Revisiting the Classics – Ali: Fear Eats the Soul

Adapted from the classic melodrama All That Heaven Allows (Sirk, 1955), Ali: Fear Eats the Soul is Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s loving homage to his cinematic hero, Douglas Sirk. Refracting the original film’s examination of love across the boundaries of class, family convention, and social propriety through the racial dynamics of Fassbinder’s native Germany, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul centers on the widow Emmi (Brigitte Mira) and her relationship with Ali (El Hedi ben Salem), an Arab laborer many years her junior. As their love flourishes, it runs up against the shock, disapproval, and disdain of their racially-stratified social world.

Timothy Corrigan, (Cinema and Media Studies, English and the History of Art, University of Pennsylvania) will join moderator Patrice Petro (Dick Wolf Director, Carsey-Wolf Center) for a post-screening discussion of Ali: Fear Eats the Soul.

This event is presented in conjunction with our special roundtable discussion, Criticism Now: Film Writing for a Culture, which takes place from 3:00-5:00 PM on Wednesday, October 25 in the Wallis Annenberg Conference Room at UCSB. This roundtable is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are appreciated,