Berlin Alexanderplatz
A friend of mine, an avid Rainer Werner Fassbinder nerd has invited me to a couple of days where he has invited his friends to watch the eighties television series Berlin Alexanderplatz. I remember it from my childhood where all the adults were talking about it. Denmark only had one television channel back then and when something like this was shown, everybody was watching.
It was an age where the European film industry had been almost anihilated from two worldwars and was trying to get back on foot. The big entertainment blockbusters was still almost entirely made in the USA, and the strange dreams of Speilberg and George Lucas was much more on my mind in 1982. Europe was not ready for fun and escapism yet, but the state televisions of Europe did a great thing in allowing some of the masters of European cinema to realise what was to become their magna opera. Another one that I saw was Ingmar Bergmann's Fanny och Alexander.
I couldn't make it to the first viewing so I have seen the two first episodes, and it did make me regret that I have almost entirely dropped seeing film. I will probably start picking up some of the classics that I have missed. Fassbinder is one of the directors I have neglected.
On the other hand there is one thing that I have done, I have read the novel that the tv-series is based on. My grandfather was very attached to it as it had been one of his entries from a proletarian background and into the literary world and when I showed interest he gave me his old copy from 1930.
The book is the first book to introduce the big metropolis in German literature, and the place seems as important as the poor protagonist, Franz Biberkopf. The text is composed by a mixture of stream of conciousness, and quotes from external sources that somehow takes the place of descriptions. Instead of describing the lovemaking between a prostitute and the just released from prison protagonist, a medical text about the sexual arousal is used for example.
In the endless stream of Netflix series that has made me sick of the lanterna magica, suddenly seeing this old TV-series is a reminder how much the internet works as a centrifuge. Only the most common mainstream things is at the centre, and most other things has to be dug up. I am glad that my friend have given me back some of the enthusiasm for watching films, but also that I am only using fringe social networks. It does give a more erratic and idiosyncratic stream of information.
Here is one for you guys.
I read the book when I was fairly young, maybe I should re-read it. I associated it with some of the work of George Grosz; the seediness, clamour, and confusion of the bowels of a big city, described without moralising. It's a brilliant novel.
It was my interest in the Grosz and his contemporaries that got me interested. There is something in the expressionist literature that is very close to the pictorial arts. It is indeed brilliant.
I always look at the internet as my magic box of time travel and if you know the right 'spells' or words of 'incantation' (that is you are great at googling) you can find all sorts of shows and things from the past as well as disover new old things, which are often better then new things. I find new shows and movies to pander so to audience helping them along the way as if they can't understand subtle context or rich coloured experience, just formula.
Another treat in this visual time travel is to have a separate window open with old commercials from the time period of the piece I am watching, full immersion is amazing!
I wish I could read and understand Danish :/
The internet is such a great invention that it is depressing how it is used - the same can be said about television.
Back in the eighties the quality of the European state channels was rather high, built as it was for eduction as much as entertainment. Centralised, yes, it was - but also a lighthouse in local culture. I always were an psychological anarchist, but I do recognize the power that can be in the collective.
The good thing about the internet is that people can choose everything. They do not need to choose between state education or rubbish commercial entertainment. But the unifying thing might lack a bit. That is why I really like the fringe, underground networks: the completely decentralised and uncommercial Diaspora federation and the wild west Steemit blockchain. People here care for the network and the connections as they are art of building them.
As for the Danish I suppose you want to read the text on the front page? It is a complete summary of the book. The author uses this in small prefaces to the text, hinting that life looks very much like fate, but in a devastatingly bland, sociological fashion.
You only had ONE TV channel in the 80's? We had 4 by then with the recent addition of Channel 4 in the early 80's.
I remember only 3 when I was young but one sounds terrible.
In 1988 we had our second TV-channel, but before that people could also watch the Swedish channels in Copenhagen, and the German channels in the south-western parts. That way a lot of Swedish and German speaking folks existed in each corner of the country. Now everything is in Danish or English and the language skills have been lost.
Unfortunately, I have not seen the series nor read the book although I have come across both many times in my life; many lost opportunities... BUT! I spent some winter nights in the hotel overlooking Alexanderplatz, the plaza covered in snow and people hurriedly moving in all directions, alongside the slow-moving tram. A picture I still fondly carry in my memory - Berlin is the city of my heart. Here is a photo from the hotel room, early in the morning (the plaza is to the left):
Almost every time I have been to Berlin (and that is quite a few) it has been grey and wet. Somehow I like to think of it that way.