Berlin Alexanderplatz - Criterion Collection | 
 enlarge | Actors: Günter Lamprecht, Peter Kollek, Mechthild Grossmann, Hans Zander, Yaak Karsunke
Studio: Criterion Collection
Category: DVD
List Price: $124.95
Buy New: $63.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  18 reviews
Sales Rank: 10978
Format: Box Set, Color, Dvd-video, Full Screen, Ntsc, Subtitled
Languages: German (Original Language), German (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Number Of Items: 7
Running Time: 941
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 7.4 x 5.7 x 1.6
MPN: 1719
UPC: 715515026529
EAN: 0715515026529
ASIN: B000VARC2S
Theatrical Release Date: August 10, 1983
Release Date: November 13, 2007
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Rainer Werner Fassbinder's epic adaptation of Alfred Döblin's German novel, written (and set) between two world wars in the 20th century, is still every bit the towering achievement it appeared to be upon the episodic, 15-hour film's 1983 theatrical release in America. The story of a hapless lug buffeted by forces of discontent and disastrous change in Germany--following the country's defeat at Versailles and during the rise of the Third Reich--Berlin Alexanderplatz is a roaming, hulking nightmare about people with no control over their destinies. The film opens with central character Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht) struggling to reintegrate into the world after a four-year incarceration for murdering his girlfriend. Half-mad with guilt, sensory overload, sexual starvation and general disorientation, Franz goes in search of a plan for survival but finds the ground constantly shifting beneath his feet. Hooking up with the docile Lina (Elisabeth Trissenaar), Franz vows to straighten out his life and avoid his old tendencies toward petty thievery and pimping. But the alternatives are typically eclipsed by bad luck, unstoppable impulses, temptation and violent opposition between crime and order, Communists and fascists, dreamers and scoundrels. Over time, Franz becomes everything from shoelace salesman to Nazi sympathizer to pawn of a crime boss to victim of his fate. Along the way, he falls apart repeatedly, then picks himself up to see what might come next. Unfortunately, what comes next is generally another peek into the social and economic chaos of his time. Fassbinder, who died at age 36 before Berlin Alexanderplatz was released theatrically in America, found in Döblin's story something akin to the running theme of despair in his own, prolific output of 40 movies. Among his several masterpieces, Berlin Alexanderplatz is in a league of its own, not to be missed. --Tom Keogh
Product Description
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's wildly controversial fifteen-hour-plus Berlin Alexanderplatz based on Alfred Doblin's great modernist novel was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who at age thirty-four had already made forty films. Fassbinder's immersive epic restored in 2006 and available on DVD in this country for the first time follows the hulking violent yet strangely childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht) as he attempts to "become an honest soul" amidst the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. With equal parts cynicism and humanity Fassbinder details a mammoth portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time. System Requirements:TRT: 941 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 715515026529
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| Customer Reviews: Read 13 more reviews...
 Well, I Made It ! July 15, 2008
2 out of 6 found this review helpful
Whew,finally got through the whole thing from Netflix..
I would rate it higher if not for one glaring thing..
Hello??
Did you know it is unacceptable to pulverize women ??
Beat them to the floor and choke the life out of them ?
Uh,I think the author really seemed to enjoy these parts of the
book(film).
The violence toward women has to be the worst I personally have ever
seen in film..I suspect one notch from snuff films.
OTHER THAN THAT..
I enjoyed the series very much..
He surely is not a likable or sympathetic character to me..
Kind of repulsive..
But the history of the film showing the times change,etc..was terrific.
And the stuttering guy..have you ever seen a more repulsive character
in film than him ??
I really recommend this series..but beware..it's sickening to see
the lack of humanity toward women.
