100 Years Berlin Alexanderplatz: Disability, Gender and Race in Döblin, Fassbinder and Qurbani
By
Benjamin C Davis
Senior Honors Thesis
Department of Germanic and Slavic Languages and Literatures
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
April 12, 2021
Approved:
______
Dr. Richard Langston, Thesis Advisor
Dr. Inga Pollmann, Reader
Dr. Joseph Rockelmann, Reader
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements i
Introduction 1
Döblin: Doctors and Disability Introduction: Berlin Alexanderplatz in Context 5 Movement I: From Veterans to the Slaughterhouse 8 Movement II: Assault, Accident and Amputation 11 Movement III: Experiencing Disability 17 Movement IV: Therapeutic Madness 22 Conclusion 26
Fassbinder: Queer and Disabled Masculinities Introduction: Fassbinder’s Magnum Opus 28 Wielding Power over Women for Able-Bodied Franz 31 Franz and Homosocial Relationships 40 Franz and Post-Disability Reliance on Women 48 Conclusion 54
Qurbani: Disability and Racialized Bodies Introduction: A Twenty-First-Century Berlin Alexanderplatz 56 Modernizing and Adapting Döblin’s Text 57 Dialoguing with Fassbinder’s Film Series 62 Old Stories with New Characters 68 Conclusion 72
Conclusion 74
Bibliography 77
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my sincerest gratitude to my advisor Dr. Richard Langston for his endless patience, persistent aid, and invaluable guidance throughout the process of creating this work.
I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Inga Pollmann and Dr. Joseph Rockelmann, in addition to the rest of the teaching faculty of the Department of Germanic and Slavic
Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill for their support, resources, and for the dedication they show to their students, in academics and personal life. I would also like to thank my wonderful colleagues in the German program and German Club for the many opportunities I had to learn with them and practice speaking together.
I would like to thank my roommates and friends, Matthew Ricigliano and Kristina Jones, for their patience, support, and prolific empathy. I would like to thank them, my colleagues from outside the German major, my friends Drew, Parker, MaryBeth, Quince, and my sister
Rachael for enduring the many times I spoke German at them.
Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my mother, June Davis, for her undying commitment to me and my wellbeing and for being a steadfast support to my academic achievement and my identity.
i Introduction
Berlin Alexanderplatz, first conceived by Alfred Döblin, famously retold in a 15-part
TV series by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and most recently, in 2020, adapted by director
Burhan Qurbani into a 3 hour film, was originally a story of Berlin and a window into its society, and a reflection of the status of German society as a whole. Its adaptations shift the novel’s focus to address issues reflecting the interests and contemporary problems facing their individual interpreters. Its complex, multithreaded narratives have been rewoven through each retelling and its composition has withstood the test of time as an effective encapsulation of the zeitgeist of 1920s Berlin and offers unique opportunities for reflection and analysis. Although Qurbani’s film warrants sufficient time to establish itself in the critical literature of Berlin Alexanderplatz, there remain other unexplored questions with Döblin and
Fassinder’s work which suggest an opening for a common threadline of examination throughout the three by interrogating the role of disability in the narratives of Berlin
Alexanderplatz. Although there exist other adaptations, including a radio play and an earlier film version, the three retellings are specifically selected to give different signposts of the story’s meaning at different points in German history, specifically with regards to differences in German attitudes about disability and its functionalization in literature, especially as
Qurbani’s film represents a reimagination of the story as taking place in contemporary
Germany.
In order to discuss the role of disability, we must first establish a common definition for it, and understand its history in German society. In her seminal work, Carol Poore adopts an expansive definition of disability including, “physical, sensory, cognitive, and mental
1 impairments” and the subjects of familiar cultural pejoratives such as “freaks” or “the insane.”1 I will adopt a similar approach and use her research as a lens through which to analyze Berlin Alexanderplatz. However, I will be focusing primarily on visible physical disability and will thus make deliberate distinctions between what I will address as
“disability” and “cognitive or mental disability.”
The role that disability has played in post-WWI German society is a tumultuous one.
Disability was more present in the German consciousness during the Weimar Republic than any time before or since, appearing in artwork, literature and political discourse. The country, having just lost the war, was tasked with reintegrating thousands of wounded war veterans who experienced limb loss, facial disfigurement, shell shock and unemployment. Public outcry over the shame of the lost war often found its way to ridiculing the veterans for their participation. Whether portraying them as cowards for not fighting hard enough, imperialist lackeys responsible for the war, or “monstrous” symbols of the horrors of modern war, civilian perceptions of these veterans were often negative, and only a few avenues existed for their redemption. Many medical professionals sought to restore the functionality of these veterans to return to work, emphasizing the need to fix them so that they could stop relying on charity.2 However, the medical profession also included such individuals as Alfred Hoche, one of Döblin’s mentors, who advocated for the euthanasia of “lives unworthy of life.”3 As
Poore notes, there was some distinction between the war wounded and Germany’s disabled civilians, in particular those whose disability was congenital, were more frequently the targets of eugenics. The Nazis exploited this difference to gain the support of veterans, creating a
“sanitized image” of these soldiers to contrast the critiques of the senseless nature of war and divert the eugenic attention to Germans with congenital disability instead. This attention resulted in calls for sterlization and “euthanasia” that ultimately ended in the deaths of over
1 Poore, “Preface,” in D isability, xvii. 2 Baeyer, D er lebendige Arm, 29. An example of this is found in the work on prosthetics 3 Poore, D isability, 3. 2 70,000 disabled Germans by the end of 1941 as part of “Aktion T4.” 4 After the war, disability became a taboo subject, likely due to its association with both the war and eugenicist Nazi propaganda.5 Sparse references to disability in literature continued to have varying degrees of success onward into the 70s, where the German abortion debate brought to light existing biases against disabled individuals. 6 Club 68, the Declaration on the Rights of Disabled
Persons in 1975 and the UN Year for People with Disabilities in 1981 represent milestones where the disabled community began to be recognized as such and to organize for their rights.7 This perspective that the hardship experienced by individuals with disabilities is most significantly that they are subjected to systemic discrimination continues to drive modern disability advocacy. It has led to an understanding of “ableism” as a structural problem in society.
