“The Serpent in the Soul of the Serpent”
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who, at age thirty-four, had already made over thirty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic follows the hulking, childlike ex-convict Franz Biberkopf (Günter Lamprecht) as he attempts to “become an honest soul” amid the corrosive urban landscape of Weimar-era Germany. With equal parts cynicism and humanity, Fassbinder details a mammoth portrait of a common man struggling to survive in a viciously uncommon time.
Up Next in Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder
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BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Part 13
“The Outside and the Inside and the Secret of Fear of the Secret”
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • GermanyRainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific dire...
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BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ: Epilogue
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1980 • Germany
Starring Günter Lamprecht, Gottfried John, Barbara SukowaRainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, based on Alfred Döblin’s great modernist novel, was the crowning achievement of a prolific director who...
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Lola
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder • 1981 • Germany
Starring Barbara Sukowa, Mario Adorf, Armin Mueller-StahlGermany in the autumn of 1957: Lola (Barbara Sukowa), a seductive cabaret singer–prostitute, exults in her power as a tempter of men, but she wants more—money, property, and love. Pitt...
