411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

Discuss releases by Criterion and the films on them. Threads may contain spoilers!
Post Reply
Message
Author
User avatar
Lost Highway
Joined: Thu Aug 29, 2013 7:41 am
Location: Berlin, Germany

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#426 Post by Lost Highway » Fri Jun 07, 2019 4:17 am

Amazing Goose wrote:
Thu Jun 06, 2019 5:02 pm
Is the picture quality on the blu worth the upgrade? After years of eyeing it, I got the DVD for Christmas, only to have the blu come out a few months later (along with the sting of it being $20 cheaper.)

Obviously not a film I’ll have time to watch a lot, but it is the upgrade worth trying to sell my DVD set?
This sums it up:

http://www.criterionforum.org/DVD-revie ... ction/2080

There isn’t much of an improvement over the DVD.

Zot!
Joined: Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:09 am

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#427 Post by Zot! » Fri Jun 07, 2019 7:52 am

if you're looking for an alternative presentation, the Second Sight release is in the original 25fps and has some different extras.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#428 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Nov 03, 2021 1:32 am

I've been struggling to sit and watch movies for a while now, but against my own recommendation in the RWF List Project thread, I'm going to sit down and go through Fassbinder's longest and best film slowly, episode by episode, and see if recording some thoughts at a snail's pace a) motivates me to continue watching and consuming this novelistic person-in-environment masterpiece, and b) allows more space to meditate on the progression of such an expansive and complex portrait.

Episode 1: "The Punishment Begins" [Note: Spoilers within]

Our initial exposure to Franz is that of fear. An afraid man, traumatized by life inside a prison's walls, cowering at the overwhelming, foreign milieu that he is liberated into, a prison in its own right. What makes this social world a referent of fear, a prison of implicitly constructed design? Throughout this episode, it becomes clear that this disturbance is only partially due in a decaying society on the political institutional level, through repeated subjection to social disconnect, which I'd argue is the primary- and more acute- source of malaise. The guard attempts to minimize Franz's experience with discomfort, saying others have had it worse. He's trying to make him feel better, to find gratitude through comparison. But what good is a comparison if we have no harmonic linkage to those experiences ours is being compared to? He says it's superstition to look back, and gives advice not to, but contradicts himself by stating that most prisoners do return regardless, and cannot answer Franz's posit that this may be meaningless. Franz's first moments of freedom involve hypocrisy, non-answers, help that is empty of merit or reason, and abandonment by one secure hell, thrust into a less secure hell.

Franz' psyche is in jeopardy, and a Jewish man tries to help. He tells him a parable, the moral of which is immediately contradicted by his brother. Franz overcomes his fit to grasp the incorrect message from the story- that he's still got his eyes and legs, and thus still has strength; not only misremembering 'legs' for 'feet', but forfeiting higher meaning from either version of the story. Now, there's some truth to Franz's revelation, and that resilience in turning to gratitude and empowering himself via attention to his humble corporeal agency is probably the 'right' significance to take away for his own benefit in this moment. Yet this is another example of characters talking past one another, not listening, not communicating or receiving guidance or social support that's very much needed.

And what does Franz do next? He forgets any humility gained from this boost of clarity and returns to his own immoral behavior of assault without self-awareness or apology. Franz' behavior shift mimics the frenetic oscillation he just exhibited in movement from a hysterical psychotic episode in the fetal position to a manic, jovial revitalization where he deserts hospitality with a mixture of unbalanced thanks and threat to his caretakers; Franz rapes a woman he already traumatized, fails to achieve intimacy with a prostitute in a meek, pathetic state, gains confidence and loses it as if it's a currency of no value, or at least a trait he possesses little control over without a map to maintain it with consistency. Franz' only sense of equilibrium has come from inebriating himself in self-delusion and selfish deviance. When Franz 'takes', gorges his desires, spews his solipsistic version of truth ("the truth is the truth is the truth is the truth.."), he remains composed, and can meet the world on its own fragmented, alienating terms in the present.

Franz meets an old friend, but has no interest in engaging in deep or moral conversation when confronted about his actions. He wants to drink, fuck, profess his perspective as unquestionable fact, and here we find the first moments of the film that carry a prolonged sheen of serenity. Everything that has come before has been jarringly schizophrenic, and just when we've begun to acclimate to this tonal nightmare of psychological chaos, Fassbinder chooses to momentarily relinquish the fraught subjectivity of the first hour, opting to bring us into the comfort of illusory excitement through a disregard for authentic engagement with oneself and others. It's a sick, twisted form of tranquility, for the juxtaposition between Franz' delusional beliefs and his behavior is alarmingly obvious, and yet we cannot deny that the peace he experiences is welcome and beneficial after the relentless turmoil we've seen him go through, and by proxy joined him in enduring ourselves. Franz recounts a dream to a prostitute, declares an oath to change, to be honest, and obtains great joy from this vacuous act. Even if Franz does 'rescue' the prostitute with full deluded belief he'll be a good partner, she's still a prostitute and thus a safe person to confess this to, to 'save', to own. Franz forges no relationships without a power dynamic, his sobriety to the world clouded by his own self-deceptive inattention to his defective characteristics and lack of skillsets to locate true amity with those around him.

So when Franz gets the letter that deflates his dream, confining him to restrictions within this prison of a faux-free world, those he loves cannot help him. Lina tries, but can't think of anything to say, so she demands Meck say something, but he can't either. Now, part of the reason no one can say anything is that the oppressive milieu itself is too overpowering in its abstract sociopolitical aggression, and this is certainly the point where the narrative begins to swerve towards a journey of environmental factors sabotaging Franz' capacity to enact and sustain moral change. However, Fassbinder is also interested in Franz' own nature as the diseased root of these problems; and perhaps not only Franz' but the average citizen in Germany during this time -all the more cheekily hinted at when Franz earlier promises never to be more dishonest than 'the ordinary man'! The fusion of environmental and innate responsibility will be the broad subject of this film, filtered through poor Franz as the guinea pig for us to suffer for, through, and with...

Franz may be despicable on a variety of levels, but I do believe Franz believes he's being honest when he stands by Lina, is dedicated to his oath and this woman, and I also believe that hope is important to have- for Franz and all of us. It's also a fleeting moment- impermanent because it's impossible to hold onto, because Franz is powerless over so much external and internal influence, but also because Franz cannot access insight into his impotence. He refuses to surrender, and while that can be seen as a strength, there is a healthy form of admittance that mirrors as humble surrender and unlocked possibility for conscious and motivated growth. Franz sets himself up to fail, just as much as the world sets him up to fail.

