Berlin Alexanderplatz (Episodes 7-9) 1979 Ages 15+
When
2.15 pm, Sat 11 Nov 2017 (173 mins)Where
Gallery of Modern Art & Cinema A
About
Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz is embedded in my mind, my flesh, my body as a whole, and my soul. – Fassbinder
Fassbinder first read Alfred Döblin's modernist novel Berlin Alexanderplatz (1929) at 14, claiming it got him through a "murderous puberty." Two decades later he realised his dream of adapting it, in the form of a 14-part miniseries for West German television. The result is Fassbinder's magnum opus, an immersive epic chronicling the downfall of an ex-con during the declining days of the Weimar Republic. When Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) is released from prison after killing his lover in a fit of passion, he is determined to "become an honest soul." But as he struggles to find work and his sinister best friend Reinhold (Gottfried John) reappears to wreak havoc, Biberkopf finds himself slipping back into the underworld. As the tide of Nazism rises, the inescapable poverty, crime, and violence on the streets of Berlin sets Biberkopf's descent into motion, reaching a fever pitch in a two-hour epilogue of phantasmagoria.
Ages 15+
Ages 15+
Production Credits
- Director/Script: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
- Based on: the novel by Alfred Döblin
- Cinematographer: Xaver Schwarzenberger
- Editor: Juliane Lorenz
- Music: Peer Raben
- Costumes: Barbara Baum
- Production Companies: Geiselgasteig, Bavaria Media
- Print Source / Rights: Bavaria Media
- Year: 1979
- Runtime: 173 minutes
- Country: West Germany
- Language: German
- Subtitles: English
- Sound: Dolby Digital
- Colour: Colour, Fujicolor
- Screening Format: 16mm Transferred to DCP, 1.37:1