#411: Berlin Alexanderplatz

(Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1980)

Episode 1: Oh, Jesus, this could be a long trip. We're only 2 hours in and I already know I have to watch 13 more hours of a man who raped one woman (who subsequently decided she liked it like apparently happens in quite a few movies) and murder another by beating her to death with his bare hands. This is the protagonist of a 15-and-a-half hour movie.

Episode 2: It's clear now that this is really more of a season of, say, an HBO show, as the story has a nice arc in this episode similar to the previous one. So I guess really Franz is not so different from Tony Soprano, and he does want to go clean. Obviously it's not Fassbinder's intention to glorify what his character has done - and I doubt all of this is going to end very well for Franz - but this sort of thing is a lot easier in a book (or even a regular-length movie) than in a massive epic which revolves around one protagonist.

Episode 3: I had very little idea what the hell was going on in this episode. In fact, I had to go to Wikipedia to read the synopsis to make sure I had gotten the necessary info - turns out I had understood the broad strokes, it just seemed like there was a lot more going on under the surface than there really was. The whole interaction with the woman in her house was very strange - I couldn't quite understand if he had indeed had sex with her or made it up or what. And then when leaves at the end it seemed like he was making a bigger deal out of it than it was. That other guy was a real sleazeball, though.

Episode 4: What the fuck. This was dull as shit. I'm starting to get really worried that I have to watch ten more hours of this. How is this an hour long?

Episode 5: Lina appears to be gone, which is odd, but this episode was loads better than the previous one - in fact, it might be my favorite up to this point. The story is kind of strange and a little unbelievable - who is to say all these women are going to be attracted to both of these men anyway? Actually, why are they attracted to either one of them at all for that matter? Do women have extremely slim pickings in pre-WWII Germany? Still, it's nice to have an actual plot after the last episode, and I enjoyed Franz's arc and the way he handled everything, even if he is still pretty damn unlikable. I'm six hours into this thing and I have yet to really see why this needs to be so long or what people see in it. It's so intently focused on this guy who is totally nowhere that I wonder if I'm just missing a lot by not knowing much about German history between the World Wars. So far there have been some Nazi references (along with a reference to this guy - I think at the end of episode 4 - who I had never heard of before and I find pretty interesting), but nothing that really stands out.

Episode 6: We seem to be getting into a little more plot here, and it looks like Franz will be heading back into crime if I'm not mistaken. His inadvertent association with a robbery all seemed a little too ridiculous to be entirely behind his back, but I do think he is still trying to stay clean. I will also mention that I had a bit of the same reaction to this episode that I had to episode 3, which was that I was pretty sure I wasn't following what was going on, but looking back I got all the essentials. This is certainly a very dense work that is a reflection of its source materials and its ambition - I just wonder if the surface story is appealing enough to convince most people to take a second and third 16 hour journey.

Episode 7: This felt like a transition episode. Franz has lost an arm, yeah, but all that really means is he'll be slightly fatter on his right side for the rest of the series. Really, this feels like the turning point where Franz tries to hold off from descending back into his previous lifestyle and eventually succumbs in the good old red light district, which is rendered here as a kind of Pirates of the Caribbean meets Douglas Sirk aesthetic (only, you know, more prostitutes). I'm more intrigued than I have been at the end of previous episodes, but I'm not on board yet.

Episode 8: I hate this. Seriously, what am I doing with my life? Why did I watch this? Can someone tell me what happened in this episode that makes it need to exist? Why does anyone like this movie? What is happening?

Episode 9: You know what would be a good idea? They should show the murder that Franz went to jail for more. They should show it over and over. That would be good.

Episode 10: So this one was at least moderately interesting. The dynamic between Franz and Mieze is getting more complex, and the way he handles her new long-term client is engaging and somewhat suspenseful knowing what we know about his ability to inflict damage on his women. But I have a hard time believing anyone would think episodes 8-10 (and I suspect 11, too, since this didn't really end with a clean cut) wouldn't be better condensed into one hour - perhaps even less. It's been a long Criterion journey to get to this film, but through 450-some posts I never once suspected that most people who liked a movie did so out of obligation or pretense. But I am honestly at a loss to explain why this film is so well-liked, or really why anyone would like it. When compared to other Fassbinder, it feels lazy and largely incomplete. I'm certainly going to reserve my final judgement until after the notorious epilogue, but at this point I'm not convinced anything can be worth the hours I've spent on this.