Although Carol Poore’s work contains thorough explanations and criticisms of the function of disability in important German pieces of art, film, and literature, she does not mention Döblin’s work, nor Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, preferring instead to talk about another film of his, Chinesisches Roulette . This absence represents an opportunity to use the understanding of the struggle for disability rights, in parallel with other struggles for liberation, such as from gender and racialization, to interpret new and significant meaning from the works of Döblin and Fassbinder and to understand the perspectives taken by
Qurbani. It represents an opportunity to see beyond disability as metaphor, and to examine how disability is portrayed as an integral to understanding intersectional issues.
Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz is a seminal work and its continually renewed life through retelling and plot dependence on disability make it an ideal target for analyzing the historical transformations of interpretations of disability throughout almost a century of
4 Poore, D isability, 87. 5 Poore, D isability, 153. 6 Herzog, “Moral Reasoning,” 10. 7 Poore, D isability, 274. 3 German history. In each of the works of Döblin, Fassbinder, and Qurbani, disability is dynamic, having different modalities and intersectionalities, be it class, gender, sexuality or race. This allows us to examine the breadth of intersectionality of disability in German literary canon and study how disability has been defined and redefined on both a systemic and personal level for German writers, filmmakers, and their audiences.
4 Chapter 1 Döblin: Doctors and Disability
Introduction: Berlin Alexanderplatz in Context In order to understand the varied roles of disability in the story of Franz Biberkopf through its varied retellings across the century, we must begin at the origin of the story, its conception, and the man who brought it into existence, and his motivations for doing so.
Alfred Döblin was a physician at a time when the professional practice of medicine was dominated by exploratory research and offered only rudimentary treatment options.1 Döblin worked specifically with individuals who would not have been able to afford high levels of care, and he carries this social conscience in stride with several social and psychological theories throughout the novel. 2 After indulging in escapism and orientalism, 3 Döblin’s writing made an abrupt return back to the harsh familiarity of early twentieth century Berlin, a society decimated by poverty, humiliation, and disability. The presence of disabled individuals in Döblin’s novel is evidence of its social consciousness and commitment to a critical realism, the choice to focus on a disabled character, however, is a revolutionary move to address the societal implications of disability after the First World War and its treatment head on, allowing Döblin to leverage his medical experience as a valuable asset.
1 Dollinger, A Companion to the Works of Alfred Döblin, 114. The medical practice of Döblin is described both as being deeply unsatisfying for him, and occupied by verbose descriptions of his patients. This diagnostic verbosity can also be clearly seen in his works where medicalized subjects are addressed. 2 Dollinger, A Companion to the Works of Alfred Döblin, 121. Döblin was a member of a group of socialist doctors and throughout his career expressed socialist sympathies, however, the practical instantialization of these sympathies would later cause him to come into conflict with prominent socialists when the realism of his Franz Biberkopf did not meet with perfect socialist idealism. 3Sander, Alfred Döblin Berlin Alexanderplatz, 104-105. Several of Döblins earlier novels were set in “faraway” places as he felt more comfortable crafting fiction about where he had never been. Thus, Berlin Alexanderplatz represents one of Döblins biggest challenges with realism in fiction. 5 Döblin’s narrative technique enables a character-driven exploration of contemporary
Berlin. In this framework, Döblin is interested primarily in modern Berlin, secondarily in the character of Franz Biberkopf, and tertiarily in the story Biberkopf experiences. To make sense of these layers, the reader must focus on the novel’s pacing and structure. At the beginning of the novel, Döblin places deliberate emphasis on urbanity, often undercutting or ignoring the character of Franz Biberkopf in favor of descriptions of Berlin and the happenings that surround him.4 Döblin is keen on interrupting the narrative of his protagonist in this initial section with multifaceted asides fueled by literary collage. He also functionalizes these interruptions, allowing him to tell the story of the city within his story of
Franz Biberkopf. As the novel progresses, the plight of Franz takes a more central role, pivoting dramatically at the moment of Franz Biberkopf’s amputation. This tonal shift is a clue into the nexus of Döblin’s objective: namely the interaction between disability, society and politics.
Current scholarly literature tends to focus either on the parallels Döblin draws to classical works, 5 the large influence played by the German translation of Ulysses, or the psychological themes in the work.6 Many sources consider the meaning of the “tragedy” of
Franz Biberkopf without paying specific attention to his physical disability.7 The formal elements of the work most often examined include the epic nature of Montagetechnik.
4 Becker, Leben-W erk-Wirkung , 110. In addition to the physical description of the city, the ideological groundings of the setting play an outsized role in the story of Franz Biberkopf, likely due to the way some elements of the story were assembled from contemporary documents. 5 Becker, Leben-W erk-Wirkung , 106, 116. This characterization uses the association of Franz Biberkopf’s experience with tragic greek heroes in combination with the Epic style of the novel to suggest that Franz is a tragic hero. Other criticism rejects this notion, as Döblin himself believed that a modern epic could not possibly have such a narrow focus during a time when the destiny of masses was so much greater than the destiny of one protagonist. 6 Becker, Leben-W erk-Wirkung , 267. Döblin defended himself against accusations that his style of writing was parroting James Joyce by saying that he had developed its principles from Psychoanalysis, a field with which he was well acquainted. 7 Köpke, Critical Reception of Döblin’s Major Novels, 128. 6 Commentary on Döblin’s social consciousness and his role as a physician author exists in the scholarly literature as well.8 However, what appears to be most lacking is a cohesive marriage of the importance of the tragic narrative with the driving force of Döblin’s socio-political conscience, something which I believe requires an acknowledgment and examination of the centrality of disability and medicine in Berlin Alexanderplatz. With a clear understanding of the social context of disability in 1920s Germany, I will demonstrate how Franz Biberkopf’s tragic flaw of self-reliance and projected strength engage contemporary discussions about the treatment and rehabilitation of Germany’s war disabled and how Döblin’s novel suggests that the psychosocial status of a population’s relation to medicine can influence the effectiveness of political treatments to societal ills. More specifically, I read Berlin Alexanderplatz as an appraisal of the curative power of rebirth and the surrender of the self as an imperative step in the treatment and resolution of internal conflict. I will do this by following the novel chronologically through its four movements. Firstly, there is the life of Franz Biberkopf prior to the accident, where Döblin uses the impersonal setting as his primary lens into the social structure of 1920s Berlin and establishes the motifs necessary for his pivotal accident. This leads to the second in and around which he uses the story of Franz Biberkopf to demonstrate a more personal relationship to medicine and the emotional consequence of becoming disabled. In the third, I demonstrate how Döblin uses the emotional impact of disability on
Franz Biberkopf’s psyche as an allegory for the emotional impact of disability of the war wounded in 1920s Germany. Finally, I analyze the implications of Döblin’s resolution of the story of Franz Biberkopf for understanding of the novel’s socio-political perspective and message.
