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Fri May 30 - Sat Jun 7

R. W. Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz


Website

Location
Date and Time
Pacific Film Archive (PFA)
2575 Bancroft Way
Berkeley, CA 94720 map
cross street: Bowditch
district: Berkeley

Fri May 30 (7:00 p.m. Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts I III)
Sat May 31 (7:00 p.m. Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts IV VII)
Fri Jun 6 (7:00 p.m. Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts VIII XI)
Sat Jun 7 (7:00 p.m. Berlin Alexanderplatz, Parts XII, XIII, Epilogue)

Description
Restored in 2006, Berlin Alexanderplatz is the summa of Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s art, and the culmination of his lifelong relationship to Alfred Döblin’s monumental novel of Berlin in the 1920s—a book the filmmaker said was “embedded in my mind, my flesh, my body as a whole, and my soul.” Fassbinder pours knowing tenderness into the characterization of Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht), an unemployed lumpen worker who earns his living as a thief and pimp following a stint in jail for murdering his mistress. Franz is a jovial if explosive figure in the Alexanderplatz district of Berlin, a man with optimistic dreams, a determination to “go straight,” and an absurd faith in love. Berlin Alexanderplatz chronicles the destruction of this faith, amid the poverty, hypocrisy, and violence of Berlin in the years just before Nazism took full hold. Unable to find work, Franz takes up with the hustler Reinhold (Gottfried John), who becomes his “best friend” and then betrays him...