Episode 11: Somewhat better than what's come before in that things actually happened, but the big climactic scene was so horrific and awful to watch that I hate to praise it any more than previous episodes. Perhaps following a character like Franz in a book can be bearable, but once you've seen the things his character does to women, it's hard to care at all about the minutiae of his life. This was also the episode where the homoerotic undertones of Reinhold's and Franz's relationship became most apparent. This is still quite the chore.

Episode 12: The second half of this episode, in which Mieze and Reinold walk through the woods, culminating with her murder, is superb filmmaking of the highest order. It also makes absolutely no sense as a television program in the early 1980s, when broadcast technology must have rendered some of the shots virtually indecipherable. It's the best indication yet of just how poorly this must have come across on the small screen before HD and screen sizes that went beyond 30 inches. I wouldn't say the last 12 hours before this were worth it, but I am glad I watched this scene. Still, the characters' motivations are so unbelievable - I really have a hard time understanding how Mieze could have been so stupid as to think she could use Reinold to get information without him wanting something in return, and I don't understand why she would be attracted to Franz in the first place. Most of the interactions in this movie remain a bit of a mystery to me.

Episode 13: Most of this episode could be cut - I would say this could have easily been five-ten minutes of a typical film. Very little is gained by the increased running time except for more opportunities to have Franz say Mieze is dead over and over. This is a pretty disappointing way to end a 14 hour movie, but it's also quite indicative of the film as a whole - overlong, totally self-indulgent, and depressing in an insignificant way. I've heard a lot of interesting things about the epilogue, so I'm not completely checked out at this point. But I am thankful to have most of this ordeal over and done with. I've started reading just about everything on this film I can find online, and this article most closely approximates my own feelings at this point, both in its headline and its full text. I would love to talk to someone who found this film engrossing, or even worth seeing.

Epilogue: Um. OOOOOOOOOOOOkay. I'm not sure this could have been more German if they had tried. I had no idea what to expect going into this, but it was certainly just as weird as people said it would be. There were definitely some cool parts, especially as it related to pop music. But most of it is pretty indecipherable, and just as overstuffed with ideas as the previous fourteen hours were overkill.

Honestly, I don't get the appeal of this movie. I'm really hoping someone can help me out here. Why does anyone think this approaches Fassbinder's finest work (The Marriage of Maria Braun, World on a Wire, or Ali: Fear Eats the Soul), let alone surpasses them? It's just so long. So very very long, and unnecessarily so. And the idea that anyone would spend 16 hours with this unlikable, unappealing character is a total mystery to me. Has anyone ever watched this a second time? How can that be possible? That is nearly a full day of your life that you never get back.

The way women were treated in the film also really bothered me. I'm not necessarily calling the film itself sexist or misogynistic, but these moments just felt excessive and depressing. I like a lot of Fassbinder, I really do, but I'm just at a loss here. Obviously, at fifteen hours, it's not a film I'll be giving another shot, but I would like to come out of it with a greater understanding of what people see in it. I just don't have that yet. In fact, this is the first time in over six hundred and fifty titles that I've thought to myself "Do people just like this movie to say that they like it?" This is a question that typically repulses me, but here we are.

#495: The Golden Age of Television

(Various, 1953-58)

It's nice to know as I come to the final five films that have been released by Criterion up to this point that there are still major surprises to be had. The Golden Age of Television is certainly one of those - a great boxset that makes a powerful case for its grandiose title. The whole set is brilliant and powerful stuff, both in what's on screen and the context surrounding it. We wouldn't even have these remarkable stagings if it wasn't for kinescopes, essentially films taken of a monitor showing the broadcast in action, since these live performances were not shot on film and were simply broadcast over the air to affiliates all over the country. With only a couple of networks at the time, virtually everyone in America was watching these, making them the cultural equivalent of a super bowl every night.

