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Berlin Alexanderplatz
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Berlin Alexanderplatz is a 1929 novel by Alfred Döblin, set in the Weimar Republic, with most of the action set in Berlin. It was translated into English, in 1931, by Eugene Jolas (a friend and patron of James Joyce).The protagonist Franz Biberkopf is a World War I veteran turned pimp and lowlife. At the start of the story, he's released from Tegel prison for the crime of murdering his former girlfriend Ida in a fit of rage. Upon release, Franz plagued by guilt, remorse and trauma from his time in prison, resolves to be an upstanding citizen, but his love for booze, his perennially bad luck, and questionable choice of finding friends leads him on a spiral of repeating his old life. He engages in a series of picaresque adventurers with several Berliner lowlifes, undertakes a series of unfulfilling relationships, before encountering Reinhold, another cold and manipulative pimp who encroaches on Franz, as well as a prostitute named Mieze who Franz truly falls in love with.It has been adapted several times: | |
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Real Place Background | |
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Real-Place Background: The novel was praised in its time for its vivid use of actual street-names and places, actual newspapers, as well as cut-outs of real-world events into the text. It's often considered a German equivalent of Ulysses. The 1931 Film version was shot in the real-life Alexanderplatz, however Fassbinder's miniseries could not really achieve thisnote Alexanderplatz lapsed into East Berlin and much of it had been damaged by World War II, and the show was made on a low-budget using sets from Ingmar Bergman's period film The Serpent's Egg set in the same era so he more or less set most of the action in interiors rather than exteriors (except for the finale set in the forest). | |
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Just a Gangster | |
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Just a Gangster: Pums and his gang have this classic dynamic which the narrator makes into an allegory for capital and labor relations. | |
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Adaptation Expansion | |
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Adaptation Expansion: The final section of the novel is made into a two hour Epilogue in the TV Show that gradually spins into something much weird, with Futureshadowing and Anachronism Stew added. Likewise minor characters such as the landlady and Willy the Anarchist, who had small roles in the film have expanded appearances, with the landlady given a name (Frau Bast) and made into a series regular. | |
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| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_2439b588 | type |
As the Good Book Says... | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_2439b588 | comment |
As the Good Book Says...: Several passages from the Bible are quoted extensively in the text. The Ecclesiastes "To everything there is a season" becomes especially important in the final scenes leading to Mieze's death. | |
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Wretched Hive | |
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Wretched Hive: Berlin in The Roaring '20s as in this novel is as it was in life. It's full of lowlifes, bad housing, flophouses, prostitutes, criminals and weak institutions. | |
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The Outside World | |
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The Outside World: Franz on being released from prison is disoriented by the outside world. He feels Survivor's Guilt that he is released while his fellow prisoners are still locked up, and he also misses the routine of life in jail. Indeed, the narrator notes in a real sense when he is released to a world that had vastly changed in the interim period, that "the punishment begins" | |
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Downer Ending | |
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Downer Ending: Mieze gets killed by Reinhold, Franz goes insane and so burdened with guilt that he refuses to speak against Reinhold who gets a minor sentence. Franz ends up losing his spirit and becomes another drone of the city. | |
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Kavorka Man | |
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Kavorka Man: Franz Biberkopf is a big bear of a man and Reinhold is supposed to be scrawny, stuttering and limping. Yet both of them attract a lot of women. With Reinhold and Biberkopf initially bonding because the latter had so many girlfriends that he wanted to off-load and share some of them with Franz. This is one of his motivations for murdering Mieze, since she loved Franz and refused his advances. | |
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Domestic Abuse | |
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Domestic Abuse: Franz killed his first girlfriend Ida like this. In the book, he gets into a jealous rage with Mieze and beats her badly and would have killed her had Reinhold not arrived and stopped him in time. Of course, Reinhold later tries to seduce Mieze and then murders her. | |
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Adaptation Distillation | |
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Adaptation Distillation: Fassbinder's TV Show combines quite a few supporting characters in the book into single characters to serve as series regulars. In the novel Biberkopf has a series of girlfriends and the character Eva shows up later in the text, but Fassbinder brings her and has her take on some of the roles other characters had. Likewise, in the book, Franz stays in a variety of homes where in the series, he stays in one apartment. | |
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Lemony Narrator | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_6d57a234 | comment |
Lemony Narrator: The novel's narrator has a distinct voice which editorializes the action with layered symbolic commentary, often juxtaposing it with wild tangents and other happenings in Berlin, and frequently subtitling key paragraphs. He also makes Franz Biberkopf's tragic life a Foregone Conclusion. | |
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Arc Words | |
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Arc Words: A number of phrases repeat throughout the book. "The mower with the name of the Lord" is a common one referring to the serpent in paradise, a symbol of the bad parts in any moment that feels good. | |
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Shell-Shocked Veteran | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_7a143509 | comment |
Shell-Shocked Veteran: Franz fought in World War I and the novel which spends much of its time in his head generally avoids dealing with his time in the trenches, but it's noted that he, and other veterans, are more or less lost and alone in Berlin and involved in criminal activity to make a living. | |
