BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, FASSBINDER'S FIFTEEN-HOUR MASTERPIECE, TO SCREEN IN ITS ENTIRETY DURING RETROSPECTIVE
Legendary Work Screens in New York for the First
Time Since 1983
Berlin Alexanderplatz
March 29,
1997
The crowning achievement in a career filled with remarkable
works, Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979/80) is one of the most ambitious
and successful works of art produced for television. Shot in 150 days from
a 3,000–page screenplay at a cost of $6 million, the film brings to the
screen the influential novel of the same name by Alfred Döblin. From
March 2 to 9, the entire fifteen-hour film is presented as part of the
complete retrospective of Fassbinder's work at The Museum of Modern Art.
The retrospective runs from January 23 to March 20, 1997.
"As I read
Berlin Alexanderplatz," Fassbinder said, "it became clearer and
clearer to me with each page that . . . much of what I had considered to be
me was nothing but what Döblin describes in the novel."
"And then,
at some point, because someone was writing a book about me, I saw all my
films again on three consecutive days. Once more I discovered, to my
amazement, that there were many more quotations in my work, usually
unconscious ones, than I had ever dreamed. I then read the novel again and
came to the realization that this book, a work of art, had been decisive in
determining the course of my life."
