Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Berlin Alexanderplatz on Film: 1931 Style
One of the bonuses of note in the Criterion Collection's remastered set of Werner Rainer Fassbinder's 15 hour Berlin Alexanderplatz, was an earlier film of this story of standard feature length produced in 1931. It was directed by Phil Jutzi from a screenplay co-written by the source novel's author, Alfred Doblin.
This Alexanderplatz works on the basic level of being a swell little melodrama from the early days of sound film, but has virtues that go well beyond that. It has a livelieness that reminds me of the early New York of Cassavetes and Scorsese in the vibrancy and in the way that Jutzi paints his characters within the city. Bieberkopf's bar isn't that far from the Mean Streets dive occupied by De Niro and Keitel.
This is especially notable in the early scenes when protagonist Franz Bieberkopf, played by Heinrich George leaves prison and attempts to make sense of the changed world around him: A swirling, lively Berlin, much like that of Ruttman's Berlin Symphony of a Great City. George is a large presence whose long career is silent films is evident in the way he uses his face and body to elicit emotion surrounded in sadness, fate, and the inevitable path to catastrophe or tragedy.
It is inevitable that Bieberkopf will fall into the local underworld despite his good intentions to go straight as a street peddler and the tenderness (or perhaps due to this vulnerability, in part) in his character. It is one of literature and films great themes--will our hero/protagonist go back or go over to the darkside or get hooked (think Algren's Man with the Golden Arm) again.
In 1931, sound engineering still garnered results which were somewhat technically inconsistent. The contrast in quality with natural exteriors with the studio were pretty evident. Optical printing during a dream sequence when Bieberkopf is in the hospital also might seem a bit quaint. Yet you have a sense that there is a mission and a passion to get this story on film. And the victory of being able to do so is somewhat like the victory at the story's end when Bieberkoph returns to peddling on the Alexanderplatz street corner, not to be defeated by his tragedies.
posted by well-executed buffet at 12:27 AM
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