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City Noir | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_86e12b9a | comment |
City Noir: The novel is a defining portrait of Berlin as the Trope Maker and Trope Codifier. The streets are cluttered with streetcars and trams, bright neon-lights, a colourful cast of oddballs, lowlifes, pimps, criminals, and most of the politics involves Nazis, Communists, Anarchists duking out with each other on the streets with fisticuffs. | |
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Pop-Star Composer | |
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Pop-Star Composer: Fassbinder's epilogue features a lot of anachronistic songs, including "Candy Says" by The Velvet Underground, "Me and Bobby McGee" by Janis Joplin, tracks by Kraftwerk and "Chelsea Hotel" by Leonard Cohen. | |
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Karma Houdini | |
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Karma Houdini: Pums and his gang don't get ratted out by Franz in the finale, and Reinhold gets a lighter sentence. | |
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Idiosyncratic Episode Naming | |
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Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: The novel's chapters have subtitles, paragraphs have subtitles, many of which in the form of In Which a Trope Is Described. Fassbinder uses some of this as the title of his episodes. | |
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Leave the Camera Running | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_b2af79fb | comment |
Leave the Camera Running: Many examples of this kind in Fassbinder's miniseries. The finale where Reinhold murders Mieze is one particularly dark example. | |
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The Don | |
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The Don: Pums is a Berliner version of this. He's the leader of the gang of small time crooks, and serves as the main fence, and there is general resentment between the likes of Reinhold and "foot-soldiers" and Pums who keeps a respectable front. | |
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Anti-Hero | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_beb9a361 | comment |
Anti-Hero: Franz Biberkopf is a murderer and pimp attempting to be a Reformed Criminal and "ein anständiger Mensch". But he's still an alcoholic with rage issues, easily manipulated by rival factions and in Fassbinder's view, a future Nazi. However, he is sincere in wanting to go straight, generally friendly to those who like him, and is far less brutal than his fellow lowlifes. | |
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Extra! Extra! Read All About It! | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_cd0637d2 | comment |
Extra! Extra! Read All About It!: One of Biberkopf's jobs is as a newsvendor where he sells newspapers and political pamphlets. He gets into trouble when some of his colleagues who are communists call him out for selling Nazi and Right-Wing rags. His excuse is that he does it for the money. | |
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An Arm and a Leg | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_d028e0da | comment |
An Arm and a Leg: In the midpoint of the novel, Biberkopf gets involved in a failed heist with Pums' gang and Reinhold throws Franz out of a moving car which then leads his arm being run over by another car, leading to Franz becoming one-armed and unemployable for the rest of the book. | |
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Despair Event Horizon | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_dda99fa8 | comment |
Despair Event Horizon: Franz undergoes this when he learns that Mieze is killed by Reinhold. He goes Laughing Mad, undergoes catatonia, has to be institutionalized and comes out with Dull Eyes of Unhappiness. | |
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Chronic Villainy | |
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Chronic Villainy: Franz Biberkopf starts out intending to go straight, and initially works in a series of jobs as vendor, fruitseller and newspaper boy but somehow, by chance or simply because of circumstances, he ends up working as watch for Pums' gang and finally after his arm is lost, he ends up becoming a pimp to Mieze again, because he's too old and injured to be employable. Ironically, it's only after his institutionalization in the Epilogue and his loss of hope that he can make something of his life, that he finally becomes a "respectable citizen". | |
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Disposable Sex Worker | |
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Disposable Sex Worker: Franz's first girlfriend Ida was a prostitute and even after she dies, while Franz does feel some amount of guilt, most of society seems to shrug his killing of her, as well as him getting an early release for murder. Franz even seduces and sleeps with Ida's sister after his release. Franz's breakdown on Mieze's murder is part of his Character Development even if society gives Reinhold a light sentence and the narrator notes that Mieze will likely receive the same treatment. | |
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Trippy Finale Syndrome | |
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Trippy Finale Syndrome: Fassbinder's miniseries is an early Trope Codifier. Most of the show is in a naturalist fashion but the finale undergoes Genre Shift with with Biberkopf going on a Vision Quest, seeing glimpses of The Holocaust, people being cut up in a slaughterhouse, and other scenes in a weird eighties leather bar. This was done by Fassbinder to highlight the prescient nature of the novel, since the Foregone Conclusion of post-war Germany made it impossible to make it a simple period story as it was originally written. | |
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Foe Romance Subtext | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz / int_fc9b6be5 | comment |
Foe Romance Subtext: Between Franz and Reinhold. This of course is made text by Fassbinder. | |
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Berlin Alexanderplatz |
The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.
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City Noir / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
Foe Romance Subtext / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
German Series / int_9586b354 | |
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Just a Gangster / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
Kavorka Man / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
The Place / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
The Show of the Books / int_9586b354 | |
| Berlin Alexanderplatz | hasFeature |
Real Place Background / int_9586b354 |
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