opposite as this is a film filled with subtle humor.
What the movie is really a character study of a not-too-smart circus worker who suddenly finds himself wealthy and is a touching film with a great performance from Fassbinder. It is also a strong examination of the German class system and gay relationships in Germany in the 1970s. It is an unsentimental and even guileless film most of the time as well as droll and melodramatic as well as poignant and tragic,
Fox knows before he even enters the lottery that he is going to win so on his way to buy a ticket, he allows himself enough time to have sex in a local public toilet. As he revels over his win in a gay bar, he becomes involved with a pretentious and arrogant character that is already in a relationship but pretends to love Fox as he scams him out of his winnings.
The film is also a good study in how to make a really good movie as it is an example of a movie that never loses its focus. It is a study of sexual and political issues that were relevant in the 70s and still relevant today. Whenever I see a Fassbinder movie I am literally blown away. He challenges all that I know and in his own way forces the viewer to have an experience he has never had before. The movie is full of cliché but Fassbinder is conventional like this for a reason He is truth and he makes movies about truth and as we know, truth is not always easy to take. Fassbinder is known for wallowing in the less fortunate but he does it with grace and compassion. His films are usually focused on the barriers between classes and this movie is a noir film about a gay relationship.
Fassbinder was very brave to cast himself in the role of Fox, a role that is unromantic and unflattering. We see that Fassbinder is not content with the gays that are fixated on money and looks but his own film as a great deal of male nudity and these are the kind of men that Fox finds attractive. This is a movie that can be watched again and again and understood differently every time. It never becomes stale and the tongue-in-cheek quality of the movie makes it completely captivating. There are intelligent observations on the motivation of society, political aspirations and above all else on human nature. It is an example of human manipulation. This is really a film that set the way for many films that were follow in the genre known as gay cinema and should be a valuable addition to all libraries.
Customer Rating:
Summary: If only Mom were still alive
Comment: 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 the plot. It does make you want to react in several parts, and feeling for "Fox". It is the story of a man searching for love but unable to find real happiness. I doubt I will ever want to watch this one again. Could have been much better with a different screenplay writer. It fell way short of it's potential. The DVD doesn't offer anything along the lines of extras, but filming quality is good. Maybe you will like it more than I did, but probably not unless you are just really in the mood to be depressed. Not recommended.
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