Berlin Alexanderplatz

Berlin Alexanderplatz

19 Episodes

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made over thirty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to “become an honest soul” amid 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.

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Berlin Alexanderplatz
  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 1

    Episode 1

    “The Punishment Begins”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 2

    Episode 2

    “How Is One to Live If One Doesn’t Want to Die?”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 3

    Episode 3

    “A Hammer Blow to the Head Can Injure the Soul”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age t...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 4

    Episode 4

    “A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age th...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 5

    Episode 5

    “A Reaper with the Power of Our Lord”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 6

    Episode 6

    “Love Has Its Price”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already mad...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 7

    Episode 7

    “Remember—An Oath Can Be Amputated”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, ...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 8

    Episode 8

    “The Sun Warms the Skin But Burns It Sometimes Too”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at a...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 9

    Episode 9

    "About the Eternities Between the Many and the Few”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at a...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 10

    Episode 10

    “Loneliness Tears Cracks of Madness Even in Walls”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at ag...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 11

    Episode 11

    “Knowledge Is Power and the Early Bird Catches the Worm”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who,...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 12

    Episode 12

    “The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-f...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 13

    Episode 13

    “The Outside and the Inside and the Secret of Fear of the Secret”
    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific dire...

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Epilogue

    Episode 14

    Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany
    Starring Günter Lamprecht, Gottfried John, Barbara Sukowa

    Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who...

  • Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz: A Mega Movie and its Story

    Episode 15

    Juliane Lorenz, editor of Berlin Alexanderplatz and director of the Fassbinder Foundation, premiered this documentary in 2007 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. It features interviews with all the major actors and much of the crew who collaborated on the monumental project that was Berlin A...

  • Notes on the Making of Berlin Alexanderplatz

    Episode 16

    This remarkable behind-the-scenes documentary by Hans-Dieter Hartl, shot in 1979 during the filming of Berlin Alexanderplatz, was made for the German television company Bayerischer Rundfunk. An invaluable record of director Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s working methods, the film features interviews ...

  • Berlin Alexanderplatz Remastered: Notes on the restoration

    Episode 17

    The road to restoring Berlin Alexanderplatz was a long and difficult one. In this half-hour 2006 documentary, Fassbinder Foundation director Juliane Lorenz talks with director of photography Xaver Schwarzenberger and shows the team at work on the restoration project.

  • BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: 1931 Version

    Episode 18

    In 1931, director Phil Jutzi made this film adaptation of Alfred Döblin’s 1929 epic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz. In addition to providing a fascinating comparison to Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s much longer adaptation, the film is noteworthy for the fact that Döblin himself cowrote the screenplay.

  • Peter Jelavich on BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ

    Episode 19

    Peter Jelavich, professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, is the author of “Berlin Alexanderplatz”: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture. In this 2007 interview, he discusses the multiple ways in which Alfred Döblin’s novel has been adapted and how these disparate forms reflect th...