BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (Fassbinder, 1980)
Criterion Collection, Blu-ray, Release Date Feb 12, 2019
Review by Christopher S. Long
The Book of Job tells the greatest
story in the Old Testament, but the protagonist is a bit of a stick
in the mud, all virtue and faith and no fun. In his 1929 novel
“Berlin Alexanderplatz,” German author Alfred Doblin created a
Job with a little personality and an abundance of character flaws.
Released from a four-year prison stint for the murder of his
girlfriend, Ida, Franz Biberkopf vows to live honestly, but
inevitably falls back into his old patterns, a little petty larceny
here, a side of pimping there, and a sound trashing of his new lady
love just to complete the circle.
Franz may not be the most sympathetic
of protagonists, but his doomed struggle against the forces
conspiring against him (call it God, fate, or maybe Berlin itself)
carries a universal resonance or, at the very least, an undeniable
train-wreck appeal. Surprisingly affable for a violent thug, this
unholy fool is just perceptive enough to realize he's being jerked
around by powers beyond his control, but neither smart nor
self-reflective enough to mount a meaningful resistance against them.
He's perfectly designed for suffering, and boy does Franz ever get
put through his paces.
You can understand why the project
would appeal to Rainer Werner Fassbinder. The German director first
read Doblin's novel as a teenager, and the encounter struck him like
a thunderbolt. Fassbinder said, “My life would have turned out
differently” if not for Doblin's book, and by the time he began
filming his adaptation in 1979, he claimed to know the book by heart.
Fassbinder even flaunted his fandom by portraying a character named
Franz Biberkopf in his 1975 film, “Fox And His Friends.”
The most notable quality of
Fassbinder's adaptation is its epic length, a bit over fifteen hours
in total, including thirteen episodes (all but the first an hour
long) and a lengthy epilogue. After spending the last week deeply
engaged with both, I can attest that the novel takes about half as
long to read as the series takes to watch. Doblin's innovative novel
was already famous for its loose, rambling approach to narrative,
more a flurry of montages and impressions than a single story, and
Fassbinder takes great pleasure in lingering on even the most minor
moments and locations. The meandering is the point.
Doblin describes Biberkopf as “a
coarse, rough man of repulsive appearance” so I'm not sure if actor
Gunter Lamprecht was honored to be Fassbinder's choice for the role,
but it was an inspired piece of casting. Slump-shouldered, his face
sagging but his eyes bright and searching, Lamprecht shuffles his way
through the trials and tribulations of Biberkopf, a lumbering hulk
and hapless schmuck who, like R.E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian, is
prone to gigantic melancholies and gigantic mirth, his sudden
eruptions of laughter as violent as his rages. Franz styles himself
an independent thinker, but his worldview is shaped by whomever he
has spoken to last. Franz can fit in comfortably with the relatively
new Nazi party one day, the Communists the next, and then reject all
politics as a mug's game the day after before reversing course once
more.
Franz wanders from woman to woman too,
until settling on his beloved Mieze (Barbara Sukowa), the childlike
naif who remains true blue to Franz even while he pimps her out to
pay his rent. Franz is blessed with yet another defender in Eva
(Hanna Schygulla), an old flame always ready to bail him out of
trouble. But life and love get really complicated when Franz stumbles
into the shiftless, low-life crook Reinhold (Gottfried John), who
appeals to Franz in ways he can't quite articulate (Fassbinder called
it a “pure love” but not a homosexual attraction, though numerous
viewers would disagree). On their first encounter, Franz confidently
sizes up Reinhold as a fellow ex-convict. He's dead wrong in this
initial assessment, and will continue to be wrong about Reinhold
throughout the film, a fatal error in judgment that costs Franz first
his right arm, then his darling Mieze, and finally even his sanity.
Fassbinder amps up the melodrama in his
stylized fashion, sometimes directing his actors to perform in grand
gestures reminiscent of silent cinema. They burst out screaming and
crying, or collapse abruptly, perhaps challenging the naturalistic
expectations of some viewers hooked on method. Lamprecht shines in
the broadest moments, throwing around his bulk and sheer presence to
great effect, but also has fun with some of the quieter scenes
including an endearing pub sequence where Franz has an intimate
dialogue with the beers he is about to drink (taken almost verbatim
from the novel, by the way).
German viewers complained about the
shoddy quality of the image when the series was first broadcast on
television, but Fassbinder and cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger
attributed the problem to a subpar transfer from 16 mm film to video.
The restored print here (released in theaters in 2006) showcases a
lustrous if sometimes hazy image, replete with the numerous
reflective surfaces that became so prominent in Fassbinder's later
work. The net result is a look simultaneously seedy and mythic,
perhaps like Weimar Berlin should look in movies.
