yes virginia there will be a dvd of berlin alexanderplatz

i hate dvds, but i might buy this

decent set o' extras, too

New high-definition digital transfer, from the 2006 restoration by the Fassbinder Foundation and Bavaria Media, and supervised and approved by director of photography Xaver Schwarzenberger

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 The Making of "Berlin Alexanderplatz"

Phil Jutzi's 1931, ninety-minute film of Alfred Doblin's novel, from a screenplay cowritten by Doblin himself

New video interview with Peter Jelavich, author of Berlin Alexanderplatz: Radio, Film, and the Death of Weimar Culture

New and improved English subtitle translation

PLUS: An essay by filmmaker Tom Tykwer, reflections from Fassbinder, an interview with Schwarzenberger, and German author Thomas Steinfeld on the novel

No newly recorded director's commentary? Ripoff.

criterion sonned in ouija beef

$125

I assume preorder prices will be around $60-$70, but yeah I'm thinking netflix is my friend here.

also this thread is not real until morbs and alfred post to it.

CONTROVERSY

OH NOES COMMERCIAL CONSIDERATIONS

HIPPIES

http://www.filmlinc.com/fcm/so07/fassbinder.htm

hmmmmmmm, all the weighing-in by the DVD reviewers will be innaresting.

the way it usually breaks is: welp, at least we have *something*.

the romantic auteur-god thing kind of weak -- fassbinder's whole thing was about being caught between different power structures, and he wouldn't have seen handing over his legacy to the state as any less problematic than putting it on the market.

i doubt any of the reviewers will be able to remember in detail seeing it as 'darker'; for one thing, they will mostly have seen it in cinemas, right? given that dark colours render quite badly on dvds, i'm really wary of this stuff: it may not have been a commercial decision at all.

unless suddenly this 13-hour-long german television series is now going to ship to wal-mart cos someone pushed a fader up.

Can't we just adjust our "sets" accordingly?

Criminally brightened or not, out today.

http://daily.greencine.com/archives/004895.html

There's some fascinating stuff about the '31 film version (co-scripted by Doblin) in that Kehr NYT column, I'm looking forward to that as much as seeing the Fassbinder again.

The only way I can watch this is while ironing, cooking dinner, and cutting my toenails.

Yeah, 3 separate rentals will likely be required.

I tried to get this this weekend with a 30% off coupon at Borders, but all the copies in NYC dried up before my eyes. Next time I use the coupon in conjunction with the "store reservation" feature.

Got it this weekend!

man just thinking about this movie makes me more nostalgic than I usually allow myself to get about anything. my girlfriend and I were big Fassbinder fans when I was in high school, and the cool local video store had this on VHS, but neither of our families owned a VCR. but my mom worked at a library, and they did have a VCR, and it was summer, so every morning for a week we would drive over to the library and use the multipurpose room to watch two hours of Berlin Alexanderplatz.

that is the end of this brief ah-the-days-of-my-youth story, I'll just be dusting the gramaphone now

That reminds me of my college experiences with Renoir's thirties films, only available on reel-to-reel, and the Bunuel movies in horrifying condition on primitive VHS -- watching them in the A/V room's media equipment intensified the movies' aura of greatness.

cool local video store had this on VHS

Turpentine Cat?

I tried a few months ago but couldn't make it all the way through this, to be honest.

"dusting the gramophone"

hey i've got this! haven't watched it tho

If only it had been a DVD of the Berlin Alexander Brothers.

"The northern lights of auld Brandenburg..."

http://blog.wfmu.org/freeform/2009/02/alex.html

RIP Gottfried John (Reinhold Hoffmann)

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/german-actor-gottfried-john-dies-729710

I saw BA at a late '90s RWF retro at MoMA, and after the last episode John and Günter Lamprecht appeared for a Q&A!

Fantastic in Berlin Alexanderplatz and A Year with 13 Moons. (I think it's the first where he affects the stutter, right?)

memory fails

NYC MoMA bringing back their 35mm restoration in mid-Sept.

I’m working my way through RWF, have temporarily stalled on Berlin Alexanderplatz, it's the equivalent of 7 or 8 feature length films!

hard to believe that by this point he was only 35 and had already made 38 movies