Of course, unlike the super bowl and most universally watched shows these days, all of the episodes that make up The Golden Age of Television were fictional, essentially plays put on television and written by major talents, the most notable of which was Rod Serling, most famous for creating and writing most of The Twilight Zone and still one of the great television writers in history. Serling wrote three of the eight teleplays that make up this set, and they are probably my three favorites (though Marty, written by another great, Paddy Chayefsky, is also spectacular). Patterns, Requiem for a Heavyweight, and The Comedian all take on major cultural institutions of the 1950s (big business, boxing, and television, respectively) and have no problem tearing them down and forcing the viewer to question their mindless consumption and acceptance of each. But they are most impressive for their vivid characters, the way he manages to make even the most heartless person in each a three-dimensional person with believable and even somewhat sympathetic motivations. Serling also benefited - as did the other writers in this set - from a group of memorable and at times brilliant performances, particularly from Jack Palance, who is heartbreaking in Requiem, and Mickey Rooney, who is a bit of a revelation for me in The Comedian.

Still, it is hard to believe that this was mainstream art in the 1950s, especially when you add The Days of Wine and Roses, a pitch-black story about alcoholism that pulls few punches, to Serling's three. There are sexual elements and subversive themes in many of them; most obviously Patterns runs so counter to what we perceive of today as 1950s American values that it's hard to believe that the teleplay was so popular that they actually "reran" the performance a year later by getting everyone back together and putting on another show (fortunately, the performance included here is the original).

The other three telecasts included here, The Wind from the South, Bang the Drum Slowly, and No Time for Sergeants, were still very good, but fail to transcend their time. The Wind from the South is a beautiful romance story, but tilts toward the era's melodrama a bit too much to maintain its freshness. Similarly, No Time for Sergeants is hopelessly dated now, even if there are bits and pieces that stay funny. Comedy is a difficult genre for aging, especially on TV, and Andy Griffifth's "aw shucks" routine has seen better days, even if he was clearly an influence on Kenneth the page from 30 Rock. Bang the Drum Slowly is another melodrama, made more interesting by the inclusion of a young Paul Newman, but the film just doesn't have the same crackle of energy Serling's work does.

Overall, this is a spectacular box that makes a strong case for its title (even if I do think the golden age of television is really the last decade or so). Like so many box sets from Criterion, this is an historical document of invaluable relevance in both television history and film history (many of these plays went on to be filmed, while cast members, directors, and writers also went on to big-screen careers). I can't really recommend it highly enough.

#598: World on a Wire

(Rainer Werner Fassbinder, 1973)

The Venn diagram on the cover is profoundly appropriate: World on a Wire straddles multiple worlds just as effortlessly as its story does. At once b-grade sci-fi and a highly sophisticated view of both the future of technology and the past of cinema, the film manages to pack deep philosophical questions into a slick and sly package. It evokes The Twilight Zone just as much as it does 2001 - Last Year at Marienbad nearly as often as Invasion of the Body Snatchers - but its gaze is mostly cast paradoxically deep into the near future. This is moviemaking at its most exhilarating: tongue in cheek, intellectual fun that wants to drag you through the funhouse.

Since its theatrical release stateside and subsequent Criterion release over the last few years, Fassbinder's TV miniseries has been unfailingly linked to The Matrix, which almost certainly took a cue from at the very least this film's source material, a book written about simulacra in the 60s. This is a great entry point for the contemporary viewer, but it does a disservice to the film's standalone merits. I happen to think the Wachowskis are often misunderstood, but Fassbinder is the ultimate in offbeat directors and World on a Wire is his most literal look at his slightly askew perspective on reality. Centered around a company that has been commissioned by the German government to construct a huge simulation of reality with a town of 10,000 "people," the film follows one of the scientists in charge of the project as he searches for the truth not just of his project's true purpose but of his reality itself.

