Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Country: Germany
Award: none
Movement: New German Cinema
Martha is a 1974 drama film made for German television directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It features Margit Carstensen in the title role with Karlheinz Böhm as her abusive husband. It is one of the earliest of Fassbinder's films to be influenced by the American work of Douglas Sirk. The plot was loosely based on a short story "For the Rest of Her Life" by Cornell Woolrich. Martha is a wealthy and totally self-involved woman -- so much so that on a trip during which her father dies, she does indeed cry, but only because she lost her purse. She marries a stranger who claims not to be at all attracted to her, and their wedding is only the beginning of a battle between them to determine who will get the upper hand over the other. Martha holds her own in this genuinely sado-masochistic relationship, until a tragic accident paralyzes her.
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