I find it amusing that when Franz exits the prisoner-assistance office and fakes misery before rejoicing as 'winners' with his friends, Fassbinder deliberately pans his camera away from their intimate social contact. The hugging celebrations occur off camera, and the episode ends. Fassbinder knows this is fleeting, and he wants us to know it too. These festivities are not indicative of the narrative's 'reality', and Fassbinder won't entertain Franz' delusions. So onto the next episode, where Franz is immediately financially and socially challenged by variables from his present and his past, his passing peace forcibly dissipated before our eyes, rendered meaningless against the grain of both the conditions of his habitat and that of his own character.

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#429 Post by swo17 » Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:36 am

A worthy goal, I hope you make it all the way through!

User avatar
Rayon Vert
Green is the Rayest Color
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 10:52 pm
Location: Canada
Contact:

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#430 Post by Rayon Vert » Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:55 am

I've got two more films to get to (that I'll view this week) before I undertake this one, twbb, but I might afterwards join you and bounce off ideas from your posts after the episodes.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#431 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Nov 03, 2021 11:07 am

That would be great! I’ve already seen the film twice but I’m hopeful that digesting it in chunks will help me pick up and further appreciate details/thematic progressions I may have missed the first two times (I think my last watch was more or less a binge across two days), as well as emulate the experience of consuming a novel, which this basically is in film form

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#432 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Nov 03, 2021 10:09 pm

Episode 2: "How Is One to Live if One Doesn’t Want to Die?" [Note: Spoilers within]

This episode kicks off with a conservative yet gentle Franz forging an identity of innocence on a pink cloud. Fassbinder amusingly intertwines morality with ignorance, as Franz muses around gullible to propaganda about unmarried couples, and antisocially spouting homoerotic stories with curiosity to his girlfriend, unaware of the consequences of how his filterless jabber will be interpreted. His subsequent posture of sexual assault toward Lina is treated with relief at the implications of his heterosexuality, but it's still a subtle indication that Franz' nature is not, and can not be, muted. One of the funniest moments in Fassbinder's oeuvre occurs next as a passionate voiceover dictates Lina's violence to the porn peddler, contrasted with Franz giving a confused, deadpan reaction with a shrug. It's a hilarious demonstration of this disconnect, and boy do we need it, as the fatalistic social inertia is sewn into every stitch of this tale in mostly tragic exhibitions. The fluidity by which Franz changes jobs may be sensible given his economical circumstances, but he's significantly always placed in the position of a vocalizer for some cause, selling information he knows or cares nothing about. The detachment between Franz's beliefs and his actions isn't recognized by his 'self', and thus his identity's worth is diluted of importance to us or to Franz himself, and completely unhooked from his pliantly-directed agency.

Only at the end of the episode, when Franz becomes triggered by peers invalidating his experience in prison and responds with identity-agency alignment through aggressive self-seriousness in roaring verbage and song, does he find security in passion. This behavior is polarized from Franz' earlier, comedic deer-in-headlights passivity as he observes Lina's own aggressive act of passion, and Fassbinder seems to indicate that self-respect, and consciousness to drive one's meaning in this world, requires passion. This alteration in characterization begins during the confrontation over Nazi propaganda, when Franz finally states a belief with conviction: that of "order." Franz may have been taught to ingrain this belief behind prison walls, but his enthusiasm for order also seems desperately pointed at the broad disorder he feels in his social environment, the dissociation from his peer group, and dissatisfaction with his own grasp of self.

The scene in the subway pauses for the narrator to give one of the most powerful and forever memorable passages in the film: That of the connection between the bees of the present day, the rays of light between stars out of reach, Adam and Eve of the past, etc., all arriving and attaching to Franz in this moment. Franz feels connected to God and all Earth's history and his identity in this instant, and the feeling bolsters his ego, heightens his state as a participant, ignites a passion that was inevitable and will prove to be uncontrollable and problematic, just as it is existentially necessary and precious. But we can't have nice things in this world, and there's no reinforcement coming from within the human condition for moderation and self-control; not when we have no valve on our emotions. Still, we can't help but find solace through passion ourselves rooting for Franz in the bar as he evades his zombified costume of modesty channeling disengagement, and finds himself again- even if there's a glimmer of foreboding repercussions in his erratic ferocity. And of course the episode ends with Franz biting Lina passionately from behind, with more assured and accepted animalistic impulses than the mirrored action earlier in the segment, hinting at a boomeranged character change into the void of nature.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#433 Post by therewillbeblus » Wed Nov 03, 2021 11:46 pm

Episode 3: "A Hammer Blow to the Head Can Injure the Soul" [Note: Spoilers within]

This a phenomenal episode, where Fassbinder chooses to imbue a soft touch to underscore the lamentable elusiveness of interpersonal rapport. Lina reads an optimistic script that it is "better to walk with a friend," and believes it to be idealistically heartening, but Franz dismisses the false notion of human intimacy for the booze in front of him. Still, he rejects Meck's offer to stand by the convictions of his oath, and attempts to make a living on a 'straight' path. That doesn't stop Franz from sleeping with a woman and omitting the information from Lina, but the situation is deeply empathized with by Fassbinder as segregated from a duplicitous tryst. The woman is lonely, and invites Franz to sleep with her out of a genuine yearning for affection, one that Franz seems to greet not on the grounds of beastly lust, but born from a reciprocal connection founded in fleeting love. He's discovered an accessible soul, a rare find in this decrepit world, that earnestly sees him (he looks like her dead husband) and wants him; and being wanted with sober transparency outside of superficial one-sided desire is innocent, true, and forms a spiritual bond.

The irony is that subjectively perhaps this woman does want Franz based on her own deluded version of what he represents, and Franz wants her based on his own skewed perspective of being wanted as a superior, holy being, finally being viewed by the identity he yearns to possess. However, Fassbinder allows these subjective outlooks to coexist with authenticity, presenting a grey notion that tender offerings of self cannot inherently stem from homogenous inspirations, but that the intent behind the impetuses, and manner in which we receive these gifts of one's self, are what define the veritable unions of consonant energy we call love.

