Word: maria
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...FRENCH HAVE a word for people with an uncanny knack for getting along: they call them debrouillards. Maria Braun, played by Hanna Schygulla and heroine of Reiner Fassbinder's latest film, The Marriage of Maria Braun, is a debrouillarde...
...Maria Braun, epitome of the country's post-war "economic miracle," proves that Germany cannot only survive, but flourish. "I prefer making miracles to waiting for them," she stoutly adjures. Married in 1944 for half a day and a whole night, her soldier-husband Herman Braun (Klaus Lowitsch) is sent off to the Russian front. Maria pledges unfailing devotion to Herman--a silent, morose type--yet her notion of love takes on strange forms...
...absence Maria does not pine away. Rather, she pawns her mother's brooch, buys a slinky black dress, and begins work at a "night-club" for American G.I.s. There, she meets up with Bill (George Byrd), a chubby black soldier who becomes starstruck by her while slow-dancing to the tunes of Benny Goodman...
Clearly, in post-war Germany, survival emerges the prime consideration. Bill provides Maria an ample quantity of chocolate, silk stockings, and affection; he beseeches her to marry him. Maria playfully hedges; she is ever in control of the situation. "I am fond of you, Bill, but I love my husband," she declares solemnly, insisting upon the appellation of "Mrs. Braun...
Still, Herman has not come back from the Front; he is believed dead. Then one day, as Maria and Bill are about to dive into bed, Heman materializes in the bedroom doorway. Lowitsch, iron-jawed, taciturn, renders the strange tableau one of the most powerful scenes in the movie. He tussels with the black soldier, and Maria clobbers Bill--fatally--with a bottle...