411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

[nycmagus]

At the screening at MoMA on Monday of two documentaries by Juliane Lorenz chronicling the making of/restoration of BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, a Criterion person said from the audience the film would be released in the fall. He did not indicate which label, but the two documentaries appeared to me to be prime examples of made-for-dvd-release extras.

As for the film itself, I knew it was great, I just never realized how great it was. I saw the first three episodes yesterday and they flew by. I was ready for more and left to go home only with reluctance.

[Matt]

Confirmed Criterion.

I figured that. I was just trying to stir the pot.

[hangthadj]

So does anyone have any idea how many dvd's would be in this set, or a guess as to cost?

[nycmagus]

Random thoughts at the 7 1/2 hour deutschmark.

Once I enter Weimar Germany I do not want to leave.

If at all possible see it on screen.

All day at work I think: what will happen next to Franz. What new aesthetic wonder will Fassbinder conjure up? How does he continually draw me and at the same time keep me at an optimal critical distance?

Love the opening cruise between Reinhold and Franz. Reinhold first seen sipping his drink from a straw is fabulous.

Lamprecht is beyond amazing. One of the great megaperformances of all time. The scene where he argues about the coffee to get rid of one woman. The monologue delivered to three glasses of beer and one of schnapps. The ways he moves his body and composes his face become parts of Fassbinder's mise en scene.

You are in Weimar Germany, but RWF doesn't obsessively recreate it. The viewer remains in her own present tense as well. The music helps here -- very Philip Glass at several points.

Four hours a night are not a problem. I am sucked in and want more and go home only with reluctance. Each succeeding episode seems to go by more quickly.

The film is about a time of transition so the mise en scene is full of doorways (has any film ever had more speeches given by characters standing in doorways?), staircases and camera movement. The lighting and zooms only add to this sense of instability and change.

I am always wary about restoring films to versions that never existed in the first place, but the aesthetic experience is (for lack of a better word) Fassbinderian. Not at all like the destruction of VERTIGO where the Hitchcockian seemed to be diminished.

The image now seems a cinematic adaptation of Doblin's expressionistic literary style. It is an overwhelming aesthetic experience. To have such control and discipline over 15 1/2 hours is remarkable. Yet watching the film never feels like a chore with its abundant humor and joy.

[Barmy]

Man did that epilogue turn off the snobs at the MoMA screening. You could just hear people thinking "WTF?" I fully agree with someone's observation that it is completely antithetical to the style of the 13 episodes, and in some ways ruins the whole experience. That's why I loved it.

[montgomery]

Although I wouldn't knock the people who left as "snobs" (it was a draining, exhausting experience and I don't begrudge anyone's leaving for whatever reason), it was a little startling to watch the audience attendance quickly dwindle near the end. The attendance breakdown was something like this:

100% full through the first day.
90% at the start of the second day.
80% as the 4th section started (Part 12).
65% as the epilogue started.
50% 30 min. into the epilogue
25% and the end.
(Also, it seemed more of the elderly people stayed than the hipsters).

I did think the epilogue was pretty silly though.

[Barmy]

It just seemed odd to me that after putting in 13.5 hours people couldn't sit through the Epilogue. After all, the ending to Part 13 is a bit unsatisfying/abrupt and once you get through the Kraftwerk music videos you at least get some closure at the end of the Epilogue.

The "silly" didn't bother me at all. And I thought Margit Carstensen's performance left everyone else in the dust.

[nycmagus]

The epilogue has always looked better on the small screen to me.

But I agree that the more senior audience members seemed to have a staying power that eluded other parts of the demographic. BA is decidedly unironic for a Fassbinder film, and the intense relentlessness of the work may have turned some people off.

Once the initial drop-off occurred after the first day, I was amazed that there were significant declines each subsequent day (I thought: "If you have stuck through it this long, why quit now?").

I wonder how the weekend crowd was with regard to defections.

[Barmy]

Many of those seniors are the so-called MoMA bag people who essentially live there. The sort that would stick through all of Warhol's "Sleep" or "Empire".

[TheGodfather]

Just read that they`re showing the restaurated version in a cinema around here in the beginning of June. They`re doing half on saturday, half on sunday. Don`t know if a lot of people are gonna see it, but at least they`re putting an effort into showing it. And that`s a rare thing in Dutch cinema`s these days...

[montgomery]

nycmagus, my post referred to the weekend screening, which is the one I attended.
Yeah, and who are these MOMA bag people? Where do they come from?

[Nothing]

Oh, you have bag people at MoMA too? There used to be a bunch of those at the NFT too, tho now I live in a land far-far away...

