Veronika Voss, once one of Ufa's greats and rumoured lover of Goebbels, has a chance meeting with #sports journalist Robert Krohn. Despite not recognising her at first glance, the faded star and her world turn out to be irresistible to him.

“What do you want from Voss? She's no good at soccer.”

– Grete

Die Sehnsucht der Veronika Voss [litt. The yearning of Veronika Voss] is #Fassbinder's tribute to both #BillyWilder's Sunset Blvd. (1950) and real-world actress Sybille Schmitz whose career, like Voss', suffered greatly due to her #morphine dependence after the Entnazifizierung.

Europeans are not too worried about certain things. Having a body for instance is something good. Instead of shame, you take care for it with regular exercise and plenty of fresh air. Preferably both. In Germany this is called #Freikörperkultur, sometimes confused with nudism.

 

Wege zu Kraft und Schönheit is a display of the human in various stages of exercise and undress. We see sportspeople – including future-Tarzan Johnny Weissmuller and then-movie mountaineer Leni Riefenstahl – world leaders (Rockefeller and Mussolini, though the latter was cut from re-releases) and dancers such as Josephine Baker, Baku Ishii, and the scandalous Anita Berber. The film was mostly aimed at women, who by then were part of the workforce, sitting at desks in modern Metropolises. So modern it was that people were encouraged to complete their Wege-collection of trading cards, which came with their cigarettes. Good thing they're all #outdoors.