Conversely, Otto's subsequent attempt to woo the widow is framed as sinister, though Fassbinder resists abrasion by pacing the scene and directing the actors with mellow devastation. There are no violent actions to juxtapose the humanity that came before, but instead there is another, irreconcilable meditation on humanity- that of brokenness: Otto lost in a pathetic narcissistic mission of id, and the widow slowly despirited as the scarce, coveted gleam of light she has just discovered in Franz is severed, and she recoils back into mistrust, loneliness, and social alienation. Fassbinder's tame strategy to resist emphasized hostility permits the widow's pain to breathe, and for us to take in the tragedy of fated detachment without distraction or interruption.

When confronted, Franz muses about the Garden of Eden, that a serpent incongruously lived in paradise amongst the innocent creatures, learned to speak and infected Adam and Eve. The attention to the serpent adapting the skills of nature and spreading like a disease while the good beings lay docile in complacency lends a cynical reading that evil is strong, while good is weak; but more perversely, posits that evil is nature, since it has overtaken mankind and superseded purity organically from the beginning of time. Franz possesses some good, some civility, in his interactions with Lina; notably following Lina's accusation of Franz behaving like the devil on occasion, which is treated with cute jest, only half-serious, and his response is also one of acceptance as he playfully brushes it off, sublimating into endearment. By the end of the episode, Franz is torn further between the motivations of his oath and his character defects. He's in a flophouse, practicing dishonesty without the (to Fassbinder, valid) excuse of transient love with the widow, and struggles to resist unleashing his fury on Otto. Franz retreats out of cowardice and self-destructive disillusionment with the optimistic way of life he sought, slipping out of reach from both himself and those he 'loves'. Enveloped back into the pit of self, Franz abandons his oath subconsciously through distancing himself from those he is responsible for to focus intensely on his existential crisis- believing he's necessarily embarking on a pursuit to hold onto the morals he's actually straying away from in practice.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#434 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Nov 04, 2021 12:55 am

Episode 4: "A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence" [Note: Spoilers within]

Well, Fassbinder may have crafted the most sympathetic portrait of an alcoholic bender ever committed to film. The psychological decline Franz experiences is not exploitative but accentuates the quicksand of despair he's trapped within, unconditionally sensitive to the cocoon of agony will power cannot evade in the throes of inebriated depression. In the episode's best scene, the faux-preacher's sage teasing of Franz as a version of Job without the will to yield resistance -or refusing to surrender his toxic thoughts- results in Franz plummeting somehow deeper into nihilistic terrain, as he figures neither God nor the Devil has interest in offering him salvation from himself. Even Franz' winking at the woman outside from atop the balcony early on is framed with pity, as an unattainable bridge of affinity between two people divided, in contrast with the widow on level ground in close quarters in the previous episode.

Franz declares to Baumann that the strangest thing in the world is "people," the most direct mention of the film's core theme in the film, and then proceeds to eavesdrop on the relationship dynamics of criminals in the adjacent apartment while he dries out. The idea that Franz' only way to escape the confines of anguish is to get outside of himself is a tried and true intervention, but the text bitterly finds the answer in attending to the drama of foreign agents without social participation (opposing, say, the common action of engaging with others in a directly helpful manner to absolve one of psychological pain in isolation). It's not exactly schadenfreude, but there's something acidic about stabilizing via engaging with people worse off than you are, without actually engaging with them, and even operating under the ethos that one cannot tangibly engage with other people through any meaningful method of unity! The barriers are acknowledged (with Franz even ruminating on why the neighbors are reacting the way they are, unable to meet them on a plateau of identification in universal human behavior!) and yet Franz is drawn to these people and their problems anyways- a frustrating conundrum of being magnetized to a repellent substance, and yet attractive due to the distraction of others' misfortune to achieve personal balance.

This could be an allegory for what Fassbinder has been doing his entire career, oscillating between bringing his own self-pity and identification into his characters' worlds, recognizing trends and validating a shared experiencing, while also self-forgetting through escapism with equal parts empathy and torture; othering and joining at once, accepting the limitations of true accord and acknowledging nondiscriminatory oppression that binds us together, to a point.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#435 Post by knives » Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:03 am

Your version of slow is my version of fast. Thanks for the thorough thoughts.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#436 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:19 am

knives wrote:
Thu Nov 04, 2021 9:03 am
Your version of slow is my version of fast.
Oh trust me, getting through three eps last night is fast for me too these days- perhaps a sign that my public accountability plan is working! I'll likely continue this pace since I caved and rented a bunch of Fassbinder revisits from the library, and those have a due date next week. It's been a very strange three months of aversion to watching movies, so forcefeeding is one intervention.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#437 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Nov 04, 2021 11:35 pm

Episode 5: "A Reaper with the Power of Our Lord" [Note: Spoilers within]

Franz, composed and fresh off his drinking binge, returns to Meck without hard feelings and recommitted to his moral path, run entirely on self-will even divorced from Lina's inspiring presence as a person to care for. Franz is introduced to the ringleader of a criminal underworld and politely rejects the offer to join their crew. Eva comes back into Franz' life, and he embraces her with an apathetic demeanor compared to his warmth with the widow two episodes prior. Is this because Eva is familiar, drums up reminders of his past he'd rather forget, because she was his prostitute and thus a soiled woman contrasted with the innocent widow, or is Franz growing more languid as he acclimates to barriers to human connection outside of prison walls?

Franz meets Reinhold, and diagnoses him as someone who has "done time" like he has, approaching him with confidence in an antisocial manner to tell him what he did and what he is thinking about Franz. It's a paranoid action executed without anxiety, a solipsistic credence that is false, which proves that a) Franz is as segregated from comprehension about other people as he exclaimed at the end of the previous episode, and b) that this 'knowledge' is ephemeral, with Franz forgetting "the strangest thing in the world" almost immediately after the revelation struck him. Yet Franz finds himself drawn to Reinhold; he feels an affinity toward him, perhaps as a fellow womanizer or through discerning the fragility Reinhold exudes faintly with his eyes, a sensitive part hidden away that Franz identifies within himself. So Franz mistakenly conflates morality for a favor by taking on women from Reinhold, a "good deed" that warrants behaving cruelly towards these women. The cognitive dissonance is lost on Franz, and as the reader of the text we witness the strands coming together with amounting evidence: Franz' oath is not selfless, of course, but a selfish exertion of will in a desperate attempt to heal his soul. Franz took this oath to protect his psyche from entering his shameful past with a head full of reform in a defenseless position, his vulnerability exposed in a foreign milieu. Franz helps Reinhold because Reinhold reminds Franz of Franz, not because it's 'right'. Franz can refrain from joining a gang of thieves because it's a tangible leap that he would be sober to performing, yet sleeping with women and harming them comes so naturally he doesn't need to notice- his male privilege cemented in a societally-ingrained power differential breeding opportunities to wield intergender aggression without a blink of an eye.

