411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

[Cinephrenic]

Are all their releases going to be series?

According to Criterion, yep.

[justeleblanc]

Also, this is one title (even if it's a mini-series). Wouldn't it rule out a possible Eclipse series.

Well, a mini-series is a series in some way or another.

On another note, I'm guessing the price for this will be 70 bucks? Or is that way under?

[chaddoli]

Do you think they will include Phil Jutzi's 1931 adaptation Berlin - Alexanderplatz as well?

[arsonfilms]

This won't be Eclipse. The whole point of Eclipse is to put out overloooked titles IN VOLUME, to make more titles available to the general public. Putting out a heavily anticipated 15 1/2 hour film on its own would completely defeat the purpose of the label.

As to the price, the most Criterion has ever charged for a single film was $59.99 (Fanny & Alexander, with a total feature running time of 590 minutes). The last 6-disc release was $99.99 (Six Moral Tales), but that required the licensing of 11 or so films, as well as a whole book. Meanwhile, the German edition is listing for around $65.00 (assuming a $1.30 exchange rate), so I really wouldn't assume that the price is going to be so astronomical as to be cost-prohibitive. $79.99 sounds about right to me.

It is also worth pointing out that this is not a Criterion restoration, and that Criterion is licensing the Bavaria Film HD restoration. This is another reason that the price won't be absurd.

[kekid]

When do we expect this to be released?

[Cinephrenic]

Probably very soon like May or June. Titles follow 1 or 2 months right after Criterion announces on newsletter.

[fdm]

Criterion's been going for the big bucks this year. Hope this title will be the exception that you all think it will be.

Also hope it won't be picture-boxed.

[jbeall]

Are all their releases going to be series?

According to Criterion, yep.

I suppose I'm not really clear on what 'series' means here. Let's forget Alexanderplatz for a moment, as I agree with everyone here that it'll be a Criterion release. Does series mean five films by the same director? Five films within the same genre? Five films from the same country? Five silent/b&w/etc. films? In other words, have the folks at Criterion specified that for them, 'series' means five (overlooked) films by the same director, and if not, what are we talking about when we use the word 'series'?

[Tribe]

I suppose I'm not really clear on what 'series' means here. Let's forget Alexanderplatz for a moment, as I agree with everyone here that it'll be a criterion release. Does series mean five films by the same director? Five films within the same genre? Five films from the same country? Five silent/b&w/etc. films?

The sense I got was that "series" could be any of those you mention, or any variation.

Tribe

[ellipsis7]

Also specified was that Eclipse films would be almost always unrestored, of course ruling out BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ...

[BrightEyes23]

would be nice if they released an Eclipse Fassbinder set the same month that this eventually comes out, maybe a set of his TV works.

[zedz]

Hmm, I always thought of this one as a TV series (and that's how I saw it at the theater once on a sort of retrospective, with the opening and closing credits at the beginning and end of each episode) but now everyone's talking about it as one long 15 hour movie, which I think it's incorrect because I believe this was purposely done for German TV.

The film was indeed done for German TV, but Fassbinder shot it as a piece of cinema. It was his dream project, and TV financing was the only way something this big could get made, and he didn't make any real artistic concessions to the small screen. When it was first broadcast, I believe there were complaints that the darkness of the compositions made many scenes hard to see on the TV screen. This was surely a conscious decision on Fassbinder's part, as by this stage he'd had plenty of experience shooting for television. So historically it's a TV series, but in its heart of hearts it's one big movie.

[ellipsis7]

BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: REMASTERED screened on Friday in Berlin, projected from HD video source apparently...

It was always a TV series, although Fassbinder contemplated cutting a 3 hour version for cinema... Several interesting interviews about the project are in the book, The Anarchy of the Imagination - collected interviews, essays and notes of Fassbinder... He does mention the criticism of the dark images...

[Cinephrenic]

Do you think they will include Phil Jutzi's 1931 adaptation Berlin - Alexanderplatz as well?

I wish they did, but unlikely given its size (90 Minutes). Would warrant a separate disc of its own and its really not all that related to Fassbinder's film, even though it's a adaptation of Doblin's novel. But you never know, they include novels too. I wish someone would put this out even if it's not Criterion.

[spencerw]

For a report on the theatrical debut of the restored Berlin Alexanderplatz, see this Spiegel article (in English)

[ltfontaine]

From the article in Der Spiegel:

"People in New York said it was the best thing that they had ever seen," says the 77-year-old actor Gunter Lamprecht, who played the lead role of sad sack Franz Biberkopf. "After the lukewarm reviews in Germany, I was thinking 'Maybe I should just stay here.'"

I'd like to think that, if he had stayed in the U.S., things might have turned out better for him. It's a mystery why Gunter Lamprecht didn't prosper as a major film actor after his mesmerizing, moving performance as Franz Biberkopf, an ostensible star-making turn if ever there was one. Even though only a few of Fassbinder's company ever achieved much success after the director's death, I would have thought that Lamprecht's career would have amounted to more than the string of undistinguished projects that followed, mostly for German TV.

[zedz]

I'd like to think that, if he had stayed in the U.S., things might have turned out better for him. It's a mystery why Gunter Lamprecht didn't prosper as a major film actor after his mesmerizing, moving performance as Franz Biberkopf, an ostensible star-making turn if ever there was one. Even though only a few of Fassbinder's company ever achieved much success after the director's death, I would have thought that Lamprecht's career would have amounted to more than the string of undistinguished projects that followed, mostly for German TV.