8 Dollinger, Companion to the Works of Alfred Döblin, 112. 7 Movement I: From Veterans to the Slaughterhouse
Prior to Franz Biberkopf’s amputation, Berlin Alexanderplatz provides the setting of
Berlin that foreshadows the consequences of disability for Franz later in the novel.
Throughout the novel, Döblin’s omniscient atemporal narrator references the pitiable state of
Franz Biberkopf with a patronizing tone. The narrator interrupts his own account of the happenings of Franz Biberkopf with several vignettes, undercutting the continuous narrative thread and subverting the significance of his protagonist’s narrative. One such small interruption finds the narrator recounting the story of a veteran with a war injury - the narrator uses the common term “Kriegskrüppel”9 - and his wife whose son had just died.
The vignette begins with the same diagnostic flatness characteristic of the Biberkopf sections of the novel: the reader encounters a man carrying his arm in a bind, with his hand in a black glove. Contradicting the coyness with which the narrator treats the fate of Franz
Biberkopf, he betrays the problem in the second sentence, listing the man’s children, and ending with his four-year old son who has just died. The narrator coldly describes in the remainder of the paragraph how the boy was diagnosed with a throat fever, sent to the hospital on suspicion of diphtheria, where he caught Scarlet fever and died of a weak heart.
The second paragraph then describes how the man’s wife blamed him for taking the advice of the nurse and not taking the boy back home from the hospital due to the possibility of infecting the remaining children. This brings the man to remember that the doctor failed to give him an injection before he went to the hospital. The man, now revealed to be a veteran with a war injury, then goes to the doctor’s house and rants, returning home to explain the
9 Throughout his novel Döblin uses the term “ Krüppel”, in English, “cripple,” to describe people with physical disabilities. This terminology is, in almost all of its uses, denigrating to the people it describes. Therefore, I use it here and elsewhere in this work in the original German only so far as needed to place emphasis on that denigration and provide informative context for how the novel views and treats individuals with disability, as well as to differentiate between this offensive and negative schema and the everyday experience of people with disability. 8 error to his wife, and then defends the doctor to her. The scene closes with a mundane discussion about coffee.
A reader merely has to replace the doctor with Reinhold and the son with Mieze to see parallels between this short story and the overarching story of Franz Biberkopf. This interesting foreshadowing occurs immediately following the first time Franz fled, following the incident with Karl Lüders that caused him to abandon Lina.1 0 In the scene we see a simple picture of an upstanding man trying to do his best for a loved one in a society where people are imperfect. He is initially encouraged to blame himself, before he discovers that it is the imperfection of the doctor that is truly responsible. Even then it is clear that he cannot escape some internalization of blame. This simple foreshadowing would be of moderate interest from a purely literary perspective as one tactic through which Döblin uses collage to combine narrative drive with his personal experience. However, the man’s description as a “Krüppel” and his rant at the doctor upon discovering the error which killed his son demonstrates something else. He shouts at the doctor: “Sie sind nicht gekommen.”; “Ich bin ein Krüppel, wir haben im Feld geblutet, uns läßt man warten”; and “Unglück hin, unglück her… Uns läßt man warten, wir sind Kulis, unsere Kinder können verrecken, wie wir verreckt sind”.1 1
Döblin’s novel establishes with this passage its social awareness. The novel allows this
“krüppel” to accost the profession of medicine for having abandoned him and those like him, accusing doctors of treating veterans like “Kulis” - “slaves” or “underlings” - and letting their kids croak as they did. It is this critical social sensibility that Döblin will use to explore the character and motivations of Franz Biberkopf after his amputation by contrasting the social awareness of this wounded veteran with the more personal struggles of the novel’s tragic hero.
10 Sander, Alfr ed Döblin Berlin Alexanderplatz, 131. This further reinforces the idea of three primary woes which Franz faces throughout the novel. juxtaposing the experience of the first with foreshadowing to the second. 11 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz , 126. 9
One of the most discussed examples of Montagetechnik in the first section of the novel begins with a section entitled “Denn es geht dem Menschen wie dem Vieh; wie dies stirbt, so stirbt er auch”. Here the novel describes in gruesome detail the slaughter of pigs and cattle at the slaughterhouse in Berlin.1 2 Two choices in this section however, are particularly interesting. The first lies in the detailed description of the slaughter of a particular pig. Döblin illustrates the reduction of an animal to an unconscious sack of blood after a deep blow to the jugular. Following this scene, Döblin directly invites the reader to join him in “die
Metaphysik” where he meditates on the idea of blood’s wound-stopping abilities breaking down - it flowing out, and in nevermore.1 3 What is interesting is the comparison he chooses for this blood. He describes it as a child calling after its mother on the operation table, when the mother doesn’t want to look as it’s put under with the mask and ether. It is this imagery and the comparison to the operating table that Döblin will use in place of the details of
Franz’s operation: a list of the contents of the slaughterhouse directly followed by “ein
Schlag, hatz, sie liegen.”1 4 Döblin uses his knowledge of the medical practice and the slaughterhouse to draw this comparison. He casts the doctors and surgeons as butchers, using the imagery of blood, gore, metal, and helplessness to create a simile that strikes both as chillingly accurate and cynically subversive.
