In the interest of making sure I actually go through with it, I'm declaring here that this month I am going to make all the way through Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz. I'm basically going to try to keep up with SFMOMA's screenings at home, though I got a little carried away in the first week and have already gone all the way through the fourth part. SFMOMA's blog Open Space has some insightful observations about the first three parts, and I can only say for myself that I'm enjoying Alexanderplatz immensely so far, much in the same way I used to get sucked into the extended serials on Masterpiece Theater as a child once my parents finally let me stay up to watch it with them on Sunday nights. The story follows Franz Biberkopf, played by Günter Lamprecht, as he attempts to navigate Weimar Berlin after being released from prison. He is no hero, and there are some genuinely brutal scenes, including an extended sequence in Part 4 that made me extremely grateful to be a vegetarian. The 13-part film (plus epilogue) was originally created for German television in 1980 as an adaptation of Alfred Döblin's 1929 novel, and it is interesting to see the history of that time filtered through the knowledge of what came after. For instance, the swastika that makes an important appearance in Part 2 holds a different level of horror for us than it would have for Döblin. I've been seeing the influence of Fassbinder's experience with the stage in terms of how his characters move through space, and how effortlessly he works with light and dark. The setting also reminds me strongly of Jason Lutes's extraordinary comic Berlin, and I'm curious if watching Fassbinder was part of his research.