Fassbinder's real accomplishment in World on a Wire is to construct a visual style that is just as layered as his plot. The frame is packed with geometric illusions, multiple mirrors, and shifting perspectives - just as his characters slowly descend down the rabbit hole. By slightly tweaking his contemporary reality, Fassbinder avoids dating his production in a negative way - this is still essentially the 70s, wide lapels and all. But his surreal staging and slowly evolving camera movements evoke dream sequences from Fellini, and the film's slow boil of a plot turns up the paranoia until the movie's final act seems almost revolutionary. Like The Matrix, World on a Wire depicts waking up as an act of rebellion, and illusion is the power holding us back. The paradox of a film about the oppression of illusion must not have been lost on Fassbinder, and his gleeful ironic touch makes the movie more than just a clever tall tale. Essential viewing.

#258: Tanner '88

(Robert Altman, 1988)

One of the few TV series in the Collection, Tanner '88 is a grand experiment. It's also one of the earliest triumphs for HBO, which would go on to revolutionize the medium. Created on the fly by Doonesbury strip writer Garry Trudeau, the series tracks Jack Tanner, a fictional congressman played by the pitch-perfect Michael Murphy, in his quest to become the Democratic nominee for president in 1988. The hook? Tanner isn't running against made up opponents - he's trying to take down Jesse Jackson and Michael Dukakis, the eventual real nominee. Even more interestingly, he's doing it in real time, following the actual primary process as it unfolds rather than looking back on a race long since run.

This premise happens to fit perfectly with both Trudeau's and Altman's respective styles. Trudeau, of course, has made a career out of torn-from-the-headlines subject matter tweaked into subtle satire. In a conversation with Altman on the DVD, Trudeau explains that he suggested Altman to HBO for the project because he assumed they couldn't get him, thereby allowing him to pass and move on to his other obligations. If true, it's a happy coincidence, because Altman's improvisational style, built on multi-layered conversations, documentary-style camera techniques, and naturalistic performances, was not just perfect for the subject matter but perhaps even essential. It allowed Trudeau to build loose scenes and a broad structure for each episode without causing the whole series to collapse. Altman's sly, cynical eye (especially on display a few years later in my favorite film of his, The Player) builds on Trudeau's ironic themes and organic humor with similar efficiency, making the message of the series deeply relevant beyond the contemporary political climate.

The influence of the series is clear both in terms of subject and style. Obviously, Aaron Sorkin was a fan of the series - the core characters of The West Wing share a fatalistic dedication to their mission, and is there any chance it's just a coincidence that Martin Sheen's chief of staff character in The American President was named A.J.? But perhaps more notably, the reality-style, off-the-cuff tone and look of the series has become ubiquitous, as have the various appearances of politicians playing themselves and politics woven into entertainment and media narratives. The story arc is similarly recognizable for its slow burn, novel-style pacing. As with modern masterpieces like The Wire and Breaking Bad, Tanner '88 doesn't really get going for a few episodes, putting off conventionally desirable goals for a television series like hooking a viewer within the first ten minutes, allowing for character introductions, or front-loading major plot developments to keep the audience engaged. We certainly have Altman to thank for this, but HBO's confidence - or at least willingness - to go there with him is an early indication of just how the mindset of one network transformed television in the decade and a half to come.

There are a wide number of reasons why Criterion hasn't selected more TV shows for inclusion. Obviously, Criterion is not in the business of releasing multiple seasons, so any more conventionally successful show is out (it doesn't hurt that these "successful" shows would probably be impossible to license). Similarly, while there were quirky or complex shows in the fifty years of broadcast television prior to The Larry Sanders Show and The Sopranos, the last twenty years have seen probably the vast majority of the greatest television series of all time, from the British Office and Arrested Development to Mad Men and Deadwood (not to mention the four shows mentioned above). This explosion has of course coincided with the popularity of DVD, where virtually every show - whether it runs for 20 seasons like The Simpsons or 12 episodes like Wonderfalls - gains immortality through wide release.

