Director: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Writers: Alfred Doblin, Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Photography: Xaver Schwarzenberger
Music: Peer Raben
Editor: Juliane Lorenz
Cast: Gunter Lamprecht, Franz Buchrieser, Gottfried John, Hanna Schygulla, Barbara Sukowa, Elisabeth Trissenaar, Annemarie Duringer, Barbara Valentin, Brigitte Mira, Roger Fritz, Ivan Desny, Volker Spengler, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Karin Baal, Hark Bohm, Gerhard Zwerenz, Traute Hoess, Udo Kier, Fritz Schediwy, Claus Holm
Director and screenwriter Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, simply by virtue of its dazzling, massive, and sustained 15-hour volume, probably has to be accounted as Fassbinder’s one greatest masterpiece (even if critics in the roundup at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? seem to favor Ali: Fear Eats the Soul). Berlin Alexanderplatz is a brilliant character study as well as a brilliant profile of Berlin in 1928, in a tradition of movies such as the 1927 silent documentary Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis. Berlin in 1928 was roiling with social and political turmoil and economic despair. Our man Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht, who is so good here it’s hard to describe) is introduced by Alfred Doblin in the 1929 source novel as “an erstwhile cement- and transport-worker in Berlin. He has just been discharged from prison where he has been doing time because of former incidents, and is now back in Berlin, determined to lead a decent life.”
What Doblin elides as “former incidents” is what Fassbinder spends a good deal of the TV miniseries dwelling on. Biberkopf formerly made his way as a pimp and in a fit of fury beat his prostitute girlfriend Ida to death. Berlin Alexanderplatz includes the murder scene in the first of its 13 episodes (plus a two-hour epilogue) and it is returned to over and over. It’s in many of these episodes. It is exactly what Biberkopf is trying to escape even as circumstances return him to it without mercy. He was sent to prison for it, serving four years (in this day and age it seems like nothing for a murder, doesn’t it?). At the beginning of the miniseries he’s back on the streets again, determined to go straight. It’s 1928 Berlin. What could go wrong?
Director and screenwriter Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, simply by virtue of its dazzling, massive, and sustained 15-hour volume, probably has to be accounted as Fassbinder’s one greatest masterpiece (even if critics in the roundup at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? seem to favor Ali: Fear Eats the Soul). Berlin Alexanderplatz is a brilliant character study as well as a brilliant profile of Berlin in 1928, in a tradition of movies such as the 1927 silent documentary Berlin: Symphony of Metropolis. Berlin in 1928 was roiling with social and political turmoil and economic despair. Our man Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht, who is so good here it’s hard to describe) is introduced by Alfred Doblin in the 1929 source novel as “an erstwhile cement- and transport-worker in Berlin. He has just been discharged from prison where he has been doing time because of former incidents, and is now back in Berlin, determined to lead a decent life.”
What Doblin elides as “former incidents” is what Fassbinder spends a good deal of the TV miniseries dwelling on. Biberkopf formerly made his way as a pimp and in a fit of fury beat his prostitute girlfriend Ida to death. Berlin Alexanderplatz includes the murder scene in the first of its 13 episodes (plus a two-hour epilogue) and it is returned to over and over. It’s in many of these episodes. It is exactly what Biberkopf is trying to escape even as circumstances return him to it without mercy. He was sent to prison for it, serving four years (in this day and age it seems like nothing for a murder, doesn’t it?). At the beginning of the miniseries he’s back on the streets again, determined to go straight. It’s 1928 Berlin. What could go wrong?
Inevitably we see evidence of nazis in this time and place, and communists too and the tensions and brawls between them. But more than anything we see people trying to survive in a very bad economy, with hundreds of thousands unemployed, getting by the best they can. Even though Biberkopf is entirely sincere in his commitment to the straight and narrow, his milieu is toxic. Prostitutes can earn money, even find sugar daddies to support their boyfriends or pimps. Gangs operate by stealing consumer goods like furs and jewelry and peddling the loot on the black market. Hyperinflation is mostly a memory in 1928, but one that still makes people reflexively nervous. Raging unemployment is more the main concern now. Nothing is certain. People feel the very ground shifting under their feet. Booze is often the beckoning temptation.
