Berlin Alexanderplatz

(series)
  • France Berlin Alexanderplatz (more)
West Germany / Italy, 1980, 15 h 1 min (Length: 58–112 min)

Based on:

Alfred Döblin (book)

Cinematography:

Xaver Schwarzenberger

Composer:

Peer Raben

Cast:

Günter Lamprecht, Karlheinz Braun, Hanna Schygulla, Claus Holm, Franz Buchrieser, Brigitte Mira, Roger Fritz, Gottfried John, Barbara Sukowa (more)
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Episodes(14)

Plots(1)

Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 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. (Criterion)

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Reviews of this series by the user NinadeL (1)

Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) 

English Logically speaking, an audiovisual work is mainly based on the visual impression. It consists mainly of the quality of the set design, and if I didn't believe in it whatsoever the entire time, the other values are suddenly wiped out. I stopped believing in good German films during the 1950s. It’s the last decade in which I can still find something good here and there, but not an abundance thereof. ()