It's surely one of the all-time-great film performances. Films of such extreme duration are rare as hen's teeth, but I can't think of any other example that is sustained to such a degree by a single central performance. Not to slight Sukowa or John, who are both superb, but this is Franz's story all the way.

[ltfontaine]

Films of such extreme duration are rare as hen's teeth

The sheer length of the film has had a complex impact on its reception and reputation, hasn't it? At the time Berlin Alexanderplatz showed up in the U.S., Fassbinder's reputation was at its zenith in this country, hitting screens soon after the general release of Veronika Voss, around the one-year anniversary of the director's death. In this environment of heightened emotion and expectation, arriving after a full decade of Fassbinder fever, Alexanderplatz registered like some kind of last testament, an impression intensified by the film's epic proportions. One the one hand, and especially initially, the film's length enhanced its cache, but has since, I think, somewhat inhibited its recognition as Fassbinder's greatest film, which I strongly believe it to be. How can this marathon oddity, the logic goes, also be the director's definitive work among so many other contenders? Isn't it facile to equate the biggest movie with the best?

The contours of Fassbinder's aesthetic are less in favor these days, when austerity has come to rule the preferences of many serious film viewers, but it will be fascinating to hear how the experience of Alexanderplatz touches an audience from whom the film has been withheld for the last couple of decades. It will be especially interesting to renew the conversation about der Epilog!

[HerrSchreck]

Also specified was that Eclipse films would be almost always unrestored, of course ruling out BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ...

Let's remember who does what: Criterion is not a chemical laboratory for film restoration. Most of the "film" restorations come from the owners or studios from whence those films come. Janus then picks up the ball, and in the case of CC perform a series of extensive digital restorations, after telecine... in other words restoration to a magnetic image, not celluloid reels. This is why oftentimes you will go to see a film that has already been released on CC dvd and the image in the cinema, though clearly restored, contains little unexpected moments dust & scratches & jumps that you don't see on disc. That's what the MTI software handles... it's like a pencil eraser. In some rare cases, CC will create reels from a digital videotape, and treat their restos like a shot-to-vid movie that gets transferred to film-- like the recent screening of their RULES OF THE GAME.

But it is quite possible to have restored films on the Eclipse line. MK2, Cineteca Bologna/LImmagine Ritrovata/FWMS, SFI, Rialto, Toho, Canal + Image, etc, have all provided Janus with gorgeously restored films requiring very minimal (or no) work... work that, in the case of, say, PICKPOCKET, M, MABUSE, DOUBLE LIFE OF VER, if not performed by CC in their MTI room, would still make virtually no difference in the quality of the image on the digibeta provided to them. Look at the non-R1 releases of these titles and you will see virtually no improvement to the image provided by CC ontheir release. In fact some of the CC releases of already restored films come out no better, yet cropped, and not the superior version (M, PICKPOCKET).

So gloriously restored films are absolutely a possibility. They could release, in the case of Gremillion (already announced), for example, MALDONE or GUEULE D'AMOUR by simply encoding on disc the digibetas provided of prior restos.. and nobody would miss the CC MTI work. Digital resto are primarily cosmetic window dressing to the major work of film laboratory restoration, i e the kind of work which Martin Koerber and Patalas & Luciano Berriatua do.

[ellipsis7]

Yes, I know it's not simple... CC have made restorations such as THE RIVER and THE LEOPARD, done in conjunction with the BFI, but undertaken at lab level as well as in house as you describe...

While this BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ restoration was done in association with CC, it apparently was done independently both at lab and digital level in Germany - generating digital HD masters as I mentioned were used for the Berlin FF above...

I suppose Eclipse will generally use unrestored material and perform no new restoration work(as stated by Peter Becker in his blog), and will be intended for lesser films of great masters, and films of lesser masters, or where elements are in a shaky state, not up to CC standards, such as are many of the earlier Ozus etc.... Of course there will be films restored prior to CC coming to them - the upcoming Lionsgate JEAN RENOIR box is a case in hand... If only Eclipse were handling that, then we would be sure at least that the fine recent French restorations of most of the films in the set were done justice, rather than chancing it with a bargain basement transfer, as opposed to a sensibly packaged budget set, which is what Eclipse is for...

All in all, it is highly unlikely given the profile and work done on BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ that it will come out on Eclipse... After all it is the CC where premium prices can be charged...

[Dr. Mabuse]

According to Rainer Werner Fassbinder Foundation, the "US release is scheduled for the end of 2007 and will be done by Criterion".

I know many were hoping for a summer release, but that looks unlikely.

[kinjitsu]

Tom Twyker on Berlin Alexanderplaz --in German

[ltfontaine]

Tom Twyker on Berlin Alexanderplaz

I had no idea that the film was, at the time of the TV broadcast, received by the German audience with such animosity. But I agree with Twyker's assessment of Alexanderplatz as an audacious experiment that melds classical and avant garde narratives to provocative effect.

[denti alligator]

Email from Criterion:

We are still working out what will appear in the set. There's a lot of potential material but it's already pretty big just by itself, of course. The novel in particular I doubt will be included because it is in print and readily available. Usually we take that step when something is out of print and hard to find. Thanks for your email.

Best,
Issa

I also asked specifically about the Jutzi film, so my guess is it won't make it.

[Cinephrenic]

We are still working out what will appear in the set. There's a lot of potential material but it's already pretty big just by itself, of course.

Probably because Jutzi's short will warrant a separate disc (90 minutes long).