Biberkopf is a hapless naif in all this, practically an innocent even as the recurring murder of Ida reminds us he is not, not really. His past haunts him. But he plainly thinks that, by turning a bright, upbeat face to the world and engaging others with goodwill, things will work out for the best. He floats from job to job, from girlfriend to girlfriend. Berlin Alexanderplatz takes its times developing its central narrative arc. It’s not until the fifth episode that we meet the stammering, seemingly gentle Reinhold (Gottfried John), the great villain of this tale and indeed arguable as one of the great villains anywhere. And it’s not until the eighth episode that we meet Mieze (Barbara Sukowa), the prostitute with a heart of gold too good to be true. But true—or anyway Fassbinder seduces us into thinking of her that way, the way Biberkopf sees her too. She has her issues. But she is beautiful and she gets her own beautiful musical theme too. In fact, by the way, Peer Raben’s score is singularly excellent, though I suspect some of the soundtrack choices in the strange epilogue—Janis Joplin, Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, etc.—are more likely Fassbinder’s.
I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that Berlin Alexaderplatz is a tragedy. The narrative structure is a slowly swirling downward spiral that moves faster as it takes us down the drain. The last three episodes are very hard to watch, but you wouldn’t want to miss them. Just get prepared to be unhappy about the way things are going for your favorite characters. The long epilogue is harder to explain and feels like a point where Fassbinder deliberately decided to make his motion picture difficult. I’ve come to it exhausted in two previous viewings and had little patience for it. I tried it a different way this time and saw that it’s actually more lucid than I’d seen before.
I’m not going to pretend Berlin Alexanderplatz is any picnic. It is demandingly long and slow, all star-filter sparkle, operating at multiple levels of narrative (with a brooding random voiceover, and various random title cards, commenting directly or obliquely on the action as the story unfolds). I saw it when it was released in the ‘80s, playing two or three episodes weekly for five weeks, and then many years later again with the Criterion set. I might like it because I like the accomplishment of having seen it and come out alive. I hope to like Out 1 for the same reason someday. But I do think Berlin Alexanderplatz stands as a remarkable landmark of cinema—among other things it foresees, in 1980, much of the future of television in the next century (and so does his World on a Wire for that matter). I think it’s worth the time without a doubt, but, as always, YMMV.
Biberkopf is a hapless naif in all this, practically an innocent even as the recurring murder of Ida reminds us he is not, not really. His past haunts him. But he plainly thinks that, by turning a bright, upbeat face to the world and engaging others with goodwill, things will work out for the best. He floats from job to job, from girlfriend to girlfriend. Berlin Alexanderplatz takes its times developing its central narrative arc. It’s not until the fifth episode that we meet the stammering, seemingly gentle Reinhold (Gottfried John), the great villain of this tale and indeed arguable as one of the great villains anywhere. And it’s not until the eighth episode that we meet Mieze (Barbara Sukowa), the prostitute with a heart of gold too good to be true. But true—or anyway Fassbinder seduces us into thinking of her that way, the way Biberkopf sees her too. She has her issues. But she is beautiful and she gets her own beautiful musical theme too. In fact, by the way, Peer Raben’s score is singularly excellent, though I suspect some of the soundtrack choices in the strange epilogue—Janis Joplin, Velvet Underground, Kraftwerk, etc.—are more likely Fassbinder’s.
I don’t think it’s giving too much away to say that Berlin Alexaderplatz is a tragedy. The narrative structure is a slowly swirling downward spiral that moves faster as it takes us down the drain. The last three episodes are very hard to watch, but you wouldn’t want to miss them. Just get prepared to be unhappy about the way things are going for your favorite characters. The long epilogue is harder to explain and feels like a point where Fassbinder deliberately decided to make his motion picture difficult. I’ve come to it exhausted in two previous viewings and had little patience for it. I tried it a different way this time and saw that it’s actually more lucid than I’d seen before.
I’m not going to pretend Berlin Alexanderplatz is any picnic. It is demandingly long and slow, all star-filter sparkle, operating at multiple levels of narrative (with a brooding random voiceover, and various random title cards, commenting directly or obliquely on the action as the story unfolds). I saw it when it was released in the ‘80s, playing two or three episodes weekly for five weeks, and then many years later again with the Criterion set. I might like it because I like the accomplishment of having seen it and come out alive. I hope to like Out 1 for the same reason someday. But I do think Berlin Alexanderplatz stands as a remarkable landmark of cinema—among other things it foresees, in 1980, much of the future of television in the next century (and so does his World on a Wire for that matter). I think it’s worth the time without a doubt, but, as always, YMMV.
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