One Who Has Love in His Belly

[In an effort to exercise my high school German, I’m going to post one of these translations per week. I already posted one from Werner Herzog way back during the Obama administration, but I hope to get into a more regular rhythm now. Again, my German is terrible, do not take any of the following as a definitive English version, you can’t get mad at me.]

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Written for the program guide of the world premiere of “Blood on the Neck of the Cat,” City Theater Nuremburg, March 20, 1971. Title from the editor.

One Who Has Love in His Belly

One who has love in his belly doesn’t need to play pinball, because love itself is activity enough – he doesn’t need the machine, against which one can only lose. If a woman stands in the rain and cries, it is because her sweetheart has left her. And he has left her because she couldn’t bind him to her. Love is quite an effort, that’s just the way it is. Limits sets us free. Terror cannot be as cruel as the fear of the terror. Or – abandonment cannot make one as lonely as does the fear of the end, for the fear of the end creates a climate in which you fear the terror. It would be nice to take everything apart and put it together again. One can always only begin with what is. There is no utopia. And the idea of a beautiful love is a beautiful idea, but most rooms have four walls, most streets are paved, and you need air to breathe. Yes – the machine is a perfect result of the head. For me, I have decided to play pinball again and let the machine win, it’s all the same – I’ll be the final winner.

March 1971

Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Filme befreien den Kopf: Essays und Arbeitsnotizen. Herausgegeben von Michael Töteberg, Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag: Frankfurt am Main, 1984, p. 25