Editing Querelle

{{About|the 1982 film directed by R. W. Fassbinder|the 1947 novel by Jean Genet|Querelle of Brest}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=November 2022}}
{{Infobox film
| name           = Querelle
| image          = Querelle, film poster.jpg
| alt            = A man in a sailor uniform leads with his back on a large brick phallus sculpture.
| caption        = Theatrical release poster
| director       = [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]
| screenplay     = Rainer Werner Fassbinder<br />[[Burkhard Driest]]
| based_on       = {{Based on|''[[Querelle of Brest]]''|[[Jean Genet]]}}
| producer       = Michael McLernon<br />[[Dieter Schidor]]<br />Sam Waynberg
| starring       = [[Brad Davis (actor)|Brad Davis]]<br>[[Franco Nero]]<br>[[Jeanne Moreau]]<br>[[Laurent Malet]]<br>[[Hanno Pöschl]]
| cinematography = [[Xaver Schwarzenberger]]
| editing        = [[Juliane Lorenz]]
| music          = [[Peer Raben]]
| studio         = [[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont S.A. Paris]]
| distributor    = Scotia (West Germany)<br />[[Gaumont Film Company|Gaumont Distribution]] (France)
| released       = {{Film date|df=y|1982|08||[[Montreal World Film Festival|Montreal]]|1982|09|08|France|1982|09|16|West Germany}}
| runtime        = 108 minutes<!--Theatrical runtime: 107:45--><ref>{{cite web|title=''Querelle'' (18)|url=http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/querelle-1970-2|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305090555/http://www.bbfc.co.uk/releases/querelle-1970-2|url-status=dead|archive-date=5 March 2016|publisher=[[British Board of Film Classification]]|date=1983-07-27|access-date=2013-05-29}}</ref>
| country        = West Germany<br />France
| language       = English
| budget         = [[Deutsche Mark|DEM]]4 million
}}

'''''Querelle''''' is a 1982 English-language [[erotic film|erotic]] [[art film]]  directed by [[Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]. The film stars [[Brad Davis (actor)|Brad Davis]] and was adapted from French author [[Jean Genet]]'s 1947 novel ''[[Querelle of Brest]]''. The plot centers on the Belgian sailor Georges Querelle, who is both a thief and [[murderer]]. It was Fassbinder's last film, released shortly after his death at the age of 37.

== Plot ==
When [[Belgian people|Belgian]] sailor Georges Querelle's ship, ''Le Vengeur'', arrives in [[Brest, France|Brest]], he visits the ''Feria'', a bar and brothel for sailors run by Madame Lysiane, whose lover, Robert, is Querelle's brother. Querelle has a love/hate relationship with his brother: when they meet at La Feria, they embrace, but also punch one another slowly and repeatedly in the belly. Lysiane's husband Nono works behind the bar and also manages La Feria's illicit affairs with the assistance of his friend Mario, the corrupt police captain.

Querelle makes a deal to sell [[opium]] to Nono. During the execution of the deal, he murders his accomplice Vic by slitting his throat. After delivering the drugs, Querelle announces that he wants to sleep with Lysiane. He knows that this means he will have to throw dice with Nono, who has the privilege of playing a game of chance with all of her prospective lovers. If Nono loses, the suitor is allowed to proceed with his affair. If the suitor loses, however, he must submit to [[anal sex]] with Nono first, according to Nono's maxim: "That way, I can say my wife only sleeps with arseholes." Querelle deliberately loses the game, allowing himself to be [[Sodomy|sodomized]] by Nono. When Nono gloats about Querelle's "loss" to Robert, who won his dice game, the brothers end up in a violent fight. Afterwards, Querelle has sex with Mario.

Back on the ship, a builder, Gil, murders his work mate Theo, who had been harassing and [[sexual assault|sexually assaulting]] him. Gil hides from the police in an abandoned prison, and Roger, who is in love with Gil, establishes contact between Querelle and Gil in the hopes that Querelle can help Gil escape. Querelle falls in love with Gil, who closely resembles his brother. Gil returns his affections, but Querelle betrays Gil by tipping off the police. Querelle cleverly arranged it so that the murder of Vic is also blamed on Gil.

A perennial undercurrent in the film is that Querelle's superior, Lieutenant Seblon, is in love with Querelle, and constantly tries to prove his manliness to him. Seblon is aware that Querelle murdered Vic, but chooses to protect him.

The film ends with the sailors aboard ''Le Vengeur'', presumably about to leave port. A heartbroken Lysiane, spurned by Querelle, conducts a tarot reading for Robert: she realizes that he and Querelle were never brothers after all. As Lysiane laughs maniacally, we see Querelle's birth record transcribed on-screen.

