Berlin Alexanderplatz – Liebe ist tod.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder is one of the greatest film directors the world has ever known. He directed his first feature at 24, and by the time of his death at 37 he had directed over 40 films. I’ve seen a little more than half of these and have yet to see a poor film. Some are better than others, many more are masterpieces, but each and every Fassbinder film is an example of a film director working above his peers with a perfect mastery of his craft.
A common theme in Fassbinder’s work is that of a person being crushed by the world around them. His protagonists can not live up to the expectations of society, and find their only recourse is a descent into depression, madness or suicide (often all three). It is not entirely the fault of “the cruel world” in a Fassbinder film however. If one looks deeper at a Fassbinder character it becomes clear that their own personal weakness and poor decisions have contributed just as much to their downfall.
So when I finally got a chance to see Fassbinder’s epic 15 and half hour film Berlin Alexanderplatz (a film based on Alexander Doblin’s novel that Fassbinder cites as the single most influential work of art in his life) it ended up being incredibly similar to his other films despite being an adaptation. Fassbinder himself said that he went back and reviewed all of his films before making Berlin Alexanderplatz, and in doing so realized how similar they all were to the central themes in Doblin’s novel, more than he had even meant for them to be. I can’t imagine any other director being able to tell this story as effectively since Fassbinder had pretty much been making films based on the book his entire life in preparation for this one film.
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