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A permanent move to America is unlikely, however. Wenders says he plans to return when Hammett is finished, and Herzog, that most rug ged of rugged individualists, will make German films wherever he is. Fassbinder, much as he longs to live in Manhattan, cannot escape the destiny that has made him not only German, but a distinct kind of German, the Bavarian. "The new German directors are like airplanes always circling the airport but never landing," says the philosophical Kluge.
"Fassbinder may go to America. But he will crash and come back."
Those who love their movies can only wish him and his comrades an easy landing and a safe passage home. It is, as Herzog says, "difficult to be German and to have our historical background." Perhaps. But out of that background have come some of the most exciting films of the decade. — Gerald Clarke