Berlin Alexanderplatz then takes this visceral comparison and undercuts its realism by vaulting the reader from the slaughterhouse to the story of Job. Rather than addressing the visceral and physical, Döblin cannot help but examine the spiritual and mental; Berlin
Alexanderplatz is ultimately interested in how these two spheres relate. As the parallels
12 Becker, Leben-W erk-Wirkung, 102. The importance of the slaughterhouse can also be seen through one of the first titles of the work during its piecemeal development and release phase, “Schlacht- und Viehhof” 13 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 154. 14 Döblin, “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” 249. 10 between the slaughterhouse and the amputation begin to fade, Biberkopf’s insanity becomes more prevalent, fluctuating between the grotesquely real and the dizzyingly ethereal. Döblin’s retelling of the story of Job in the slaughterhouse can be seen as a marriage of the physical with the spiritual. Döblin begins his story of Job with the visceral filth and misery that Job is living in, which caused him to discuss his own thoughts. Job, like Franz who will follow him, is reluctant to address these thoughts, and especially reluctant to analyze his physical woes: the loss of his son and daughter and the sickness that has overtaken him. Most telling is his discussion about strength. He admits to having no strength anymore, but the disembodied voice of Döblin’s Job calls his bluff. Like Franz following the loss of his arm, Job would rather be strong and able to resist, but in the face of everything he has lost Job gives in and reduces himself to an animal - in this case a cow. It is in this place of utter disconnection from reality and weakness - so weak that he would beg even Satan for healing - that Job’s utter despair cures his first curse. It is at this point that we see for this first time in the novel, a cure for the despair Döblin shows us, and it is by no mistake that the cure is only possible after the complete destruction and humbling of the self. Once again Döblin sees fit to illustrate the story of Franz Biberkopf before it is complete. Döblin will break his hero down, he will humble him, through the amputation and the despair of godlessness, and only through the fog of mental anguish will Franz be able to emerge with his curse lifted. For Döblin, it is through psycho-spiritual torment, that the physical can be understood and overcome.
Movement II: Assault, Accident and Amputation In contrast to earlier sections of the novel where plot development occurs rapidly and the overall course of action undertaken by Franz Biberkopf are to a certain degree a surprise to the reader, the scene of Franz Biberkopf’s dismemberment is constructed and foreshadowed with a sense of stylistic attention indicative of its transformative meaning for the novel. These stylistic markers and their central location in the work bisect the story into two parts: the
11 abled Franz and the disabled Franz. In addition to the preparatory work already discussed where Döblin lays the groundwork for the analogy to the slaughterhouse, Döblin uses three foreshadowing techniques to explain the significance of the event to come. These occur during the passage immediately prior to the unknowing participation of Franz Biberkopf in the midnight robbery that would see the loss of his arm.
Firstly, there is the discussion with Reinhold at the bar about his tenuous relationship with Trude, the last girl he was stuck with after Franz refused to help him dump his girlfriends. The central tension between Reinhold and Franz evolved around this problem as
Franz saw the longer term relationship with Trude as a way of curing Reinhold from his quick turn-around with dates. But Reinhold saw this new state as debilitating. It is of particular interest that this scene emphasizes Reinhold’s disability, calling him, “Reinhold der
Stotterer'' and describing his speech as stuttering. Here, Döblin indulges Reinhold’s narrative by painting him as a pliable figure under Franz’s thumb. Reinhold somewhat incredulously asks Franz, “Du möchtest mir den Doktor spielen?” and “Du möchtest mir wohl zu einem
Ehekrüppel zurechtkurieren?” to which Franz responds, “Prost, Reinhold, der Ehekrüppel soll leben…”.1 5 Once again, Döblin leans on a certain disdain for his own medical profession by combining the idea of Franz playing a doctor treating an unwitting patient with the reduction of men to “Krüppel ” (or in this passage, somewhat misogynistically, the “crippling” state of marriage). Medicalization and the medical profession remain bound to the idea of the
“Krüppel ” and the sufferer of unwanted treatment. The passage also gives Reinhold a justification for the crimes to be committed shortly. In order to free himself from being a
“Krüppel ” and unwanted medicalization, Reinhold must reduce Franz to a “Krüppel ” far beyond his own inability.
15 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 219-220. 12 The narrative flow of the story is once again interrupted with an allusion to the Bible, which exists in this context to provide the philosophical and spiritual background for the actions yet to come. Döblin quotes directly from Jeremiah 17:5-9, but re-words the passage from existing German translations. 16 Notably replacing “und hält Fleisch für seinen Arm”1 7 with “das Fleisch zu seiner Stütze macht,”1 8 loosely translating the idea of to or for the “arm” into “strength,”something some English versions of the same passage have adopted for clarity. Though it would be presumptuous to suggest that the average contemporary reader of
Berlin Alexanderplatz would understand this small change and notice the shift away from the focus of the arm, Döblin likely made this choice, not only as a component of a series of choices about the quotation which improve the overall flow in the passage, but also to avoid the implications of a literal connection between the arm and strength. Döblin includes this passage, “verflucht ist der Mann der sich auf Menschen verlässt, der das Fleisch zu seiner
Stütze macht" 19 because it allows him to directly but poetically deliver his message: Franz is about to place his trust in someone untrustworthy, and for that he will be cursed and he will suffer. But he will also suffer because he has made the flesh his strength, a curse which will take him the rest of the book to break. Döblin ends the quotation with “Das Herz ist trügerisch über alles und ist verderbt, wer mag es kennen?”2 0 replacing the adjectives
“trotzig” and “verzagt,”2 1 thereby replacing the more culpable ideas of defiance and despondency with the conditional ideas of elusiveness and corruption. For Döblin, the religious texts do not serve to damn his protagonist nor do they make him culpable for his
16 Boussart, “Die Aktualisierung Des Bibeltextes in B.A.” Also concludes that the modification of the biblical text, both at this particular junction, and other stories throughout the novel has a significant meaning to Döblins purpose and story, humanizing the Bible so that its more individualist original meanings can be used to forward a story about the collective. 17 Jer. 17:5 (Lutherbibel 1912). 18 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 220. 19 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 220. 20 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 221. 21 Jer. 17:9 (Lutherbibel 1912). 13 suffering. Rather, they serve as an orientation for philosophical analyses that serve to explain how he will come to his wretched state, not as a matter of bad choices, but of bad circumstances. As with other passages and vignettes in the novel, Döblin will use this passage during the fast-approaching scene of injury to remind the reader of this thread.