[nycmagus]

Anyhow this is surely something that will look and feel wonderful in the comfort of home, with slow measured doses, and probably lots of wine?

I am sure it will. I was just amazed at how good it was in 4 hour chunks. That was not my memory of how I first felt when I saw it years ago. My best experience of it had been on television.

As for the wine: Fassbinder's work is delirious enough on its own for me to forestall the necessity of intoxicants.

[zedz]

Anyhow this is surely something that will look and feel wonderful in the comfort of home, with slow measured doses, and probably lots of wine?

As for the wine: Fassbinder's work is delirious enough on its own for me to forestall the necessity of intoxicants.

The film-as-drinking-game theme returns. How about watching it in one huge block, starting in the afternoon and running through to dawn, with a shot of schnapps at the end of each episode? This approach should get you well prepared for the epilogue.

[nycmagus]

The film-as-drinking-game theme returns. How about watching it in one huge block, starting in the afternoon and running through to dawn, with a shot of schnapps at the end of each episode? This approach should get you well prepared for the epilogue.

Not that's more like it. Fassbinder is hard liquor, not wine.

[pianocrash]

A little bad news?

[souvenir]

To bastardize a primary work of Fassbinder's this way reveals an egomaniacal philistinism of unmatched brazenness.

What a great line. I wish my Deutsch was better to grasp the original German phrasing.

[Tribe]

Anyone here seen the "restoration" and was also familiar with the original? Was there a great difference between the two in terms of darkness/brightness?

Tribe

[Der Müde Tod]

Anyone here seen the "restoration" and was also familiar with the original? Was there a great difference between the two in terms of darkness/brightness?

I have seen the TV shows when they were broadcast, later a theatrical presentation, and also the new DVD release. I remember the TV broadcast to be so dark that some scenes were nearly completely black. The cinematic presentation, however, was quite watchable. I am not an expert in technicalities, but my guess is that the black levels of the 16mm print come out much better on a screen than on a TV set from the 80s.
As for the new DVDs: They are still pretty dark, to the extent that crucial parts of a frame are occasionally completely black. It might be that the theatrical release I saw was a tad darker, but this didn't change the overall experience for me. The lightning reminds me very much of the darkest Rembrandt paintings.

One can argue of course that Fassbinder had the TV broadcast quality in mind and that everything should be quite a bit darker, but I doubt it.

I haven't watched the documentary about the restoration yet, if this delivers any insights, I'll comment further.

[mikeohhh]

The film-as-drinking-game theme returns. How about watching it in one huge block, starting in the afternoon and running through to dawn, with a shot of schnapps at the end of each episode? This approach should get you well prepared for the epilogue.

Not that's more like it. Fassbinder is hard liquor, not wine.

yeah but schnapps isn't really hard liquor.

[tavernier]

Maybe a bit off-topic, but this will be part of Berlin in Lights, a festival at various venues throughout Manhattan:

FASSBINDER: BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ -- AN EXHIBITION
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center (opening October 21, 2007)

From 1979 to 1980, Rainer Werner Fassbinder created the monumental film Berlin Alexanderplatz for television, based on Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel of the same name. Consisting of 13 episodes and an epilogue, the film runs a total of 15 hours and 39 minutes. For this exhibition, the episodes and epilogue of Berlin Alexanderplatz will be screened in permanent loop in 14 separate rooms, with the complete work shown in chronological order and in full on a central large screen. Visitors can thus view Berlin Alexanderplatz as they please, with the entrance ticket entitling holders to repeat visits. The parallel screening of all the episodes in a single setting will highlight Fassbinder's impressive visual idiom and his artistically challenging, free, and innovative use of images.

[Barmy]

Yes, B.A. was brightened. The documentary of the restoration makes that quite clear, without directly admitting it. The restored version projected at MoMA a few weeks ago did not seem particularly dark. I vaguely remember seeing the old version at MoMA years ago and, yes, it was DARK! Regarding the documentary, I felt mildly uncomfortable watching the restorers looking at a scene and chirping "ohmyGAWD, that should be adjusted!!" Nevertheless, it's hardly worth getting worked up about.

[blindside8zao]

Oh my gosh, this Berlin festival sounds amazing. Stravinsky and Mahler! Weill and Eisler! Someone let me know if they find a good article or something that overviews what's going on outside of Carnegie.

I'm having a hard time finding more information on the Berlin screening even when I visit PS1's homepage. Where did you find that information? I found close to the same write up for an exhibition that took place in May, but in Berlin, not at PS1.

[tavernier]

Carnegie Hall sent out a press release with the above info, although it's not yet on their website, which lists all events in the festival, even those outside Carnegie.

[DrewReiber]

Fassbinder's legacy @ 25.