"Until its self-described two-hour epilogue, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 novel Berlin Alexanderplatz is an engrossing psychological portrait of Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht), a Weimar-era worker bee whose slow corrosion of self both parallels and paves the way for the impending rise of Nazism. He’s a vividly realized allegorical golem, at moments passive and acquiescent, at others viciously in control. Emerging from a four-year prison stint at the start of Fassbinder’s 15-hour-plus epic, he plugs his ears and contorts his mouth in silent scream (the on-screen title reads: 'The Torment Begins'), though he’s no mere victim of the pogrom’s progress slowly infecting the German id. In retrospect, Biberkopf is more of an accumulative symbol, as he wears his ideologies—Nazi newspaper seller, drunk, underground criminal, pimp—like the latest fashions, discarding them when they violently fester or cease to be useful. The residue of his experiences—multifaceted, oft-contradictory—nonetheless remains, so the impression in the moment is one of revelation: With each narrative step forward, Biberkopf seemingly gains in clarity (the length of the work is a benefit, allowing for a novelistic density and, at times, a mesmeric depth of character), though Fassbinder is, in fact, merely setting up his metaphor-slathered patsy for an empty-headed last-act kill. ..."
Slant
NY Times: Wandering in Weimar Purgatory By A. O. SCOTT
The Paris Review - Mean Streets: The Life and Afterlife of Berlin Alexanderplatz
NY Times: BY FASSBINDER, 'BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ' by Vincent Canby
W - Berlin Alexanderplatz (miniseries)
amazon (Video)
YouTube: Berlin Alexanderplatz trailer, Barbara Sukowa on Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, Harry Baer on Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, Hanna Schygulla on Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz
Book review: Nothing lost in translation of 'Berlin Alexanderplatz'
W - Alfred Döblin
NYRB: Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin
2014 May: Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 2014 June: Effi Briest (1974), 2014 July: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1974), 2014 September: A Little Chaos: A Short Crime Film by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Enfant Terrible of New German Cinema, 2014 October: Lola - (1981 BRD Trilogy), 2014 October: The Marriage of Maria Braun (1979 BRD Trilogy), 2014 December: Veronika Voss (1982 - BRD Trilogy), 2015 January: Digital Anthology: Rainer Werner Fassbinder - $0.99, 2016 February: The Merchant of Four Seasons (1971)
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