But Franz thinks he has a friend now, and whether this is delusion sourced in self-preservation to belong socially, or be of service (in some ways, Franz' stable response to Reinhold's deceptive demonstrations of frailty allow him to take on the same gentle caretaker role he did with Lina, differentiated from his harsh and immoral caretaker role as a pimp in his past life), or an example of Franz' naivete that confuses conservative fruitless values of male camaraderie in 'helping thy neighbor' with purified morality regardless of associated reverberations that muddy the waters, is anyone's guess. Franz has again found himself in a trap that is both self-made from ignorance to default maladaptive behavior and externally-imposed from simply engaging with his social environment.

One clear reason that this film is so tremendous is Fassbinder's incessant equalization of liability without rigid judgment steering our evaluations of his dignity and worth. Franz cannot escape his own conditioned history and innate nature, and yet he is responsible for them; Franz cannot escape his contextual oppression, and yet chooses to take part in his social world anyways. This Sisyphean snare is at once tragically purgatorial and existentially empowering; our empathy partitioned from blame, but neither ignored. Fassbinder's objectivity can and does flaunt omniscient attention to the grey actions occurring before our eyes, and despite the separation of compassion and scrutiny, there's an elasticity to the causal relationships between these feelings and the conditions that is endlessly complex. Isn't it both tragic and maddening that Franz cannot access this sobriety- an awareness that might dilute his harmful actions; and isn't it also, perversely, relieving that we can resiliently delude ourselves into persistence via false beliefs of meaning, despite overwhelming evidence of an objectively meaningless existence? I don't know whether to resent or pity Franz -or to look in the mirror of our own society and feel sorry for the rest of us, with either a sense of disturbed alienation or warm kinship for this universal commonality in a cool space- but I'm pretty sure the answer involves a mediated dose of all these perspectives and more.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#438 Post by therewillbeblus » Fri Nov 05, 2021 12:50 am

Episode 6: "Love Has Its Price" [Note: Spoilers within]

Franz has a nightmare where he is disturbed by his position in life as a horse, wants to be a bird and can briefly actualize this desire- but even in a dream (like the dream he strives to believe as a mirage in real life, constantly disbarred by intrusive people, memories, and contextual variables) he cannot escape the serpent that transforms his aeronautical state into "me." The devastating punchline to this dream is not that the serpent is Reinhold, a person he is consciously aware of as a dastardly presence in his life despite being helplessly drawn to, nor that his destiny is to fail in his mission to be good and free; it's that on a deeper level, both Franz' greatest fear and sentient fatalism is to return to his own nature, his 'self', as the worst possible outcome. This nightmare says so much about Franz' sense of identity, and offers immense sympathy for his motivations to trick himself. The responsibility is not placed on Reinhold as the catalyst for his downfall, but on himself for being so irreparably soiled that regardless of who is the serpent, Franz will drown due to his own inability to change himself based on will power. The serpent is within him.

Franz' successive decision to shack up with Cilly is thus treated with compassion rather than frustration at continuing the game. The nightmare must remain in the darkness and Franz must keep moving forward- if his core belief is that he is doomed due to his inherent condition, immune to external variables for support- meaningless or not- how else does one carry on? His mind recites scripture about Jeremiah, musing on inevitable evidence of social mistrust, intrinsic ignorance of man, and professes that the heart is deceitful and wicked, followed by "who could know it?" This split between the mind and the heart emphasizes the dissonance between Franz and himself, other people, and systems. All tangible assets by which we can perceive slivers of meaning are fragmented and so how can we possibly piece together any truth or achieve a sense of harmony when we're unable to see clearly in any domain from multiple parts of ourselves, particularly in bridging the enigmatic drive of our emotions with our cognitive muscles?

This passage plays again with pathetic irony following Franz' absolute disregard for all knowledge he's gleaned so far, including the wisdom from the passage just minutes earlier, before Reinhold throws him from the car. After choosing to go with Cilly, Franz forgets his understanding that the fruit crew are criminals and blindly agrees to join them one night. He naively reads the paper and forges a comfortable interest and connection with events involving people from the aloof position of a curious reader, a non-participant in these events, unaware of what's about to occur. Then as the robbery takes place, Franz is overcome with surprise- he pronounces to himself that he believed them to be in the fruit business- a lie, as we've witnessed an earlier version of Franz size them up as thugs whose business invitations challenged his moral oath. He greets Reinhold like a brother and is somehow shocked when Reinhold punches him, even after having a dream where Reinhold was a serpent the day before. Franz is in complete denial of the very information he has immersed himself in during the narrative. Self-delusion finally reaches its peak of insanity, working against self-preservation, and the near-fatal consequences form a 'bottom' for Franz, from which we have to wonder the ramifications, and have to imagine that they will prompt his nightmare to come true- to enter into the vacuum of "me," shatter the oath, and self-preserve towards self-destruction.

Try as he might to lay static in pacifism and dedication to virtue, it's come to the point where Franz' oath has placed him in danger, not because morality is wrong but because his mind cannot access his heart, he trusts when he shouldn't, and his milieu does not reinforce an ethical approach to this determinist internal discord.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#439 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Nov 06, 2021 12:24 am

Episode 7: "Remember - An Oath Can Be Amputated” [Note: Spoilers within]

The title of this episode elicits a hostile gravity against Franz’ ideals malfunctioning in action. I love the breakfast table scene where Franz talks about how he never thought of a woman inside of prison, and when Herbert posits that this is a unique protective asset of Franz’ adaptability, Franz declares that the other prisoners adopted the same tunnel-vision as an instinctual response to their circumstances. It’s something “universal,” he says, indicating that self-delusion is a natural state to deviate to, and that one’s natural drives are capable of being covered up, though never discarded. So Franz’ residual confession of his genuine commitment to his oath not being realised in actuality is a moment of stark realism. Franz is aware that, just like he returned to rape and sexual impulses once he left prison, he will break his oath as the faux-protective layers become forcibly shed via lived experience. Morality was a defense mechanism against id, and it cannot last, nor is it beneficial any longer like forgetting women was to keep sanity in prison. The revelation is tragic, yet regrettably affirmed.