The final bout of unease prior to the traumatic events from the Pums robbery lies in the significance of Franz’s first documented hallucination. The opening to the section with the date of the incident in its title begins with Franz awakening to the sound of bells so loud that he held his head in his hands. He inquired with Cilly if there was a holiday, at which point she betrays the fact that she had heard no such bells. Interestingly, Franz’s original guess of a Catholic holiday, though the most likely or obvious guess, could also be read as an allusion to his approaching ‘martyrdom’. This hallucination establishes the sense of unease that leads Franz to leave Cilly for the last time. After this hallucination, Döblin shifts perspectives to Cilly, perhaps in order to show her as one of the few with a remaining clear grasp on reality, and recounts the trouble she went through to locate Franz and how he was not to be found. Ending with a conversation and the consolation of Cilly with Meck, who compares his current role with Cilly to his prior encounter with Lina, provides the reader with the false sense that Franz has chosen to leave again, allowing the reader to experience a sense of shock and horror when they discover the real reason for Franz’s absence. This perpetuates a feeling of unease throughout the interactions that are to come with the Pums gang.
The scenes immediately prior to Franz being thrown from the car demonstrate a dramatic amount of weakness for Döblin’s protagonist. A man who hitherto had some sense of deliberate control over his destiny, albeit extremely pliable and prone to influences, is now tossed against his will into a situation way over his head. He has continued his mission of being upstanding, even surviving an encounter with the extortionist and thief Karl Lüders, by fleeing and starting over. His sole vices remain alcohol, womanizing and nationalistic
14 politics, but overall he has kept most of his commitment to remain upstanding and live apart from the criminal underworld. However, in this moment, when he realizes that his trust in a group of fruit salesmen, including his closest friend, was completely unfounded, he is reduced to the role of a doll. Once reliant on his own strength and believing in the curative power of his ideas, he is now reduced to a punching bag for vicious men. As he is posted at the lookout, an unknown member of the band, and then subsequently Reinhold, punch him in the arm, so badly that he writhes in pain. Franz’s helplessness in this state is magnified. He is unable to flee and unable to resist the pains the Pums gang inflicts upon him. 22 As the getaway commences, Franz looks to the approaching car as a way out, an escape - but this is noticed and Reinhold draws on all of his anger toward Franz and all of the metaphors which
Döblin provides him to describe that anger, “Er hat mir Reden gehalten, das Rindvieh, von
Weibern, und ich soll mir beherrschen.” 2 3 Comparing Franz to cattle directly before the moment of slaughter was certainly a choice more fitting to the narrative of Döblin than the character of Reinhold, but his emphasis on reestablishing self-rule is something Döblin wove together earlier in the discussion of the “Ehekrüppel.” Döblin describes Reinhold secretly unlocking the door and tossing Franz’s body from the car onto the street. Rather than directly address what has just happened and acknowledge the peril that his protagonist is in, Döblin would prefer to allow the reader to speculate, to feel some of Reinhold’s uncertainty, and so he leaves the subject entirely for an intertextual musing about astrophysics. This is not dissimilar to how he subverts Ida’s murder by breaking it down into a physics problem, one that draws a poetic parallel between their victimhood.
22 Koepke, Critical Reception , 149. Franz’s love affair with conquest and conquering returns to bite him here as his principles - the jingoistic application of violence in the service of power, is being used against him here. He is simultaneously humiliated and emasculated. His pathetic exercises of violence against women in no way preparing him to be the subject of the violence of men. 23 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 236. Emphasis added 15 Döblin opens the chapter immediately following this scene by encouraging his reader,
“Es ist kein Grund zu verzweifeln.” This explains Franz as an unusually ordinary man and promises that there is a coming revelation that the reader will experience with his character.
This small note serves as an opening to the next chapter, by illustrating a paradigm shift in the novel. One that moves from a discussion of an ex-con’s attempts to be upstanding to a disabled man’s attempts to find strength and healing. This shift allows Döblin to explore the contemporary issues of interwar Berlin using a complete set of perspectives. The novel accomplishes this by interweaving the complexities of the modern city into his work as a way of expressing sundry observations throughout the course of the narrative.2 4
After suspending the reader’s confidence in Franz’s continued existence by first recounting the stories of Reinhold and Cilly, Döblin tells the story of Franz. Of particular concern is how he feels the pain and shaking in his arm and attributes it to the punch from
Reinhold before the car ride. Franz’s avoidance of the hospital illustrates a fundamental fear of any collaboration between medicine and authority. Finally, when he does receive medical attention, its description is replaced with a reference to the slaughterhouse,2 5 and capped with a perversion of the plea that began the new chapter, “Es ist kein Grund, sich damit zu befassen.”2 6 Instead, the narrator pleads with the reader to wipe it from their concerns altogether. This appeal to the reader questions the shared identity of reader and storyteller by asking why we are still observing.
This paradigm shift is accompanied by the reintroduction of Franz’s old friends from before prison: the people he previously avoided as part of his best attempts to be upstanding.
It is somewhat ironic that one of these people, Eva, represents the first person in the novel to
24 This might solve the complication of Franz’s centrality to the novel when Döblin, ostensibly does not believe in individual destiny or that an individual can be an appropriate subject for an epic work. 25 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 249. 26 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 249. 16 call him a “Krüppel ”. Having no understanding of his previous attempts to be upstanding,
Eva is the first person to judge Franz’s new state.2 7 She presumes that Franz had gotten mixed up with Pums deliberately and that he had chosen to work with them over her and Herbert.
