Ausgespielt: Completing Berlin Alexanderplatz

I'd rather not compare watching a movie to conducting any sort of physical exertion, but having just wrapped up viewing Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz, I do feel like running a victory lap. Released in the fall of 1980 for West German television, this adaptation of Alfred Doblin's 1932 modernist novel ran for 13 episodes and featured an extended epilogue. The box set this recent DVD release came in has seven discs. The entire film is 940 minutes long, or 15 plus hours.

Such a massive offering seems appropriate given both the novel's reputation and the facts of R.W. Fassbinder himself, who spun out 40 films in a span of only 13 years before dropping dead at the age of 37. And while I've never shied away from tackling demanding cinema, this was an altogether unique experience. At one point early in the game, I had briefly floated the notion of watching the entire program in one marathon viewing session, battening down the hatches and stocking up on food, to best appreciate the narrative's uninterrupted flow. I'll be eternally grateful for rethinking that approach - this is a film constructed explicitly for a television medium, which means it plays best episodically, with some time in between each entry for reflection. A 15-hour session would have been too much, on both body and mind.

As it is, I'm still trying to formulate my thoughts on the whole project, and find myself both solidly impressed by the results Fassbinder achieves and deeply skeptical of the finished film. No doubt this partly arises out of a larger dislocation from Fassbinder himself - having viewed many of his films from all periods of his short yet varied career, it's hard to declare myself a committed fan. There's also my rejection of any work of art uncomfortable with humor - over 15 hours of viewing, I can't think of a single amusing sequence, and the only points at which laughter appears in the film often come as a result of something awful or bizarre. This failing probably has much to do with wider German shortcomings in the humor department. But my main objection is with the seemingly at-odds nature of the original novel and Fassbinder's approach.

Berlin Alexanderplatz was, among other things, a modernist breakthrough. Doblin's novel focused on characters, but also set about capturing the feel of an urban center like Berlin, and these impressionistic, experimental sequences have long dazzled many readers. Doblin actually rewrote his early drafts after being exposed to James Joyce's Ulysses, and the two works, along with those of John Dos Passos, share a basic kinship of narrative flexibility and experimentation (Doblin played down the Joyce influence, and in subsequent criticism and writings, many German critics and even Fassbinder himself have displayed a sadly typical German inability to acknowledge outside innovation when it gets in the way of proclaiming German supremacy...but I won't get into that now). One of the impressive aspects of the film is how consistently Fassbinder stuck to the original source, with a respect and attention to detail rare in film's complex historical relationship to novels.

And yet, the film fails to capture any sense of the buzzing and humming life of the city that was central to Doblin's original work. Berlin clearly functions as a main character of the novel. In the film, the city of Berlin barely registers - the majority of the work unfolds in a handful of specific living spaces, be it a place of lodging or a pub or a forest clearing. Fassbinder didn't have much choice in this matter, as he needed to complete the film in a short period of time and with limited funding, thereby necessitating a reliance on sound stages. Perhaps even greater was the reality of West Germany in the late 1970s - the city of Berlin was literally split in half, and many of the iconic areas mentioned by Doblin had either been transformed by bombs and development, or were closed off to outside observation. This certainly explains why there are no shots of the city skyline or full-screen considerations of large urban areas, but the result is an almost complete negation of one of Doblin's primary concerns. The fast-moving pulse of the city becomes nearly static, and the cool sheen of modernism turns into the slow blush of melodrama.

But many of these are unavoidable issues, and artists embracing limitations can often prove inspiring. What adds to my discomfort with the film, however, is a separate liberty Fassbinder takes, which seems to be a misreading, or at least an extremely idiosyncratic reading, of the novel and the relationship between the nominal anti-hero Franz Biberkopf and the true anti-hero Reinhold. Indeed, it was Fassbinder's early discovery of the book and his identification with the odd relationship between the two shadowy men that inspired him throughout his career. But it's unclear whether or not Doblin meant for this destructive relationship to be the central concern of the novel. Fassbinder once groused that the character of Reinhold didn't appear in the novel until 155 pages in, which he claimed was "150 pages too late." But while Reinhold's presence certainly helps drive the novel and determine the trajectory of Franz Biberkopf's life, I'm not convinced of their relationship, and I certainly don't find the film's treatment of it believable or insightful in any way.

With these two major reservations in mind, and leaving aside the controversial and rather unnecessary two-hour epilogue - in which Fassbinder drops the historical facade and indulges in pure late-60s performance art, slipping Kraftwerk and Janis Joplin onto the soundtrack as naked figures writhe amid ghastly cheap special effects, like one of those Sopranos episodes that spends too much time exploring Tony's dreams - I still admit to feeling somewhat overwhelmed by the entire experience. What Fassbinder was able to accomplish in such a short period of filming time is amazing, and the hastiness of the schedule is nowhere evident in a film notable for remarkable languidness. The acting throughout the film is impressive, and Gunter Lamprecht in particular emerges as an astounding creative force. His acting must be viewed as something heroic, and his ability to communicate Biberkopf's childlike innocence and frightening brutality simultaneously ranks among the finest performances I've ever seen. And there's so much more to digest.

I usually spend a greater amount of time thinking about a film than the running time of the film itself. If this holds true, I'm in for several weeks of ruminating over this project. I'm sure most of you won't ever decide to spend 15 hours of your life with a single German film, and I can't exactly urge to you. But the act of immersing yourself inside one work of creative art for an extended period of time is something everybody should try at least once. In the end, we emerge awed despite the flaws, and sometimes even because of them. A ten-line poem might offer something close to perfection, at least in the use of language or imagery. But for me, sprawling novels and massive films and huge musical offerings capture the messy reality of human artistic urges better - the imperfect, the indulgent, the infuriating. In this, too, I find beauty.