Franz rejects the idea of revenge because he is too concerned with the lack of influence any action can have on revitalizing the arm that has been lost. Cynicism towards moving beyond the confines of a downward spiral overpowers existential opportunity within these confines. Franz declares, "the arm had to go" as the title card reads the episode's theme, and we are face to face with Franz' hopelessness regarding upholding the oath he took. Franz reads the paper and instead of consuming the information with doe-eyed wonder, he distances himself by casting the narrative he previously "bridged" from his disconnected vantage point aside... saying not to -but away from- the article about policemen, "Who even believes in them anymore?" The exclamation is a surrender from even the naive optimism at affinity with the outside world, a painful rumination on his disinterest.

The musical score's soft melancholic ballad is meshed with an additional layer of menacing fury as the episode progresses, and the soundtrack eventually collects screeches and animal noises from the nightlife outside. Franz' earlier solemn meditation on the relinquishment of his oath is sublimated into compromised empowerment, ironically as he succumbs to his immoral core. The inner monologue about the cobra remaining present while weakened, intrinsically a part of him, leads to an avowal of clarity to wisdom: Clutch onto the little you have -your corporeal tools- and hang on for dear life. The defensiveness is anti-spiritual, but it's still what some would call a 'spiritual experience', and it's certainly a necessary change into meeting the world where it's at. Fassbinder has led us to a sympathetic yet frightening zenith, where we watch Franz' disposition, body language, and actions revert to his old habits. He leaves the house, orders three beers, and talks to them about his "needless thoughts." They don't serve him any longer. How sad, to validate his decision whilst knowing that it is right for him and wrong on a higher plane of value.. though if this higher morality is not only incongruous with the world but nonexistent, aren't we mourning that too, right with Franz? And isn't his movement away from mourning this truth into self-actualized deviance actually a progression within the internal logic of his atmosphere?

The submission isn't framed as dirty but clean and honest, Fassbinder refusing to let go of the humane depths with which he demands we treat the insoluble situation. Few works have so successfully earned our investment in a no-win trajectory toward self-annihilation. We're glued to the unreserved dignity Franz possesses in his nature, along with the darkness that has lain dormant beneath the surface, and will soon spoil our beloved antihero- our friend who we can aloofly 'connect' with from afar, just as Franz tried in reading his newspaper in the previous episode.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#440 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Nov 06, 2021 1:40 am

Episode 8: "The Sun Warms the Skin, but Burns It Sometimes Too" [Note: Spoilers within]

Right from the get-go, Franz casually refers to his absence as a "private" vacation, a break from his nature. Again we see Franz' development through reading the newspaper, as he laughs at a family murder in apparent schadenfreude before transitioning into a rationalization of the killer's behavior with "respect" as a familiar part of his world. Franz breaches his way into the criminal enterprise with deliberate action, the very conscious act he resisted initially with the fruit gang in the fifth episode, and his nervousness signals full awareness to the sacrifice he's about to make; and then to showcase the difficulty of his position, Franz breaks down in a crying fit. Is he frustrated at himself for being confused when he chose a moral route to approach life, and grieving for the loss of this part of himself simultaneously? The pink cloud was not serving him tangibly, but it was serving his spirit that has not quite slipped away, perhaps never to actually leave him. Is Franz also upset at the very state of being confused- of the mismatch between mind and heart, body and soul, reality and dreams? The sick twist is that it would actually be easier if Franz were to escape into an inebriation of immorality, just as he did for morality; but now we can reflexively see with our own raw vision into Franz' sobriety to hold both his spiritual side and his immoral magnetism as inveterate aspects of his nature. His inability to move into complete objectivity, whilst now able to experience peripheral discordant states, only amplifies his suffering. Ignorance is bliss.

Franz is still clearly sensitive, scared, and lonely, as he recoils from his facade of confidence at the mention that the girl he's to be set up with is waiting outside. When he sees Mieze, he has another spiritual experience, far deeper and more consciously-sung than his encounter with the widow. Could love be possible, even upon his awakening to the vacuous state of nature in the space he inhabits? Franz is bothered though- when he embraces her gentleness, he is disturbed... he "can't figure her out," her tenderness "unbelievable." I think back on all these examples of pervasive disconnect deflating one's acceptance of rapport, including secondary characters- with Cilly's "Why?" meltdown at the end of the previous episode, after discovering Reinhold withheld Franz' status as alive from her, a great reminder of just how lost all these people are- unable to grasp or acknowledge that the very question of "why" assumes knowledge of the partner, and trust in the substance of that bond.

Franz' trust becomes shattered, and a subsequent bizarre, messy tryst with Eva jarringly contrasts with the glistening vibe of the middle section of the episode as anti-love, and meaningless. Eva sees something in Franz, something good, but her allure to him feels superficial; a version of love that is inscrutable to either of them, or to us. Maybe this is what 'love' is within the terms of this nebulous social context- where Eva can dismiss the worth of the woman Franz killed out of jealousy, genuinely want to help Franz stabilize and find love aside from her, want to be controlled by him, but also take control of him with lustrous acts of love. Is she the only character alert enough of her behavior in a self-accepted mindset, so much so that we're puzzled by the ostensible erratic course of her behavior; or just as lost and divorced from self as everyone else?

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#441 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Nov 06, 2021 3:18 am

Episode 9: "About the Eternities Between the Many and the Few" [Note: Spoilers within]

I love how between the end of the previous episode and the start of this one, Fassbinder forms a collage of Franz’ memory of killing Ida that ignites its own progression of sentience. In episode 8, after his trust is broken with Mieze, we watch the scene play over and over as the narration dispassionately discusses an unrelated banal story, emulating the one that Franz read in the newspaper- traumatic reality divorced from emotion matching its content, replaced by the segregated energy between Franz and the stories he reads about others unable to forge unions; a disbarment between mind and heart. However, at the start of this episode, Franz’ monologue over the repetitive actions are more tonally in line, with him expressing a scene of turbulent emotions acts, signifying that this memory is beginning to irk him, the haunting imagery plaguing his soul. Is this progress, or regression? Fassbinder seems to acknowledge that it’s both.