== Cast ==
* [[Brad Davis (actor)|Brad Davis]] as [[Georges Querelle|Querelle]]
* [[Franco Nero]] as Lieutenant Seblon
* [[Jeanne Moreau]] as Lysiane
* [[Laurent Malet]] as Roger Bataille
* [[Hanno Pöschl]] as Robert / Gil
* [[Günther Kaufmann]] as Nono
* [[Burkhard Driest]] as Mario
* [[Roger Fritz]] as Marcellin
* [[Dieter Schidor]] as Vic Rivette
* [[Natja Brunckhorst]] as Paulette
* [[Werner Asam]] as Worker
* [[Axel Bauer(actor)|Axel Bauer]] as Worker
* Neil Bell as Theo
* [[Robert van Ackeren]] as Drunken legionnaire
* [[Wolf Gremm]] as Drunken legionnaire
* [[Frank Ripploh]] as Drunken legionnaire

== Production ==
According to Genet's biographer [[Edmund White]], ''Querelle'' was originally going to be made by [[Werner Schroeter]], with a scenario by [[Burkhard Driest]], and produced by Dieter Schidor. However, Schidor could not find the money to finance a film by Schroeter, and therefore turned to other directors, including [[John Schlesinger]] and [[Sam Peckinpah]], before finally settling on Fassbinder. Driest wrote a radically different script for Fassbinder, who then "took the linear narrative and jumbled it up". White quotes Schidor as saying "Fassbinder did something totally different, he took the words of Genet and tried to meditate on something other than the story. The story became totally unimportant for him. He also said publicly that the story was a sort of third-rate police story that wouldn't be worth making a movie about without putting a particular moral impact into it".<ref name=White615-616 />

Schroeter had wanted to make a black and white film with amateur actors and location shots, but Fassbinder instead shot it with professional actors in a lurid, expressionist color, and on sets in the studio. Edmund White comments that the result is a film in which, "Everything is bathed in an artificial light and the architectural elements are all symbolic."<ref name=White615-616>White, Edmund. ''Genet: A Biography''. Alfred A. Knopf 1993, pp. 615-616</ref>

Stylistically, the film is inspired heavily by the works of erotic artist [[Tom of Finland]]. Besides costume design and hair styles, actors were posed in silhouettes and scenarios common to Tom of Finland artwork. "The director Rainer Werner Fassbinder took obvious cues from Tom of Finland in his 1982 film adaptation of Jean Genet’s novel Querelle. As the eponymous lead, actor Brad Davis was Tom’s sailor come to life."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Tierney |first1=Paul |title=TOM OF FINLAND: Light and shade |url=https://www.tomoffinland.org/19001-2/ |website=TOM OF FINLAND FOUNDATION |access-date=6 March 2024}}</ref>

== Soundtrack ==
* Jeanne Moreau – "Each Man Kills the Things He Loves" (music by [[Peer Raben]], lyrics from [[Oscar Wilde]]'s poem "[[The Ballad of Reading Gaol]]")
* "Young and Joyful Bandit" (Music by Peer Raben, lyrics by Jeanne Moreau)

== Release ==
Released after the death of the director, ''Querelle'' sold more than 100,000 tickets in the first three weeks after its release in Paris, the first time that a film with a gay theme had achieved such success.<ref name=White615-616 /> On [[review aggregator]] [[Rotten Tomatoes]], the film has an approval rating of 65%, based on 17 reviews, with a weighted average rating of 6.30/10.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/querelle|title=Querelle|publisher=Rotten Tomatoes|access-date=26 November 2024}}</ref> Writing for ''[[The New York Times]]'' critic [[Vincent Canby]] noted that ''Querelle'' was "a mess...a detour that leads to a dead end."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/29/movies/fassbinder-s-last.html|title = Fassbinder's Last|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 29 April 1983|last1 = Canby|first1 = Vincent}}</ref> Penny Ashbrook calls ''Querelle'' Fassbinder's "perfect epitaph: an intensely personal statement that is the most uncompromising portrayal of gay male sensibility to come from a major filmmaker."<ref>{{cite book |author=Penny Ashbrook |editor=Gilbert, Harriet |title=The Sexual Imagination: From Acker to Zola |publisher=Jonathan Cape |location=London |year=1993 |page=[https://archive.org/details/sexualimaginatio0000unse/page/87 87] |isbn=0-224-03535-5 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/sexualimaginatio0000unse/page/87 }}</ref> Edmund White considers ''Querelle'' the only film based on Genet's book that works, calling it "visually as artificial and menacing as Genet's prose."<ref name=White340>White, Edmund. ''Genet: A Biography''. Alfred A. Knopf 1993, p. 340</ref> Genet, in discussion with Schidor, said that he had not seen the film, commenting "You can't smoke at the movies."<ref name=White615-616 />

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
* {{commons category-inline}}
* {{IMDb title|0084565|Querelle}}
* {{tcmdb title|id=87468}}
* {{rotten-tomatoes|querelle|Querelle}}

{{Rainer Werner Fassbinder}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Querelle}}
[[Category:1982 films]]
[[Category:1982 drama films]]
[[Category:1982 LGBTQ-related films]]
[[Category:German drama films]]
[[Category:German LGBTQ-related films]]
[[Category:French drama films]]
[[Category:French LGBTQ-related films]]
[[Category:West German films]]
[[Category:English-language German films]]
[[Category:Films directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder]]
[[Category:Films scored by Peer Raben]]
[[Category:Films based on French novels]]
[[Category:Films shot in Berlin]]
[[Category:Films set in France]]
[[Category:Films set in the 1940s]]
[[Category:German serial killer films]]
[[Category:English-language French films]]
[[Category:Films based on works by Jean Genet]]
[[Category:1980s LGBTQ-related drama films]]
[[Category:1980s English-language films]]
[[Category:1980s French films]]
[[Category:1980s German films]]