Abstract
This essay examines the use of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony in the New-German cinematic works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It first places this usage in the context of the wider history of employing Mahler's music within film soundtracks, a practice which stretches back to the 1960s. The socio-political implications of Mahler's monumental national 'gift' of this Symphony are considered alongside the ambivalent ideological preoccupations of Fassbinder with regard to the Germany of the 1970s and the political heritage of its imperial past. The three filmic works in question (Chinese Roulette (1976), Lili Marleen (1980), and Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980)) engage with Mahler’s music in different cultural and historical contexts, yielding a variety of personalized and universalized readings of the German condition.