Berlin Alexanderplatz : The Story of Franz Biberkopf

Berlin in the 1920s. Franz Biberkopf has just been released from prison after serving four years for violence that resulted in the death of a girlfriend. He returns to his old neighbourhood, Alexanderplatz, vowing to live a decent life. What he finds are unemployment lines, gangsters, prostitutes, petty thieves, and neophyte Nazis. In this sordid world there are new women: devoted Eva, vulnerable young Mieze and the dangerous, near psychotic Reinhold, who befriends him. As Franz struggles to survive, fate teases him with a little luck, a little pleasure, then cruelly turns on him. "Berlin Alexanderplatz" is one of the masterpieces of European literature. The first German novel to adopt the technique of James Joyce, it excited and overwhelmed critics and readers everywhere as it was translated into other languages. One of its greatest admirers was a brilliant young German director. Rainer Fassbinder saw in the novel "a huge part of myself, decisive into determining the course of my life." One of Fassbinder's last projects was an impressive fifteen-hour film version of Berlin Alexanderplatz. Some of the stills from that epic adaptation - remarkably faithful to the Doblin novel - are included here.