Franz makes up with Mieze, trying to have his cake and eat it too, engaging in the underworld while holding onto love; just as he sits with these memories and perseveres. It’s a new kind of adaptability for him, to repurpose that agonizing peripheral vision to test whether he can balance the spiritual and immoral nature of his soul, and fascinating for us to watch and root for an inconstant character to continue these irregular patterns, as their fusion’s symptom of psychotic instability is far preferable to Franz lingering in either polarized state on its own! How does an artist get us to this place, to find solace in the unreliable and the unrelatable? Well, the broad, serpentine existential crisis of conscience is relatable, but it takes great time, effort, and a pitch-perfect performance of immeasurable range from Günter Lamprecht to sell it. Thankfully, Fassbinder takes his time, extravasates unceasing effort, and gets that performance.

Franz’ confessional confrontation with Reinhold reminds us "how," reminds us “why.” His verbal expressions of powerlessness, low self-worth, and disorientation to life itself is sad but honest, the only type of purification that can be found on this hellhole. Reinhold’s response is of earnest affection, and their encounter here might be the most authentic and intimate moment between two people in the entire film- even with Reinhold declaring that he can’t stand cripples, urging Franz to kill himself out of self-interest, and Franz admitting to his impotence to kill Reinhold as a man who wronged him. But the ulterior motives are superficial, and the affinity between the men is what stands out: Reinhold obsessively interested in seeing the wound he is partially responsible for causing, trying to help Franz maintain his injury in a hasty, frantic fashion experiment; Franz looking fondly at his friend whilst tragically knowing that they cannot resume any sustainable bond, and Reinhold realizing the same as he lies in bed, guard down to any revenge Franz could take, basking in shame and depression at the same realization. That demonstrates trust, as well as an emotional response usurping detached individualism or even logical self-preservation sans defensive risk management. There are two lonely men, powerless to actualize an intimacy that neither can ignore, and now Reinhold is also trapped in the peripheral state Franz has recently found himself in- an aura he is transmitting onto others now. Is Franz a modern-day Saint of these dilapidated times?

And then at the end, more speech/image contrast with the memory of Ida’s murder, even deeper into sentimentality; the recitation is an unbearable account of Isaac’s torturous subjectivity at the inexplicable request from God coming through Abraham. He’s developmentally incapable of grasping these adult ideas, but filtered through the eyes of a child we can comprehend just how scary and inane they sound, and empathize absolutely with the sensations of having our safety violated, within our own family and on our own land. The narrator’s voice cracks as if crying itself at times, and Abraham neutrally explains that God will respond to this trauma with “Hallelujah!” making it all worth it. It’s as unsettling a passage as anything in this film, for the imitated cries of pain and joy over a scene of unexpected violence from a similar power differential between loved ones, the allegorical aching for Franz’ claustrophobic experience as the subjugated, and the wry answer to this writer’s reading of the previous scene’s recontextualization of Sainthood’s static value- with dogmatic harm rendering Franz’ non-action angelic by comparison. Franz then relents any such virtues and leans into unidimensional hardness, or at least impersonal apathy, for the remainder of the episode- the shift again reminding us of his potential, and we grieve for its elusivity, the losses of layers of characterization drowning before our eyes.

Our first exposure to Eva resenting Franz is when he assuredly exclaims that there is no order (so I suppose she isn’t meeting the world on its terms after all!) and proceeds to calmly deduce a Hobbesian framework regarding the unnaturalness of limitations imposed by the state or the self. Franz, oscillating between the dysphoria from his spiritual urges and a self-actualized position of nature as endless indulgences of amoral ids, keeps our sympathies as a fractured soul. If he was a consistently fulfilled man satiating only the latter perspective, we might wane our investment in his essence, but since he’s incorrigibly prevented from self-actualization from the inside, we can never escape this dedication to perceiving the complex wonders of his humanity.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#442 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Nov 07, 2021 2:30 am

Episode 10: "Loneliness Tears Cracks of Madness Even in Walls" [Note: Spoilers within]

Franz’ fractured behaviors are cast into sections of physical inebriation in this episode. He attempts to return to prison, fondly yearning for the past within a simpler prison than the one he is currently trapped inside. Franz goes on a drunken rant about the darkness as synonymous with order, and the stories of the newspapers(!), furthering the disconnect with Franz and all information external to him, seeing it now as one massive, formidable void. Franz keeps composed for the most part during a rough morning with Mieze, but even when he loses his temper, the source- emasculation from her admittance of finding a rich man to support her- is worthy of our sympathies. Franz isn’t upset with Mieze, but with his circumstances and own responsibility in this predicament as the pimp, non-providing partner, a powerless anti-agent of support for either himself or her, let alone their union collectively.

Mieze asks Franz to stop his political involvement, and Franz easily forfeits his commitment to helping others. At this point he doesn’t need a strong push to disengage from caring about others. Later, during a long and affectionate drunken display of animalistic sexual activity, Franz alternates between behavior of mindful joy and wandering intrusive thoughts about murdering Mieze in detail, the urges coexisting naturally within him at once. The seemingly infinite scene ends abruptly after the rich man enters to interrupt the love for business involving Franz’ wife’s body and time. Franz will be alone, his woman taken by another, and he even has to give his left hand for the man to shake- impotent to greet a ‘social better’ in the correct fashion, let alone publicly bearing his eroding manhood channeling situation through physical deformity.

Mieze departs with a brief, detached act of affection, before coldly proclaiming to Franz, "It's my job, Franz, I have to do it." This idea of a citizen sacrificing the feelings of the person they love, or morality towards a higher institutional ideal of the marital bond, is ironically sourced in "order" - the very "order" Franz sees as false and rejects. It's interesting that "order" here represents not only that which artificially binds us together, but that which inorganically drives us apart. For this example, Franz's positive reframe of "disorder" involves emotions, the need of humans to love and be loved, the limitless potential of social engagement- shattered by society in addition to the drives of the self. Fassbinder makes us wonder: Would it be possible to wrestle with the self-driven defective traits from the serpent, if only supported by a harmonious societal structure?