 15 1/2 Hours of Brilliant Magnificence: May 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It took me over four months to finish watching Berlin Alexanderplatz that Criterion released on seven discs. As with the other two my favorite TV Series (Ingmar Bergman's "Fanny and Alexander" and "Scenes from the Marriage), Criterion deserves the highest praise for the quality of the set. I would receive a disc from Netflix, watch it without stopping and then I would need a break - so intense and involving, and demanding the film was. It's been said a lot about Werner Rainer Fassbinder's most opulent, magnificent, and controversial work based on the novel "Berlin Alexanderplatz" written by Alfred Döblin in 1929 that Fassbinder had known by heart and always wanted to adapt. In short, "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is a story of an ex-convict Franz Biberkopf and his attempts to lead a good honest life after he was released from the prison where he had spent four years for accidentally murdering his girlfriend in the fit of rage. Döblin's book is considered one of the most important German novels, which used the techniques similar to and is as influential as James Joyce's "Ulysses" and John Dos Passos' "Manhattan". As Joyce and Dos Passos, Doblin paints the portrait of the city that we could recognize and re-build in our imagination even if Berlin of the 1920s, the most modern city of its time does not exist anymore. Doblin also had shown how the city affects the life of a person and tears them apart. There could be many reasons why Fassbinder felt so strongly about the novel and always dreamt about adapting it to the screen. He was certainly fascinated by the language of the book and he took it upon himself to narrate some of the most impressive pages as the comments to the action on the screen. Perhaps the young filmmaker was attracted to Doblin's non-judgmental approach in depicting marginality of criminal life, in accepting homosexuality and bisexuality as a part of life without neither glorifying nor demonizing them. The hero of Döblin'/Fassbinder's magnum opus is a deeply flawed man, a pimp, a thief, a murderer yet childishly naive and sympathetic who wants to start a new honest life (not pimping or joining the gang of thieves) but keeps forgetting that "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Fassbinder also could've seen the similarities in the political situations in Germany of 1970 and 1930.
I realize that 15 1/2 hours long "Berlin Alexanderplatz" can evoke very controversial emotions from the viewers but I believe it is impossible not to admit the brilliance and magnificence of the project and of the final product which is without doubt a truly outstanding event in the history of the medium. Just to think that such enormous work had been finished in the course of 150 days, that Fassbinder took only three months to write the script, and how he'd envisioned the main players even before they could imagine they would participate in the project. It was incredibly interesting to watch the documentary about making BA. I found it symbolic that some parts of the film were shot using the earlier set decorations for Ingmar Bergman's "Serpent's Egg" which I like very much and don't agree that it was Bergman's mistake. I also see the influence Fellini might have had on Fassbinder - the scenes in the Red Light District could've came come from the Italian master's films who knew how to stage the "freak shows" and Barbara Sukowa's confession that she had looked at Fellini's "La Strada" to understand better the character of Mieze. Günter Lamprecht, Hanna Schygulla, and especially Gottfried John (who I believed had given the greatest performance in the film as one of the most mysterious villains ever on screen) all contributed their memories of the time they worked with Fassbinder on Berlin Alexanderplatz. I might have not perhaps "gotten" the whole complexity of the film and the novel it is based on but I feel greatness when I encounter it. Of all amazing 15+ hours, the final part, "My dream from the dream of Franz Biberkopf von Alfred Doeblin: An Epilogue" stands out even for Fassbinder. Rarely have I been so mesmerized and fascinated by what an artist's imagination is capable of as during the two final hours of the incredible filmmaking. The epilog made me think that if ever a film director lived who could've adapted to screen successfully "Divine Comedy", "The Book of Revelation", "Ulysses", and Goethe's Faust (the whole poem, not just a Margaret's affair), it was Rainer Werner Fassbinder. We lost our chance when he was gone and we would never see the likes of him again. Not often I feel sorry that the film is over and I miss it as soon as I finish watching - it happened after the final scene of "Berlin Alexanderplatz" was over.
WE'RE TOO MISERABLES FOR TO BE UNHAPPY, BUT IF YOU DON'T TRY YOU GET WANT YOU DON'T WANT April 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
"BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ" (Fassbinder, Germany,1980).
"We are too miserable for to be unhappy".
