Berlin Alexanderplatz

"Berlin Alexanderplatz" (1931, Phil Jutzi) is a somewhat forgotten film. There are two reasons for this. In the first place the (bad) reputation of the director and his lead actor. In the second place the fact that this adaptation of the novel of the same name by Alfred Döblin is very much in the shadow of the much better known TV mini series of Rainer Werner Fassbinder from 1980.

To begin with the first reason. Director Phil Jutzi and leading actor Heinrich George have much in common. Starting as convinved communists, they afterwards collaborated with the Nazi's and died not long after the Second World War at a relatively young age. The best known film from the communist period of director Jutzi is probably "Mother Krause's journey to happiness" (1929).

I have not seen the Fassbinder mini series of 1980 and therefore I cannot realy compare it with the film of Jutzi. Despite the fact that both are adaptations of the same novel, it's hard anyway to compare a film of 1,5 hour with a TV mini-series of 15,5 hours.

I read however the book by Alfred Döblin. The film of Jutzi tells the story in a rather straightforward way (with the exception of the end, about which a little later), but lacks all of the "stream of conscience" elements from which the book derives an important part of its fame. I have heard that Fassbinder at least tries to imitate this element in a somewhat weird voice over commentary.

The end of the film is very different from, and much more optimistic than the novel. Adding a happy ending is not uncommon in the film industry, but the damage done to the Döblin novel is bigger than usual. By doing so the story loses its element of destiny (a released prisoner tries with all his might to walk the line, but fate is stronger than his will) that permeates the novel.

Coming to a conclusion, my verdict is that "Berlin Alexanderplatz" of Phil Jutzi has rightly been forgotten. It portrays reasonably well the atmosphere of Berlin in the early thirties, and especially the Berlin of petty criminals, but other films of this time do the same job even better. I'am thinking about "Berlin, symphony of a Metropolis" (1927, Walter Ruttmann, about Berlin in general) and "M, Eine Stadt sucht einen Mörder" (1931, Fritz Lang, about the world of petty criminals).

If you've read the book, this film version comes as a surprise - how does it manage to make so little of so much? Or is it so much of so little? Döblin co-authored the screenplay, which compresses his sprawling novel into a breathless eighty-eight minutes. Of course, much is sacrificed, but the skeleton plot still compares favourably to that of many modern movies. Technically, too, this flick has aged magnificently - considering this is one of the first German films with sound, what we see and hear is a lot smoother than I'd expected. The cinematography is astonishing by the standards of the decades that followed: there's an opening sequence of our hero (played by Heinrich George, a huge bear of an actor) just out of jail, dizzied by the speed of a tram and the chaos of the surrounding traffic, which is almost as vertiginous as "Vertigo". Reminds one that 1931 was the year of Fritz Lang's "M". Was film a more experimental art form then than it is now? It was also fascinating to see how modern the Berlin of seventy years ago still looks: true, the men have moustaches, and there are horses on the streets, and there isn't a single phone call in the plot, and the actors don't look like models, at least not all of them, thank goodness; but the villains could be straight from Hollywood, as could the fast cars, the glossy ads all over the buildings, the bars, the knee-length skirts and short bobs, and above all the sheer tempo of city life. It was a hugely enjoyable experience and gave me a better idea of the times my grandparents grew up in.

Döblin's Berlin, Alexanderplatz is probably a not filmable book anyway. F.e. all the kaleidoscopic elements he has been using like ad slogans, newspaper articles, multiple points of view etc etc etc are really hard to transfer into a movie. Well, it's expressionistic. And definitely outstanding. RW Fassbinder developed a 13-hour-series (plus a rather personal and debatable epilogue) from the material which imho was partly brilliant and partly awfully boring. Of course, the characters had much room to develop here. Whatever, it seems to have gained 'cult' status in some circles. This movie is quite the opposite. It has condensed the original story to a 90-minute-piece which works surprisingly well. Döblin helped with the script, the movie is fast-paced but gets the basic idea of the book. Or better, of it's main character Biberkopf (and also his opponent Reinhold). So, I recommend watching this as at least a comparison to the RWF series. The shots of 1931 Berlin alone make it worthwhile, they add an 'authentic' effect and even Zeitgeist to it (the novel had been published just two years before). That was something the RWF version (shot in 1979) could never really provide.

When it seemed as though his literary career was going nowhere, Alfred Doeblin's 480 page novel 'Berlin-Alexanderplatz', the narrative structure of which shows the influence of James Joyce's 'Ulysses', was a massive hit on publication.

The acclaimed mini-series directed by Fassbinder comes in at 15 hours whereas the running time of Phil Jutzi's Weimar film runs to 88 minutes. It seems utterly pointless to compare the two but people seem determined to do so.

The time factor of the 1931 version, adapted by the author as it happens, does not allow for the complexity of the original whilst its characters are of necessity more one-dimensional and its distinctly unpleasant aspects toned down and cleaned up to reflect the censorship of the day. Rather than harping on about what is missing it seems far more constructive to consider the quality of what remains.

What strikes one most about Jutzi's piece in its energy and immediacy heightened by the City montage that gives the viewer a real sense of being there. The emphasis here has been placed on the central character Franz Biberkopf played by one of Germany's greatest actors Heinrich George as a loveable lummox who engages our sympathy despite his misdemeanors whereas the Biberkopf of Guenther Lamprecht in Fassbinder's typically depraved version is an utterly monstrous figure that one would go out of one's way to avoid. The absence of the Nazi element of the novel is probably due to the fact that both Jutzi and George had changed allegiance from Communism to National Socialism, in the case of George no doubt motivated by the desire to keep working! George was to pay a heavy price as, ironically, he was imprisoned by the Russians and died from starvation although the official cause of death was a failed appendix operation.

Despite an unsatisfactory 'feel good' ending the spirit of the piece still resonates, coming as it does from a particularly creative period in German cinema.

When one director needs over 15 hours to enact a novel, it is mathematically evident that you can pack less of a tenth of that in under 90 minutes. A tour de force, a highly compressed "reader's digest" (but the novel's author Alfred Döblin also collaborated on the movie script). And also, a "Heinrich George against the rest of the world" show, if you wish.

Still, it sometimes takes a few seconds, in an otherwise tight plot, to linger on details that don't "drive" the story, but maybe that's why they stand out more in memory after watching this film. The scene where the just married couple walks from their carriage to the wedding party. Or when Reinhold drops his pen as Franz storms into his back room - that was strong cinematography in a split-second. Or the bathing scene at a lake, which has nothing to do with the personae, but offers a glimpse at a sign that proclaims triangular bathing trunks forbidden (the shape of bath-wear was indeed a hotly debated topic, up to the parliament, in 1930s' Germany).

And that scene instantly reminded me of the classic "Menschen am Sonntag" (1930, Billie Wilder, Fred Zinnemann, the Siodmak brothers and more, an early "independent" production which also features mass transit and lakeside bathing in Berlin). However, its story is harmless and relatively sweet. "Berlin - Alexanderplatz" in some way continues from there and shows deeper trouble in the big city, criminals, burglary, murder, the (not terribly strong) action of the law...

Another detail that I enjoyed: outside the courtroom, witnesses discuss: "Did you take an oath? How?" - "Oh, only worldly" (i.e. omitting the religious part). - "Ah, then it's OK".

The German Arthaus Collection/Spiegel DVD comes with an in-depth documentary on Heinrich George's life, from communist to Nazi supporter to Soviet prisoner, with interviews with his two sons (Jan and Götz George), which I also found very worth watching.