Download Berlin Alexanderplatz - Criterion Collection
Mardi, août 10th, 2010
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To bid the valid film experience of Berlin Alexanderplatz is no easy task. Words tumble short, other than to say, I cannot recommend this film more highly. This is the most notable DVD release of 2007. With a running time of 15½ hours, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1980 Berlin Alexanderplatz is as mighty of a film experience as Krzystof Kieslowski’s 10-hour Decalogue or Bergman’s 312-minute version of Fanny and Alexander. (All three films were originally televised as a miniseries.) Based on Alfred Döblin’s 1928 modern Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Memoir Of Franz Biberkopf, Fassbinder’s sage masterpiece drew a cult following upon its U.S. theatrical release in 1983. The film was later televised on PBS, but has since been impossible to regain in the United States until the Criterion Collection released it earlier this week on DVD, a release that has been long overdue. Many (including me) reflect it to be one of the best films ever made.
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Set during the rise of Nazism, Berlin Alexanderplatz tells the profound epic of Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht), a deeply flawed man, and a proletariat ex-convict distinct to lead a obedient life following his release from a four-year prison term, despite the social and economic frustrations he encounters in Berlin. Upon his release from prison, Franz plugs his ears and contorts his mouth into a mute weep as his “Torment Begins.” In fact, each of the 14 episode titles lisp distinguished about Fassbinder’s intellectual character recognize of Franz:
1. “The punishment begins.”
2. “How is one to live if he doesn’t want to die.”
Buy,Download, Or Stream Berlin Alexanderplatz - Criterion Collection! Click Here
3. “A hammer on the head can pain the soul.”
4. “A handful of people in the depths of silence.”
5. “A mower with the violence of the dear Lord.”
6. “Esteem has its stamp.”
7. “Remember: an oath can be amputated.”
8. “The sun warms the skin, but burns it sometimes too.”
9. “About the Eternities between the many and the few.”
10. “Loneliness tears cracks of madness even in walls.”
11. “Knowledge is power and the early bird catches the worm.”
12. “The serpent in the soul of the serpent.”
13. “The Outside and the Inside, and the Secret of Fright of the Secret.”
14. “My dream from the dream of Franz Biberkopf von Alfred Doeblin: An Epilogue.”
And of course there are the memorable Fassbinder women, many of whom are simply Biberkopf’s hedonistic objects of desire, and others picture in some diagram to the woman he murdered (resulting in his prison sentence) . Berlin Alexanderplatz reveals Fassbinder’s lawful artistic genius as a filmmaker. Recurring themes in the film include impotence, philosophy, rape, necrophilia, rush relations, and ultimately madness. After spending nearly 16 hours immersed in this film, when it was over, I actually missed the world and characters Fassbinder had created. Criterion’s seven disc area of his 940-minute film includes a recent, high-definition digital transfer from the 2006 restoration by the Fassbinder Foundation; two recent documentaries by Fassbinder Foundation president Juliane Lorenz: one featuring interviews with the cast and crew, the other on the restoration; Hans-Dieter Hartl’s 1980 documentary Notes on the Making of “Berlin Alexanderplatz;” Phil Jutzi’s 1931, ninety-minute film of Alfred Döblin’s recent, from a screenplay co-written by Döblin himself; a unusual video interview with Peter Jelavich, author of Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture; and recent English subtitle translation. A highly recommended experience in film, well worth the trace of admission.
G. Merritt
Twenty-six years after its creation Berlin Alexanderplatz is finally given the restoration it so desperately deserved.Fassbinder’s monumental fifteen plus hour account has been completely restored and remastered so that the narrative of the hapless Franz Biberkopf can finally be experienced in all its glory.
The film (presented in 13 episodes and an epilogue) follows the daily life of Franz Biberkopf (Gunter Lamprecht) from his release from prison for the assassinate of his girlfriend as he tries to lead a decent life in post World War I Berlin. Along the map he becomes among other things a seller of shoestrings, a newspaper salesman, a pimp and a petty thief.
Fassbinder’s world is populated with a panoply of ordinary people and lowlifes. The key is that the viewer begins to care about these people as if he knew them. One reviewer described the Biberkopf character as an uncle that the German people invited into their homes each week.
The film looks like it never looked before. Director of Photography, Xaver Schwarzenberger says that the image is now able to be seen as it was intended. Originally shot on 16mm the film has been completely restored and the color regraded. The result, while not perfect is as trustworthy as it has ever been. The film has a sort of brownish gold glow that suits it quite well.
The package by Criterion presents the film in a windowboxed version that runs for 941 minutes. This is about 4% longer than the recent due to a NTSC boring down of the unusual Pal 25 frame per second master. The sound is mono but holds up quite well and the subtitling is certain and easy to read.
The bonus features are quite apt and feature two shorts by film editor Juliane Lorenz on the making of the film and its restoration, a contemporary documentary on Fassbinder’s working methods and a discussion of the fresh unique by historian Peter Jelavich. Perhaps the most valuable extra is the complete 1931 film version by Phil Jutzi.
This is a highly recommended location for any fan of serious cinema.
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