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#443 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Nov 07, 2021 3:13 am

Episode 11: "Knowledge Is Power and the Early Bird Catches the Worm" [Note: Spoilers within]

Franz admits that he loves Reinhold along with Mieze, and wants to share the two people he loves with one another. Reinhold, for his part, dissociates himself with Franz publicly to Pums, and makes a threatening visit to Mieze, but only in order to profess indirectly that he and Franz have a loving, intimate bond as well. It’s almost a competition… Reinhold is such an interesting character- a man who stutters nervously, who acts tough and dispassionate, but who deeply feels. Just look at how he reacts to Franz’ aggression towards Mieze- Reinhold might treat his own women badly, but the barbaric violence is unbearable for him to stomach. He’s not a brave man, but someone who cares about mankind- like Franz, helplessly strung between welcoming ‘order’ with a cool, aloof attitude (as does Franz on his first committed mission with the gang, wondering why he didn’t turn off his moralometer earlier on) and craving abundant interpersonal depths of affinity without hiding them from others or forcing them to lurk under the surface unsaid- a kind of social ‘disorder’ unwelcome in this milieu.

Eva demands Mieze forgive Franz, again serving as his caretaking guardian angel, but one rooted in order. She loves Franz, and wants everything to function optimally- "stating He's already lost an arm.." and then musing with concern that he's behaving erratically by reintegrating the gang that crippled him, indicates that things are in bad shape and she needs to minimize further chaos that challenges the stability of her social network. The episode of violence is distressing- often framed in a long shot, at a vantage point away from Reinhold's but about the same distance, ourselves merging with his positioning to the action even if not directly linked to his perspective. This animalistic observance divorces us from Franz, starkly rendering him as a vehicle of harm without room for sympathy, though the later scene of tranquil explanation and loving confessional with Mieze almost brings us back there. Reasons exist for Franz, as does love, even if it's becoming diluted towards expulsion by the minute. Mieze proclaims that she will protect Franz, and he stares off impassively before turning back to her with a halfhearted smile. The text from the start of their courting period appears again- she was as gentle as a feather... but he could never quite figure her out. Fassbinder is clarifying for us that the arousal to 'try' to understand her- or other people, or life, or himself- is crumbling.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#444 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Nov 07, 2021 8:15 pm

Episode 12: "The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent" [Note: Spoilers within]

Franz seems to be getting the gifts of his life back- introducing Mieze to Meck, engaging in a lovely afternoon of playful tenderness with Mieze in long shots, sun shining through the windows, juxtaposed with the violence from the previous episode in the same space at night. This is also the episode where we watch Reinhold succumb to his own zenith of order/disorder, strangling Mieze in the woods. Whether this is due to jealousy, repression of his feelings for Franz, or an internal conflict of suppressing sentimentality and vulnerability bubbling up in violence, is impossible to discern- but I don't believe it's simply sensitivity to rejection by Mieze upon his repeated advances, or impulsive self-preservation from the fear of her reporting his attempt at murder. The tragedy is that Reinhold and Franz have an undeniable energy between them, yet they are fatally untethered from accessing this warmth, with one another and within themselves. The innate serpent battles with their inherent softness in emotional intelligence, something that doesn't belong in this world. So the amoral apathy wins out for Reinhold (ousting the episode's title into being), which will trigger Franz' own destruction, ironically tethering them together by indirect consequence of the impossibility of actualizing direct intimacy of their bond. Despite not having served as passengers for his journey to the same degree as we have with Franz, we've seen enough shades of Reinhold to pity him for similar reasons. His tough facade has been dissected as a defense mechanism for the passion he subdues, and just like his hidden tattoos, once he shows this side of himself to another human being he feels a demanding urge to quell this naked vulnerability- be it destroying Franz or killing Mieze. Perhaps Mieze also represents the goodness in the world, that which Reinhold cannot access externally or internally, and which must be destroyed to restore "order" back to the safe stability of indifference.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#445 Post by therewillbeblus » Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:05 pm

Episode 13: "The Outside and the Inside and the Secret of Fear of the Secret" [Note: Spoilers within]

The beginning to this penultimate episode is quite amusing- Fassbinder is in full self-reflexive mode regarding his perverse manipulations of classic Hollywood melodrama. The mood swings of both Franz and Eva, as they transition back and forth from elation and devastation at the pregnancy and Mieze's disappearance, are rapidly presented in bizarre succession without connective tissue- particularly Eva's initial confident composure and subsequent distraction of Franz with the baby dropping suddenly into an explosion of grief at Mieze's absence, which propels a confused Franz back to reassuring her just seconds after the roles were reversed! It's like fast-forwarding a Sirk film in the span of a minute, framed from a distance to prohibit our mastery and emphasize the artifice. The emotions are real, but Fassbinder understands that wearing any solitary dress of perspective here is a delusion, a cognitive form of artifice.

The revolution within the crime syndicate between workers and Pums is also pretty funny, executed with a busy camera following the principals as they each take turns with a monologue of asserting a different passionate sociopolitical idea, strolling briefly as they talk then abruptly halting into line as the next person goes. It's filmed like a stage play- the implementation of dialog establishing dynamics, the way the characters stall in their stares, or pronounce their pitches, as well as Fassbinder's obvious, banal use of blocking all serve to deliberately wink at artifice too. The next scene with the fire during the robbery is similarly portrayed as an acute performance of melodrama, music cues and lingering dispositions given priority over continuity of action that might allow for surrogate audience investment via assumed comfort in mastery. The rest of the scenes practice the same trend- brief theatrical glimpses of acting with sentimental methodology to close out arcs swiftly. It's as if Fassbinder is intervening with "order," following strict rules and distancing himself and us from the material in the process, demonstrating that "disorder" - the infinite emotional depths the medium can offer through diverse involvement techniques- is being destroyed referentially for Franz, just as it was for Reinhold; taking our intimacy with the character as a hostage by utilizing form to ignite our alienation, a detachment we are equally powerless to prevent.

This directly violates the temporal meditations on 'feeling' we've experienced throughout the narrative, but especially the previous episodes' relentlessly static attention to idiosyncratic behavioral details during the scenes in Franz' apartment, and the endless provocation of emotions during the scene with Mieze and Reinhold in the woods. Simultaneously, Fassbinder is slyly preparing us for the jolt of the dreamlike epilogue, as a windup to that pitch, where disorder reigns. The whiplash into this state of contrived tying up loose ends will be shattered soon, unbeknownst to first-time viewers. Is Franz' climactic dream an optimistic escape from this "order," or tragic by presenting the only outlet to achieve escape in isolated delusion? Either way, the refusal to allow an artificial climax in this last episode seems to be Fassbinder's way of diagnosing endings as false, catharsis impossible in actuality, and empowering himself, us, and his central character to ascend this claustrophobic, prescribed fate, with the possibilities of the medium via externalizations of the possibilities of the mind. Usually Fassbinder's characters need to physically die or become segregated from hope completely, in a 'realistic' cynical exposure, before he can end his films, but here artifice serves to fracture and liberate Franz from his reality. Fassbinder 'resolves' issues by illuminating them as superfluous and freeing Franz and the other characters from their grips- rendering the reality of them powerless as illusions through delusion. If this is how Fassbinder, and we, can accomplish the impossible, then that's the route we will take.