She repeats in her thoughts how “jetzt ist er ein Krüppel” adding “ne halbe Leiche”2 8 the second time, implying a logical conclusion or deduction leading from the collaboration with
Pums to his current state. This represents the first time that someone looks at him with the idea and concept of “Krüppel ” in their mind. It is also the first time they will apply an under-informed analysis that blames Franz for his disability. For Franz, this represents the beginning of his second curse.
Movement III: Experiencing Disability
Shortly following Franz’s immediate reactions to his fate, he is presented with the opportunity to receive either compensation or justice for the loss of his arm. His friends beg him to reveal the attempted murderer and accept payment and justice from the Pums gang, but with Job-like stubbornness, Franz refuses, preferring to believe instead that his loss was somehow deserved. He thinks “und das ist auch ganz richtig, daß der Arm weg ist. Der mußte ab, da gibts nichts gegen zu bellen.”2 9 Franz comes to the conclusion that the consequences that come to him were simply fated and he refuses to allow anyone to help him recover.3 0 As he continues to lie in recovery after what he believed was an assassination attempt, Franz compares himself to the “powerless”3 1 and muses about his proximity to death.
Döblin illustrates these set-in feelings of worthlessness and guilt in order to show not only the
27 The parallel to the biblical Eve, who led Adam to the first sin, and here leads Franz to his new judgment, is also particularly interesting. 28 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 250. 29 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 257. 30 This might also be an explanation for Döblins interpretation of fate in the story- no individual is truly bound to such a fatalistic determination, but because Franz believes it is so, he must work through the narrative as though it is. 31 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 263. 17 inherent isolation in Franz’s personal condition but also to echo the voices of other wounded
German veterans who felt they were without direction or value.
As Franz Biberkopf returns to Berlin, Döblin makes clear what Franz’s operating ethos will be by illustrating his conversation with Meck. From being the first figure to anchor him after his return from prison to returning to their friendship after he abandoned Lina,
Meck is a figure of stability for Franz, a constant who plays his role whenever Franz has run away and returned. But this time is different. Franz is desperate to talk to him, to relay some amount of grief, but Meck is utterly too ignorant of the situation to help Franz grieve. Franz even calls himself a “Krüppel'' to call attention to his lost arm. This conversation leads Franz into a tailspin of thoughts that lead him to convey his opinions on welfare by claiming that although he needs it, it would not be appropriate for a “free man”. First he denies aid from his friends and the compensation offered by the gang, but now he denies the assistance offered by the state, all in the name of an abstract concept of dignity and “free” manhood. It is this concept that causes him in the subsequent section to lie about being a circus performer and to conceal from Meck the origin of his amputation. Here we see Döblin field a significant challenge to the idea of government issued support. Even though there is welfare designed to support individuals like Franz, he is not willing to accept it because of the cultural stigma and his own personal sense of pride. This can be read not just as a personal flaw of Franz’s but in the broader context as a societal flaw as well.
Although Franz’s Amputation of Biberkopf is a significant moment in the plot, it isn't allowed to persist uninterrupted for long. As if to mimic Franz's newfound attention to the problems of the disabled, Döblin presents us with a small story about an interaction between a wounded veteran and a few armchair philosophers. Döblin uses this discussion to remind the reader of the stereotypes faced by “Krüppel ” in society. Not content with a personal discussion of one man’s story, Döblin seeks to make a point about disability in society at
18 large. He diegetically tells the brief story of Johann Kirbach, a wounded veteran who proudly refuses to accept the compensation he is due for his injuries, and recounts the reactions of two other bar patrons who go on to malign those who draw on the state for compensation for their war injuries. They suggest that the soldiers who unthinkingly walked into war should have known better and that they should not be paid for “walking around and doing nothing.”3 2 It is worth noting that this is the same moment Döblin chooses for the introduction of Willi, a figure who represents a twisted political consciousness of sorts that acknowledges the fundamental ideals of socialism but opts for direct criminality in lieu of theoretical socialist praxis.3 3 This meeting is a representation of the disconnect between society and politics.
There may be some services or political protections in place for disabled individuals. But ultimately, people and society as a whole are not ready or willing to cope with the war disabled or what they represent. These parallel tales narrate a desperation that society does not align with political theory and Döblin uses the story of disability in the 1920s to convey this misalignment. This analysis was quite contentious among contemporary socialists and points at a distinction between Döblin and socialist politics in the Weimar Republic.3 4 Unlike a true socialist, Döblin seems not to believe that political changes alone will remedy societal ills faced by those on the receiving end of medical care. This is perhaps something he learned from personal experience. Franz Biberkopf nevertheless has access to help from friends and society, but he cannot allow himself to be helped. It is also of interest that throughout this scene Franz is continually named “der Einarmige” in descriptions by Willi. It is this weakness and self-reliance that Willi will exploit to convince Franz to move stolen goods. By turning to himself and seeking his own solutions, Franz has once again fallen unwittingly into crime, for
32 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 275. 33 Prangel, Alfr ed Döblin , 22. This sentiment, along with other expressed skepticisms about the general effectiveness of socialism and the ability of the working class to see and rise against their own oppression, lead to a falling out between Döblin and socialist critics, most notably Bertold Brecht, who had a one point described the novel as a “proletarian epic”. 34 Sander, Alfr ed Döblin Berlin Alexanderplatz, 160. 19 now crime is more respectable than begging. Döblin signals this seduction with a theme he introduced in the first meeting with Meck after the amputation, namely a paragraph that references the great Whore of Babylon from Revelation.
One of Alfred Döblin’s ideas expressed repeatedly throughout the novel is the inability of interpersonal care to have a truly curative effect on those who suffer physical and mental disability. 35 Franz was unable to cure Reinhold of his inability to break up with girls;
Willi’s politics were unable to help Franz find a place in society; and Herbert’s admonishments were unable to cure Franz of his drinking problem. Döblin uses these moments not only to cast doubt on the efficacy of patronising, idealistic, or impersonal care, but also to explore the experiences of his characters. Franz shares opinion of himself with
Herbert while he explains why he would not recant from drinking. He describes feelings of uselessness, powerlessness, and recounts his unwillingness to seek medical attention after the trauma of his amputation. The societal means of healing are all available to Franz Biberkopf, but he is unwilling to receive them, because they have had historically negative impacts, and also because they represent an acknowledgement of helplessness that Franz is unwilling to accept.
