Fassbinder's Simulations: Fascist Futures, Retro Entertainment, and Remediation in Welt am Draht (1973)

abstract: This article presents an historicized close reading of Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1973 science fiction film Welt am Draht as an incisive critique of simulation, retro culture, and fascist futures. Overlooked in the film are numerous markers of German history on different levels of simulated reality which address the voiding of history by retro entertainment and construct provocative parallels between the late Weimar era and authoritarian tendencies in post-1968 West Germany. Reread alongside Jean Baudrillard's contemporaneous writings, Welt am Draht distinguishes itself for its attention to media difference and the politics of remediation as central to the film's critique of simulation.