Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ To Receive Theatrical and DVD Release

Posted by Jon Pais at 11:08pm.

Posted in DVD News .

I LOVE Rainer Werner Fassbinder. I probably own more DVDs of his work than those of any other director: Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, The Marriage of Maria Braun, Mother Kusters Goes to Heaven, and many others. In fact, it was while I was surfing the Web looking for info about a possible DVD release of his epic 15-1/2 hour miniseries Berlin Alexanderplatz that I came across what turned out to be one of my all time favorite films—Edgar Reitz’s monumental Heimat trilogy. Anyhow, I’d been watching the Criterionforum on and off for some time now, but the thread came to a standstill sometime last year. Then, in September, it came back to life. Confirmation that Criterion would indeed be releasing a digitally restored version of Fassbinder’s masterpiece in early 2007. According to Variety, “Postproduction specialists Arri and Cinepostproduction are carrying out the digital remastering of the series using 2K scan procedure and digital frame-by-frame retouching to ready “Berlin Alexanderplatz” for its DVD and High Definition distribution as well as for special festival and event screenings.”

Variety article

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Reader Comments

Angela 01/02/2007 @ 3:09pm

Thanks for that valuable information. I was just looking at Amazon, including Amazon Germany, and was astonished that this masterpiece isn’t available! Glad to hear it will soon be released.

Angela

~ a fellow Heimat fan
patrick 01/14/2007 @ 12:57pm

Thank you for posting this valuable information. I’ve not seen Berlin Alexanderplatz in 20 years and have to see it again before I join Fassbinder in the wild blue yonder. A complete masterpiece. Incidently, there are screenings of Alexanderplatz in the Goethe Institute in London, but you’ve got to be available to attend for two days. Also a Heimat fan.
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