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Licensor Information
Bavaria Media GmbH
Directed by: Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s controversial, fifteen-hour-plus 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 forty films. Fassbinder’s immersive epic, restored in 2006 and now available on DVD in this country for the first time, 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.
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2
Release Information:
Technical Specifications
Format:
DVD
Discs:
DVD-9 (7 Discs)
Total: 7 Discs
Regions:
1 (DVD)
Aspect Ratio:
1.33:1
Audio Options:
German Dolby Digital Mono 1.0
Resolution:
480p/29.97
Subtitles:
English
Supplements
Types of Supplements Included: Documentary, Feature Film, Interview, Book
- Two new documentaries by Fassbinder Foundation president Juliane Lorenz: one featuring interviews with the cast and crew, the other on the restoration
- Hans-Dieter Hartl’s 1980 documentary Notes on the Making of “Berlin Alexanderplatz”
- Phil Jutzi’s 1931, ninety-minute film of Alfred Döblin’s novel, from a screenplay co-written by Döblin himself
- New video interview with Peter Jelavich, author of Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture
- A book featuring an essay by filmmaker Tom Tykwer, reflections from Fassbinder, an interview with Xaver Schwarzenberger, and German author Thomas Steinfeld on the novel
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Film
Picture
Audio
Supplements
Artwork
Release Credits
Artwork: Eric Skillman
Producer: Issa Clubb
Release Notes on Restoration
Berlin Alexanderplatz
Berlin Alexanderplatz is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.33:1. On widescreen televisions, black bars will appear on the left and right of the image to maintain the proper screen format; The picture has been slightly windowboxed to ensure that the maximum image is visible on all monitors. For this new high-definition digital transfer, the original 16 mm A/B roll negatives were scanned in 2k resolution on an ARRISCAN Film Scanner and color corrected on a Discreet Lustre System. The scanning and color correction were done under the supervision of director of photography Xaver Schwarzenberger and editor Juliane Lorenz. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris, and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System. To maintain optimal image quality through the compression process, the pictures on these dual-layer DVD-9s were encoded at the highest-possible bit rate for the quantity of material included.
Originally made for German television, Berlin Alexanderplatz was shot for the PAL video format, at 25 frames per second. This format is incompatible with the NTSC format used in the United States. In order to provide a frame-accurate progressive transfer for the NTSC system, Berlin Alexanderplatz is presented at 24 frames per second, and 13 therefore 4 percent longer than the original broadcast.
The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the original 35 mm magnetic tapes, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on surround sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.
Originally made for German television, Berlin Alexanderplatz was shot for the PAL video format, at 25 frames per second. This format is incompatible with the NTSC format used in the United States. In order to provide a frame-accurate progressive transfer for the NTSC system, Berlin Alexanderplatz is presented at 24 frames per second, and 13 therefore 4 percent longer than the original broadcast.
The soundtrack was mastered at 24-bit from the original 35 mm magnetic tapes, and audio restoration tools were used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss, and crackle. The Dolby Digital 1.0 signal will be directed to the center channel on surround sound systems, but some viewers may prefer to switch to two-channel playback for a wider dispersal of the mono sound.