Charles Bukowsky
The first thing is that person, that comes out from about four years prison: He is Franz Biberkopf (A Superb!!! Günter Lamprecht). He has now to continue in the outside word jail, but now alone. He holds in the chest a guilty wound which seeks to cover with alcohol, prostitutes and disposable women from another main character Reinhold Hoffman (Gottfried John) a psychopath guy with a tin layer of lamb. Fassbinder was fascinated with this two characters, Franz and Reinhold, form Alfred Döbling's novel about the same name, manly because by their latent homosexuality, which was clearly the only explanation of a friendship highly unlikely in other circumstances.
Franz Biberkopf murdered his woman, almost without notice, at least the first blow. She cried; face him, hoping that he could do something, in the positive side of a couple mood. But Franz is far away of the emotional side of the brain, and cannot continue shaving himself, with one of those blades that seemed swords of cavalry, and as in a reflex movement, he cut a pit what it cannot handle, like a dermal bump.
That act of despicable impulsivity, transforms him into a paralyzed being by the possibility of the evil within. Germany is just through an economical crisis after of the First World War. There is a great economic depression, and a lonely man is only under his skin. It is an animal sentimental, but at the same time explosives. In his life stop by different women, but remains, as an angel love, Eva (Hanna Schygulla), which appear like a friend that is in love with him, but is living with a wealthy man. The other woman the he is love with is Mieze (Emilie "Mieze" Karsunke, by a young Barbara Sukowa, that was directed to act like Gelsomina, a Giulieta Massina's character in "La strada" - 1956. F. Fellini).
After all, Franz Biberkof is without job, a pimp sometimes, because he loose one of his arms after to be betrayed by Reinhold, once. Subsequent to being released from jail, he strides, slips, falls from one stretch of his life to the next. He wants to be honest, but circumstances, "bar friends", enroll him again in merchandise robbery, and is betrayed by his companions, not one but several times. He is not allowed to have nothing not even love. Men like Biberkopf are everywhere, are the "Nowhere Man" of The Beatles song. They are just like floating corpses going in the current direction, the flood is their highway, doesn't matter were heading to.
The editing and restoration of this film of 15 and a half hours, it was possible thanks to The Criterion Collection. The film was divided into six DVDs with 13 chapters, an epilogue to 2 hours and disk extras.
The film, by extension, was shown on television, breaking record of viewers and inaugurated with much and inadvertently, the phenomenon of serial tale. That repeated after with Twin Picks of David Lynch, with decorum. Thanks Reine W. Fassbinder by "Berlin Alexanderplatz" and by all the other wonderful and master pieces that you created!!
 IF YOU LIKE TO WATCH THINGS SUFFER, THIS IS FOR YOU February 3, 2008
17 out of 36 found this review helpful
There's a scene in BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ where a guy takes a knife, stabs a real, live lamb in the neck, and slits its throat open. Then we get to watch the animal convulse, bleed, and suffocate to death. To make matters worse, the stooge doesn't even look down at what he's doing, blindly ripping its neck open. In YEAR OF 13 MOONS (another Fassbinder film) there are loving shots of cattle being hung up while their throats get slit. As the animals thrash violently, Fassbinder beautifully -- almost lovingly -- films the gushing blood. In 13 MOONS you could excuse it by noting that he was filming at a slaughterhouse, but in BA Fassbinder himself has the animal killed for the sake of his movie. It's really sad to see such a talented artist stoop so low. There's a parallel slaughterhouse scene in BA (epilogue) where HUMANS are being slaughtered. I was relieved to see that Fassbinder decided to fake this one, but if he could fake it with the humans he could've faked it with the animal, too. To me, it was a totally unnecessary and gratuitous killing.
BA is a "film in thirteen parts and an epilogue." It contains some of Fassbinder's worst excesses (the epilogue is without compare; not even Ken Russell would dare), as well as some of his finest work. I must admit to being bored by the first few episodes, but after a few hours of forcing myself to sit through the series I was finally enthralled. The five episodes with Mieze (episodes VIII to XII) are probably Fassbinder's best work ever (certainly the best I've seen). Barbara Sukowa is wonderful as Mieze, and she brings the best out of Gunter Lamprecht, who plays the main character, Franz Biberkopf, an ex-con. We first meet Franz as he completes a prison sentence for having beaten his girlfriend to death. Franz tries to put the murder behind him, thinking he has paid his debt, but he can't leave it in the past. He is doomed to repeat the murder, not literally but symbolically, throughout his tortured life. Finally, he is made to realize the enormity of what he has done (taking a human life). He falls in love with Mieze and endures the punishment of having her taken away from him, strangled to death by his best friend, a satanic figure.
