DVD Pick of the Month: November

Symphony of a city

By D.K. Holm

It’s an ungainly work of art. The film is no less than 15+ hours (or 931 minutes) long, and in its initial form looked so poorly shot as to be un-viewable. It was one of the most controversial films in the career of its director, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and one of his last: he was to die, at the age of 37, two years (and five films) later. Yet Berlin Alexanderplatz remains arguably the best entry point into appreciating and understanding the work of this tempestuous artist. Now, thanks to the new Criterion Collection set, interested viewers can gain easy access to this monumental work, in a restored (and viewable) form overseen by the cinematographer, Xaver Schwarzenberger.
 
One of the reasons why the film provides insight into Fassbinder is that he loved and had a complex relationship with the source novel. Berlin Alexanderplatz was a novel written by Alfred Döblin and published in 1929, and literary historians find that it effectively captures the mood of post WWI and pre-Hitler Germany. Berlin was a city of highs and lows, the most impoverished people mingling with the wealthiest, and every conceivable hedonistic pleasure obtainable by some while others toiled for bread that they had to buy with wheelbarrows full of deutschmarks. Berlin Alexanderplatz was actually adapted to the screen once before, back in 1931, closer to its actual setting. But what appears to attract Fassbinder to the tale is less its political climate than its examination of a tense friendship, one of a type that crops up in most of his films.
 
Berlin Alexanderplatz follows the decline of one Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht), a former pimp just released from jail for killing his mistress. Though resolved to go straight, society itself won’t let him (the film’s first chapter is called “The Punishment Begins”). Eventually he falls in with a cunning thug named Reinhold Hoffmann (Gottfried John), who is more powerful, charismatic, and ruthless than Biberkopf. He begins by passing on his used women to his new friend, and ends up betraying him, becoming the root cause of the loss of his arm, and killing his new girlfriend. Fassbinder was drawn to this dynamic repeatedly in his films and plays, but it would be a romantic mistake to assume that Fassbinder necessarily identified with the victim in this dyad. Fassbinder was drawn to power and in his real life sought to maintain it at all costs, often by orchestrating feuds among his retinue of actors, acolytes, compliant lovers, and hangers-on. Berlin Alexanderplatz is the film in which he explored such relationships in the most depth, and thus it provides the most insight into all his other work.
 
Besides the lengthy film itself, Criterion’s box set also includes two new documentaries—one about the making of the film, the other about its restoration—plus an earlier 1980 making of documentary that shows Fassbinder in action. There is also a video interview with German culture scholar Peter Jelavich, and the original 1931 adaptation, which is only 90 minutes. In addition, a booklet that comes with the box offers chapter selections, transfer information, cast and crew, and essays by and about Fassbinder. Criterion’s seven-disc Berlin Alexanderplatz retails for $124.95 and hits the street Tuesday, November 13th.