Berlin Alexanderplatz - Film Adaptations

Film Adaptations

The novel was adapted twice into a film, the first in 1931, directed by Piel Jutzi. Döblin worked on the adaptation, along with Karl Heinz Martin and Hans Wilhelm. Berlin Alexanderplatz starred Heinrich George, Maria Bard, Margarete Schlegel, Bernhard Minetti, Gerhard Bienert, Albert Florath and Paul Westermeier. It runs for 85 minutes.

The second adaptation, Berlin Alexanderplatz was directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and was first shown on and produced for German television in 1980, although it has also been shown theatrically. It runs for 15½ hours, and when it was released in New York, ticket holders were required to come to the theatre for three consecutive nights to see the entire film. Berlin Alexanderplatz is considered by many to be Fassbinder's magnum opus. Both films were released in November 2007 by the Criterion Collection in the U.S. in a multi-disc DVD set. A Region 2 edition of the Fassbinder version was released in the UK by Second Sight in October that year.