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#446 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:15 am

Episode 14: "My Dream of the Dream of Franz Biberkopf by Alfred Döblin, an Epilogue" [Note: Spoilers within]

I have little interest in dissecting the epilogue through specific Freudian assumptions of significance in dream imagery, but it's challenging to yield at least vague interpretation. Thematically it's a regurgitation of Franz' psyche- his fears, doubts, insecurities, wants, needs, expectations, core beliefs, resentments, intrusive thoughts, and willful search for significance itself- so to cement rigid meaning would undermine the purpose of this exercise that toes the line between emancipation and further imprisonment of Franz' soul. He and we get to spy on characters like Reinhold getting his comeuppance, and admitting his guilt, shame, and succumbing to his homosexual desires- so even if this false catharsis is accomplished through artifice, it's more honest and authentic, and translates the tragedy of real-life obstacles from 'order' perfectly. At first it seems like some of these characters are able to live freely here, to an extent, but they're still trapped- Reinhold in a prison cell, Franz in a chaotic, ungrounded dream. Even in his dream, Franz cannot actualize satisfaction, for as he witnesses Reinhold being taken away, he is prevented from consciously engaging with justice or forging a connection with his intimate companion, as he's in a deranged state being taken away in a straightjacket.

Traumatic scenes are reenacted or intrude on Franz' subconscious in creative, horrible ways. Franz cannot even hold onto Mieze in his imagination- she disappears from within his embrace. Franz states in the mental hospital that if he is not at home, he wants to die- disorder is home, and his fellow inmate says this is the state of being "awake." The dream is nightmarish with multiple scenes of torture, including Reinhold and Pums whipping Franz and treating him like an animal. Franz declares that mankind is evil and being in his skin is hell, championing the rats to help him escape life into the earth toward death. Franz' exposure to Mieze declaring her love for him after walking in on her screwing another guy, to a soundtrack of psychedelic pop hits from the 60s, is a visually-stripping sequence, sobering us to his conscious fears in naked form. Fassbinder will not pretend that Franz can find solace anywhere, despite finding brief and fleeting glimpses of optimistic stimuli in elastic manipulations of "order" everywhere. Perhaps disorder is just as constricting when taken to its polarized extreme- as the devil/god proclaims, Franz' refusal to surrender his "strength," or will, has become its own kind of diseased order. "Nothing helps"- they both know this- and so the idea of a surrender to liberate oneself seems like a lose-lose situation rather than inclusive of potential for a winning hand. Suffering and torture are life, Franz says, but as Reinhold tells him in one scene, he was never really "awake" or present during the narrative we've witnessed. He didn't engage with others thoroughly, and didn't ask "why." He was blind, operating with self-pity and self-indulgence as the star of his own movie. Aren't we all doing this to some degree, unless we unlock the humility to be a supporting player on the stage? And isn't that against our 'nature'?

As the surreality ceases, we drop back into the narrative with appropriately-stagnant character development. Franz continues to passively support Reinhold and cannot bring himself to participate in justice, even going so far as to call Reinhold's craving for women and violence as "unnatural," hypocritically differentiating himself from his symbiotic human image in Reinhold, and struggling to comment on what is nature at all. This could be viewed as an authentic admission of his limitations, but it's also implicitly motivated by letting Reinhold out of a longer sentence by allowing the murder to match criteria for a "crime of passion." Eva suffers a miscarriage and Franz loses hope of a child to care for and bring meaning into his life. Franz becomes attentive to the occupation right in front of his eyes, but oblivious and disconnected from the macro-concerns of war populating his peripheries. He exclaims that his eyes are open, that he will not be fooled, that he knows the true from the false, and will follow 'reason' and fall in line with order. But this lack of surrender, still fighting and sticking to "strength," which is really a weakness, are the exact pitfalls that befell him and resulted in fate. There is no fate, he says, so there is no will to surrender. The Sisyphean cycle of ignorance continues- an imprisonment of psychological 'order' emulating detachment from the possibilities of disorder, and thus- contradictorily- becoming a mental disorder for Franz, fatalistically segregated from his social environment.

User avatar
knives
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2008 6:49 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#447 Post by knives » Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:14 am

Something I am curious about is how close the epilogue is to the book and how much is Fassbinder?

User avatar
swo17
Bloodthirsty Butcher
Joined: Tue Apr 15, 2008 10:25 am
Location: SLC, UT

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#448 Post by swo17 » Mon Nov 08, 2021 11:21 am

For what it's worth, the original film version unsurprisingly has none of that craziness

User avatar
therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#449 Post by therewillbeblus » Mon Nov 08, 2021 12:37 pm

knives wrote:
Mon Nov 08, 2021 7:14 am
Something I am curious about is how close the epilogue is to the book and how much is Fassbinder?
The title of the epilogue seems to indicate that the author of the text was a participant in its existence, and the themes conveyed are definitely in step with the source (which I haven’t read but Fassbinder obviously didn’t create an entirely different interpretation of these clear themes). Still, I have to think that the transition from a sharp shift in deliberate heightened artifice in melodrama in the penultimate episode to what we get in the epilogue is an auteurist maneuver, for many reasons but especially given that the medium of cinema and Fassbinder’s background in staging theatre are utilized to translate these ideas in an extremely unique process.

User avatar
TMDaines
Joined: Wed Nov 11, 2009 1:01 pm
Location: Stretford, Manchester

Re: 411 Berlin Alexanderplatz

#450 Post by TMDaines » Mon Feb 12, 2024 7:50 am

Genuinely a bit sad at listing my DVD copy of Berlin Alexanderplatz on eBay today. I've upgraded to the Blu-ray, but the DVD packaging with the additional artwork might well be the high point of the asthetics of the label.

Post Reply