Walk seven hours in their shoes: Tarr’s Satantango
Wherein I admit that I both cheated and dropped the ball. As some of you may recall, the provisions of my plan as laid out in an earlier post at least implied that my viewing of nearly 30 hours worth of art cinema would not get started until after My Lovely Wife had departed for a six-day jaunt, last Wednesday. But I gave myself a head start, watching Rossellini’s The Age of Medici on Tuesday. Then, feeling my oats and taking advantage of a cancelled business call, I was able to take in the entirety of Bela Tarr’s Satantango on Wednesday, finishing in time to go to a screening of Pixar’s Up (on which more later)…and then the ferry to Hoboken, to hear Cheetah Chrome backed by the Blackhearts. I was feeling pretty feisty, having packed that much in a day. Cheetah rocked, but the show ended really late, and the schlep from Hoboken to Brooklyn is a genuine schlep at that hour…so Thursday got to a slow start, and when I started up Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz…well, I have to admit I couldn’t, as they say, get into it.
I can’t quite say what it was. Having recently finished Hans Fallada’s impressive novel Every Man Dies Alone, a fact-based account of a couple’s ill-fated attempts at Nazi resistance, I figured I was well-prepared for more Depressing-Stuff-Going-On-In-Germany material, but then again, it could just as well been that I’d had my fill of such material for the moment. And don’t get me wrong, Günter Lamprecht’s a great actor, but his shambling, frantic character Franz Biberkopf did nothing but get on my nerves. People, it happens—I just wasn’t in the mood for the thing. And so it remained for the remainder of Memorial Day weekend, which included even more socializing than I had initially anticipated. And the weather in the New York area was perfect for it. So I went with the flow, asi it were. One of the barbecues I attended was a very large affair, and I was actually stopped on the patio by an older couple who said, “Aren’t you that terrible man in that movie,” which was quite a kick. (Later at this barbecue I was treated to the sight of master guitarist Richard Lloyd—late of Television and the reconstructed Rocket From The Tombs with Chrome—sticking an accupuncture needle in the top of his head. Interesting. Peculiar.)
As for Alexanderplatz, do not fear. I will stick with it, but probably watch it episodically. It was a television film, after all.
“It was a television film, after all.”
I’ve caught the film twice; first in a theater, in a two-day marathon, later on DVD, stretched out over six weeks or so. What had seemed grueling and insistent while stuck for hours in the dark played out as engaging and expansive visited in discrete chunks while I sat on my couch smoking at my leisure.
Though I agree with David Kehr that the 1931 Phil Jutzi version, which blazes through the story in 90 minutes, outshines Fassbinder’s take in many ways, and is possibly the greatest “bonus feature” in the history of DVDs.
Interesting weekend indeed! Friends of mine played with Lloyd (as in, played as a last minute back up band with him) in Boston the previous weekend.
Apparently it included an all day rehearsal in which 3 of the songs they painstakingly rehearsed were actually a part of the 20some song set, someone in the club checking on Richard pre-show and finding him in the basement of the club, on the ground, saying he was looking for his socks.
The night, of course, ended with Lloyd getting punched out by some marine who’s girlfriend he was hitting on.
of all the nights to be out of town!
@Chris: That would explain the prominent shiner that Mr. Lloyd was sporting…
I think the best way to approach BA is episodically. I did it at a pace of 2–3 episodes per night, and it worked really well. Fassbinder’s vision is, I think, too intense to be taken in whole. It shouldn’t be an endurance contest; better to let the film’s slow development, its elastic use of time, play out over the course of a week or two.
Oh, and if anyone’s interested, my own 6‑part thoughts on Berlin Alexanderplatz can be found here:
http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2008/01/17-berlin-alexanderplatz-parts-i-ii.html
Wow this looks really amazing. I am interested in hearing more about this. Might even review it in my films section of my art magazine.
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I’ve always found it kind of silly when people try and watch BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ in one or two sittings. That just seems totally counter to the spirit in which it was made, and to the way in which it unfolds. I like it a great deal, but I would probably have had little patience for it had I been forced to watch 10 hours of it at once…
That said, I have no idea how Fassbinder intended it to be viewed (not that I particularly care).
I am absolutely delighted to hear that according to Gia, marathon art-movie viewing counts as sports. This is the kind of expanded definition that I wish my high school PE teacher had been willing to countenance.