But I think the real reason there are so few TV shows in the Collection is that, well, it's a "continuing series of classic and contemporary films." Although Fishing with John might not be the most cinematic show of all time, there seems to be a certain connection to the film world, whether through guest appearances, tone, or the strange cult following the show has amassed. The other three big television offerings in the collection are two miniseries from Ingmar Bergman (each an unqualified masterpiece whose inclusion is self-explanatory) and a huge boxset (that, knowing what a beast it will be, I have yet to dig into) called The Golden Age of Television. This title rings not just untrue to me (the golden age? we're living in it!) but also somewhat ironic since the boxset isn't really TV as we know it, but rather films that happened to have been made for television. Tanner '88, despite its episodic structure and topical story developments that would not have worked for film, seems to have one foot in the theater, too. Along with having Robert Altman at the helm (this is one of four Altman inclusions in the Collection, all released in close proximity in the 200s) the show's one-off nature, unique (for television) tone, and performances that feel much more theatrical than what was being put on the air in 1988 all lend it a feeling more akin to an experiment in cinema than to the conventional television show.

I don't offer up these reasons to argue why Tanner '88 is deserving of inclusion more than other shows, but rather to try to get at the reasons why it might be included - thereby opening up the potential for more television shows - when no shows have since received similar attention. Again, I think the format and rights issues at the center Criterion's decisions about release are most important in this regard, but it does make for a giant hole in the Collection. Certainly if any show should be included, Tanner '88 is deserving. But opening up the gates for TV as potentially eligible - and then offering such a small selection - gives the impression that the medium has less to offer than is actually the case. This is not Tanner '88's fault, I just thought it was worth pointing out.

#262: Fanny and Alexander (TV Version)

(Ingmar Bergman, 1982)

Watching this four-and-a-half-hour masterpiece, I was reminded of one of the great tragedies of cinema, the (as far as we know) complete destruction of Orson Welles's original cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. The surviving 90-minute version of the follow-up to Citizen Kane is still one of the great films of the 40s, and inevitably what had been done with the original cut would have been even more impressive.

Welles had complete artistic freedom when he made The Greatest Film of All Time, but the rest of his career basically consisted of him being shit on by everyone in the industry. Bergman had a much more conventional experience for a master director, so thankfully, by the time his swan song rolled around, he had been given free rein on his films for decades. This allowed him to create both a three-hour theatrical version of the film (which won Best Foreign Film, Bergman's third) and this full-length version. Based on the cuts described, I can't fathom preferring the shorter edition of the film, as some of the cuts seem to sink to the core of the film's strengths.

The movie itself is ridiculously confident, touching upon nearly all of Bergman's most recognizable themes. But it's also Bergman's warmest and most nostalgic movie, reflecting fondly upon a simulacrum of his childhood. There are certainly dark, even harrowing, moments, most notably the scene of Emilie wailing in the night after the death of her husband and the riveting scene of the showdown between Alexander and the bishop. But they are countered with the joyous banquets that bookend the film and a sense of mystery and playfulness that shines with the love of film, which is to say the love of entertainment, discovery, trickery.

I thought of The Magician, Smiles of a Summer Night, Winter Light, The Silence, Wild Strawberries, and The Seventh Seal while watching Fanny and Alexander, and I'm sure subsequent viewings would add to that list. Plenty of people have recognized or posited that the film is a sort of autobiography of Bergman, but when they say that they are often speaking of the director's childhood. Clearly there are moments that confirm this, but I think the film is far more relevant to his later years, the years of his career as a filmmaker. It makes for a rare opportunity to experience the summation of a great career within a compelling and memorable story that stands on its own.

#42: Fishing with John

(John Lurie, 1992)

This is one of the more bizarre entries in the Criterion Collection, and not because it isn't a movie at all, but a television series that lasted six episodes. Lurie is a musician and artist who decided to film his fishing trips with some of his favorite guest stars. The real appeal, though, is in the narration, which consists of lies and meaningless observations that become more and more surreal as the series progresses.

The interesting thing about the series is that it lulls you into a false sense of calm with fishing sequences and then shocks you back into the realization that you are not in fact watching an actual fishing show. Like when the Willem Dafoe episode ends with the narrator explaining that Lurie and Dafoe have died while ice fishing (the next episode begins with the camera finding Lurie, which prompts the narrator to exclaim with surprise: "I was wrong! John is alive!").

I highly doubt Fishing with John would be selected for the collection today, but in the early years of DVD adoption, this was the kind of thing that would seem lost to history had Criterion not selected it for release. For some, this will be the funniest thing they've ever seen, but for most, it won't surpass its status as a unique curiosity.