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.
“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 ...
“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 ...
“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...
“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...
“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...
“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...
“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, ...
“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...
"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...
“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...
“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,...
“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...
“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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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.
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, 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...