Fassbinder's “Berlin Alexanderplatz”
can be exhausting to watch, but it's surely meant to be. The
sprawling running time provides the director the chance to include
much of Doblin's dazzling language in voice-overs as well as in
dialogue, but the length is essential to Fassbinder's merciless
experiment. This clown, this bully, this dope, this sainted Job named
Biberkopf is on the same life journey as the rest of us, just
plodding on and on until he finally breaks. And after somebody
breaks, he can break still further or perhaps, against all
expectations, be stitched back together, albeit in a very different
form.
It's not that there's a lesson to
learned in the whole experience, just that we might as well
acknowledge what's coming. We don't really have a choice, that's our
curse. Doblin compares Franz to a pig at one point, noting the latter
has a distinct advantage: “At the end of its life, there's the
knife... before it notices anything... it's already kaput. Whereas a
man, he's got eyes, and there's a lot going on inside him... he's
capable of thinking God knows what, and he will think (his head is
terrible) about what will happen to him.”
So there's that. Have a great day!
Video:
The entire mini-series was restored for
a theatrical release a little over a decade ago, and that restoration
was the source for Criterion's 2007 DVD release of “Berlin
Alexanderplatz.” The same restoration now gets the high-def upgrade
for this Blu-ray re-release. The image quality is on the weaker side
for a Criterion release. I've seen a few grumblings about Criterion
forcing fitting five hours worth of programming onto each of three
Blu-ray discs (a fourth disc includes all the extras). I don't know
if that's the issue, but there are a few instances where motion looks
a bit blurry or blocky, and I couldn't describe this transfer as
having the same “sharp image quality” associated with most
Criteron Blu-ray releases. It's adequate, but doesn't really provide
a significant upgrade over the old DVD release. The series is
presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio.
Audio:
The DTS-HD Master Mono mix provide a
solid if unremarkable audio presentation. Peer Raben's score is a
prominent creative element that I didn't really get time to discuss,
sometimes overwhelming the dialogue, and it sounds fine here.
Optional English subtitles support the German audio.
Extras:
All of the extras are included on Disc
Four.
“Fassbinder's 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'
A Mega-Movie and Its Story” (65 min.) is a 2007 documentary
directed by Juliane Lorenz, editor of the film and president of the
Fassbinder Foundation. The film returns to the sets and locations of
the movie and features interviews with cast and crew members,
including Lamprecht, Schygulla, Gottfried John, Sukowa, and others.
“Notes on the Making of 'Berlin
Alexanderplatz'” (44 min.) is an on-set behind-the-scenes feature
shot by Hans-Dieter Hartl. We get to see a whole lot of Fassbinder in
action, directing several different scenes from the series. The
Fassbinder presented in this documentary is much more calm and
in-control than he is often made out to be.
Criterion has also included a 32-minute
feature on the painstaking restoration of the series, featuring
Juliane Lorenz and cinematographer Xaver Schwarzenberger.
We also get a 2007 interview (24 min.)
with Peter Jelavich, author of a book on the various adaptation of
Doblin's novel. Like a few other critics I've read, Jelavich compares
“Berlin Alexanderplatz” to James Joyce's “Ulysses” and John
Dos Passos's “Manhattan Transfer” for its innovative style, and
as an exemplar of 1920's literature. Having read such takes on the
book, I was surprised at how direct and accessible I found the novel.
It was actually a pretty quick read, though I suspect having just
finished watching Fassbinder's series shaped my experience. In any
case, this piece offers a lot of interesting details, including the
fact that a 1930 radio adaptation of “Berlin Alexanderplatz” was
canceled at the last minute, for fear of the reaction of Nazi
officials.
Finally, the disc includes the first
film adaptation of the novel, a 1931 film directed by Phil Jutzi and
starring Heinrich George as Biberkopf. Running just 84 minutes, it
bears only a passing resemblance to the novel (despite Doblin
co-writing the screenplay), presenting a more heroic protagonist and
an upbeat ending, but some of its scenes of hectic Berlin street life
are quite heady.
The thick insert booklet repeats the
content of the 2007 DVD release, with essays by filmmaker Tom Tykwer
and author Thomas Steinfeld, plus an interview with cinematographer
Schwarzberger and a revealing essay by Fassbinder talking about his
relationship with the novel.
Final Thoughts:
Trivia: The busybody landlady Frau Bast (played
by Brigitte Mira) is one of the film's most memorable supporting
characters, but has no equivalent in the novel.
A middling high-def upgrade might not
demand a double dip, but “Berlin Alexanderplatz” is one of the
crowning achievements of Fassbinder's career, certainly a long
journey from his earliest years when he could knock out an entire
feature film in just over a week of shooting. I find it compulsively
watchable. Your mileage may vary, but it's an essential experience
for any devoted cinephile.