These feelings of helplessness lead to Franz developing unhealthy ideas. He has, for example, a brief fantasy of beating Mieze. Following a night of phantom limb pain3 6 the whore of Babylon reappears to remind us of the temptation that is coming. Franz must show his own strength, and solve his own problems, so he goes to meet his would-be murderer
Reinhold. Döblin preempts this meeting with military imagery and song - Franz is marching off to battle - but when he arrives, it is Reinhold who holds the revolver. This military
35 Becker, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, 268. This falls directly in line with Döblins seemingly contradictory views on Psychoanalysis. One of his biggest criticisms of the practice was the idea that anyone could practice without training or standards. 36 Killen, Berlin Electropolis, 8-9. This demonstrates Döblins experiences as a Nervenartz, and as the electroshock therapy mention will later show, is a component to Döblins broader membership in a group of doctors who use neurology over tools like psychoanalysis. 20 imagery and onomatopoeia of cannons is a direct reference to the experience of trauma and shell-shock, and explains why Döblin introduces Franz in the passage as “Kriegsinvalide .”
Franz is returning to the battlefield, which for him is his relationship to Reinhold, the cause of his injury. In direct contrast to the scene of Reinhold with Franz and his problem with women, Reinhold sees Franz shiver, a shell-shock of sorts, which places him on equal playing fields with the stutterer Reinhold. This puts Reinhold at ease and on the offensive. This time
Reinhold plays the role of doctor and asks to see the wound, examining it and advising Franz to use some sort of prosthetic to conceal it. Feeling fully at the helm of this sadistic power over Franz, Reinhold takes time to explicitly state his bigotry saying “Krüppel ist vor mir ein
Mensch, der zu nischt taugt. Wenn ick nen Krüppel sehe, sag ich: denn mal lieber ganz weg damit.”3 7 Franz just stands there, powerless to respond. After escaping the situation, Franz descends into a pit of shame. This scene allows Döblin to demonstrate the trauma and complications with self-advocacy that wounded veterans experienced in interwar Germany.
The interlaced imagery of the military also calls to mind the analog wherein Reinhold represents society and Franz the soldier. An unwilling participant is cast aside when expedient and he is left to live a life of trauma. When he tries to confront this fact, he is unable to show strength because of trauma. This lack of strength allows members of society to show their true feelings. At first they are fascinated and treat the disabled individual with a demeaning, medical curiosity and then they press for reintegration, concealment and show their disgust. The “Krüppel ” are the soldiers who didn’t have the good sense to die, and society is disgusted by them, it demands to fix them, and hide their wounds, all while the
“Krüppel ” lack the strength to object. For Döblin, this societal demand is damning for any attempt at a political solution to their plight and drives the wounded veterans toward evermore rash solutions to their own problems.
37 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 331. 21 Movement IV: Therapeutic Madness
Franz’s reliance on Mieze as his anchor and pivotal point for navigating his new world is cemented by the increased emphasis on their relationship. The narrative foreshadowing delivers a parallel message about the idea of sacrifice and guilt. The death of
Mieze leaves Franz to examine his character without an anchor and to confront his feelings of weakness head on. It is through this lens that Döblin chooses to examine the now fully-broken psychology of Franz Biberkopf and the psychological consequences of living in a society that has rejected him and the more significant consequences of him rejecting himself. Franz Biberkopf now becomes Job, and Döblin wants to explore if he will finally seek help by working against the societal pressures which have hitherto prevented him from doing so.
Döblin effectively uses a narrative technique to show the pivotal moment when Franz discovers that Mieze has been murdered by Reinhold. The accusation of Franz’s violent criminality sends him into a repetitive cycle of disbelief that he only snaps out of when he realizes that he ultimately betrayed Mieze. Döblin describes this challenge as Franz having
“einmarschiert”3 8 and he references once again the onomatopoeia of the battlefield. This reinforces Döblin’s earlier social commentary of the war taking everything away from the everyman Franz Biberkopf, but now he places the blame squarely on him for the consequences. This can be read as a more paralyzing internal monologue of guilt rather than a genuine condemnation.
Also interesting is how for the first time Franz truly interacts with the idea of a prosthetic.3 9 He wears one to protect his anonymity against what would otherwise be a very
38 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 431. 39 Baeyer, Der Lebendige Arm; Poore, Disability . The brief discussion of the prosthetic in the novel is particularly interesting as Franz avoids it until it is used as a mechanism of concealment. In this way, the prosthetic represents an integration into society, which is in line with many of the contemporary prosthetic designs that were deliberately crafted to functionalize the disabled person and return them to working society. However, in Franz’s 22 short search and arrest. Franz sets loose in this final chapter to avoid the law and get revenge on Reinhold He calls this revenge, “the last medicine in the world.” For Döblin, this is the logical conclusion for a man who has allowed himself to feel the societal burden of self-reliance so much that he cannot accept the help offered to him. While the pressures are a societal flaw, the response to them and the choices Franz now makes are more personal.
During the chase after Reinhold and the flight from the authorities Döblin introduces two characters who will be crucial for navigating Franz’s mind later, Sarug and Terah. After their brief appearance, Döblin cuts to a scene with a doctor, who suggests a change of scenery. This direct cut serves the implication that Franz was directly combatting these visions with visits to the psychotherapist. After the new “pauken und trompeten” theme, the novel dissociates itself from Franz and begins to tell the story of how he was arrested after a fight in a bar revealed his one arm. Döblin uses this literary tactic to ease the reader into the idea of literary madness, a tactic which he will exploit in order to offer his final remedy and condemnation.