What Fassbinder (and assistants) did with the lighting is somewhat of a miracle, although it's also true that some scenes are under lit. BA is probably as beautifully photographed as anything has ever been, especially the Mieze episodes, which at times are breathtaking. No matter how squalid the circumstances, everything is shot and illuminated as if there were a divinity present in everything. Fassbinder at his best rivals Bergman, Tarkovsky, and anybody else I can think of, although at his worst he can really be horrible. Fassbinder finds interesting -- truly original -- angles and perpectives from which to shoot and frame. He was clearly a gifted artist with a great visual sense, and although he died young, he was prolific and left behind a huge body of work. But no matter how good he was, it doesn't justify stabbing an animal to death in your film. Sorry, but I just can't get passed that.
Criterion did a superb job with the transfer. Looks great! There are also excellent bonus features, including the original black and white movie of BA, whose screenpaly was written by Doblin himself. And it all comes in a very handsome box set. If it weren't for the animal sacrifice, I'd be giving this five stars.
The great Japanese director Akira Kurosawa was quite critical of this animal-killing trend in movies after he saw a horse put to death in a film: "Actually killing an animal in a movie...isn't going to move people. But currently, there's a trend in that direction. If a scene calls for a person to die, do they really have to be killed?" Obviously not! The Chris Marker film "Sunless" (also a Criterion Collection release) really drives the point home when it shows borrowed--though real---footage of a giraffe, peacefully munching on leaves, suddenly getting shot and slaughtered by hunters. If you need to hunt to survive, that's one thing. But the senseless killing of such beautiful creatures for the sake of your movie is vile. Having said that, the Mieze episodes are superb.
Modernist Masterpiece January 26, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
This mega-movie is an expressionist, modernist masterpiece that combines the best of Wellesian cinema (expressionistic) with Godardian cinema (modernist). The (Godardian) voice-over snatches of random news items and medical health items (referenced in the prior 'review') are simply being faithful to Dobler's novel, which is a somewhat Germanic version of Joyce's Ulysses. But instead of the Joycian modernist take on the travels of Odysseus, Dobler's novel presented us with a modernist take on the Passion Play.
This film is not for simpletons. Just like a long, great novel... there will be stretches that will bore you a bit... and other stretches that are riveting and will break your heart.
Two major points:
1) Don't get too caught up with what some people see as a form of homo-eroticism between Franz Biberkopf and Reinhold. Although expressionistic, Fassbinder has presented the material with enough objectivity that different people will come away with different subtexts. Fassbinder has explained the film as a love story between Franz and Reinhold... but Fassbinder was bisexual.
Franz is a grown up naive child. One could easily see Franz's 'curiosity' about Reinhold as a longing for an absent father. Eva, the one constant in Franz's life, could represent his longing for an absent/replacement mother/big sister/protector. How else to explain Franz's reluctance to mate with her?
2) The two-hour epilogue contains an extended surrealistic pastiche that upsets 90% of the people who like the previous (more realistic) 13 hours.
What did everyone expect? Biberkopf's brain snaps like a twig! Fassbinder takes us inside his brain and there is a bad mixture of cocktail there! Insanity doesn't look so good! Reviewers ask how Lou Reed and Kraftwerk can be on the soundtrack when Franz (in insane delirium) is living in 1928: People... that's what they call 'modernist'. That's what they call... 'expressionist'. Were you expecting Robert Flaherty in a Fassbinder film?
SUMMARY: See the film. If THE DECALOGUE is the great cinematic short story collection... BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ is the great cinematic novel. Savor the first 13 hours... then, if you like, go through the delirium in the epilogue at 4X or 8X speed... it works even better!
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