World Premiere of Fassbinder's Restored "Berlin Alexanderplatz"

Imagine watching one of your favorite films on a tiny poor quality B&W television set and you'll have some idea of the unfavorable conditions under which Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 13 million mark epic "Berlin Alexanderplatz" was viewed by the majority of Germans at the time of its broadcast in the 1980s. The monochrome image must have been particularly damaging to the work of someone who used color as expressively as did Fassbinder, evident from the dozen or more of his beautifully restored films now available on DVD. Economically secure viewers at the time also had difficulty relating to the financial problems faced by Franz Biberkopf, the film's protagonist. As opposed to the upbeat ending of the novel upon which the film was based, in the miniseries Biberkopf ends his days in an asylum. The film had quite a different reception in other European countries and especially in the United States, where it had a brief run in the early 1980s and where some critics hailed the film as a masterpiece. At the 57th Berlinale Sunday, 450 intrepid filmgoers had the opportunity to see Fassbinder's rarely shown work as it had never been seen before. Understandably beleagured after a marathon 15-hour screening, the crowd nevertheless rose to its feet at 3:20 am Monday to applaud the actors and producers present at the event before adjourning to the lounge for a complimentary glass of champagne. The English subtitled DVD of the film will be released by Criterion later this year. Special thanks to reader Angela Lilleystone for the lead.

[Source: Spiegel]