After detailing how Franz was admitted to the mental hospital in Buch, Döblin decides to place the reader in a position sympathetic to Franz and begins to completely melt and dissolve all clarity. Döblin directly experiments with literature’s ability to understand the insane. His writings revisit word associations from earlier in the novel, at one point interspersing “wacht auf verdammte dieser Erde” among other commentary, including one where a man is reduced to the mental capacity of a Troglodyte. 40 Throughout all of this Franz
Biberkopf is in a state of paralysis and it is revealed that in front of him is the Whore of
Babylon and the Beast.4 1
case this integration is aesthetic rather than functional, suggesting a resistance to the exploitation of his situation, but acceptance of the necessity of concealment 40 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 473. 41 This is likely the finest expression of Döblins defense of Montagetechnik as his own 23 Döblin uses this madness and the literary establishment of Franz Biberkopf’s insane perspective to level another round of criticisms against the medical profession itself. He describes the way that Franz fought with doctors to die, directly expressing the opinions of
Franz Biberkopf when he says, “Ich bin für die Ärzte ihre Versuche da, und was mit mir los ist, wissen sie doch nicht.”4 2 He recounts Franz’s musings that the doctors wouldn’t let him die, even though hundreds die everyday in Berlin without access to such care. This irony is something that Döblin would have been personally acquainted with as a doctor to Berlin’s poorer communities.4 3
Lurking behind Franz's own perspective on his treatment is the disagreement between medical professionals over the psychological nature of his condition. The head doctor expresses derision at the Freudian ideals of psychological illness and tells the other doctor to look elsewhere for his experiments; they are not allowed to use electroshock therapy as it has been identified as “modern torture” since the end of the first world war. What is interesting about this passage is that although Döblin’s novel will eventually settle on a psychological model of illness for Franz Biberkopf, it is neither the psychoanalyst nor any other medical professional who will be responsible for Franz’s new life. It is something that Franz must want himself.4 4 This wanting and self-driven healing process is not only more Freudian than biological. It is almost a spiritual declaration about the nature of health and the consent to healthcare. Döblin uses Franz Biberkopf to explain what would seem to be a crucial principle of medicine: in order to truly be helped, the patient must be willing to receive it.
42 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 476. 43 Dollinger, Companion to the Works of Alfred Döblin, 121. 44 Becker, Leben-Werk-Wirkung, 269-271. Döblin rejected the dogmatic approach to psychoanalysis several times throughout his medical career and viewed its curative powers with skepticism. However, he had a distinct love for its literary applications and viewed literature as a source of profound discovery. Thus his triumph of introspection over electrophysiology should not be read as an endorsement of psychoanalytic theory, but rather as a poignant literary device which allows the narrative to deliver its message. 24 The novel’s dialogue descends into the catatonic madness of Franz Biberkopf in a way that not only eventually cures him but also explains a tremendous amount about the novel itself. Döblin uses this literary tactic to say out loud what he has been hinting throughout the entire novel. He blatantly says that after losing an arm Franz replaced the desire to be “anständig” with the desire to be “stark” and accuses Franz of being consistently ignorant to the suffering of others. On death’s door, Franz relives his memories, at the end of which is the following conclusion: “Was nützt alle Stärke, was nützt alles Anständigsein, o ja, o ja, blick hin auf sie. Erkenne, bereue. Was Franz hat, wirft sich hin. Er hält nichts zurück.”4 5
It is in this moment, precisely when Franz surrenders and ceases his opposition, when he is saved. Franz has allowed himself to die. He has surrendered his strength and his ideals and plans for being upstanding. The surrender is a personal decision that he makes to the bafflement of the medical professionals. After this triumph of death, surrender, and victimhood over the temptress Whore of Babylon, Franz recovers, his soul having followed its own necessary journey to rebirth. Döblin explores this idea that not all issues can be solved with diagnosis, examination and psychotherapy, and provides his novel with the power that while medicine may keep patients alive against their will, it is ultimately a spiritual choice that would result in the true psychological healing and rebirth of an individual like
Franz Biberkopf. What Döblin shows is that without a holistic understanding of an individual’s psychology and history, the relation between healer and healed can be one of stubbornness and resistance to treatment, something that ultimately does not produce the desired results. This can be because of depression and hopelessness, distrust of doctors and the position of power they hold in society, or an experience of social rejection caused by the stigma of being medicalized, Treatment must therefore be an agreement between the life-supporting measures of therapy and the desire of the patient themselves to restore a
45 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 495. 25 person to an otherwise soulless form. Moreover, in a society where disability is a byword for national shame and guilt, this psychological journey is even further confounded. For someone who has internalized these biases, it may be that the only cure for this social reality is a detachment from reality itself. The revived Franz Karl Biberkopf is no more or less subject to biases about his disability than before. Rather, he chooses to ignore the reality of those biases by finding an inner strength in the natural value of his life itself. This is something that, prior to being willing to lose it, he was unable to do.
Conclusion
Alfred Döblin was an author able to read the social tides in 1920s Germany like few others. Like several other prominent writers of the period, he was able to survive the horrors of the holocaust in exile, leaving Germany in 1933. 46 The social conscience required to speak on the subjects addressed in Berlin Alexanderplatz are not explainable with pure socialism alone. The rejection of socialistic optimism is something that Döblin would have been able to understand from the motif of the unwitting patient. It was something with which he was no doubt familiar. He chose to directly confront and examine the power dynamic in the patient-doctor relationship and to address how this dynamic not only breeds resentment, but can also how it can lead to a slowing of overall progress. The act of playing doctor throughout the novel has little to do with a genuine desire to improve another human’s life, but instead is more about the power exerted over those who are the subject of medicalization.
In such a world, the only hope for achieving some kind of peaceable resolution for a disabled former criminal is to remove himself from the watchful eye of the doctor and the psychologist through complete surrender to nonexistence and madness. This surrender is curative only because in it he releases his responsibilities to society and frees himself of the
46 Sander, Alfr ed Döblin Berlin Alexanderplatz, 164. 26 tremendous burdens of expectation. This is a condemnation of, or at least warning against involuntary medicalization. The greatest pains Franz causes in the novel are direct consequences of his attempts to remain powerful in the world despite his societally mandated powerlessness. This is a caution to society. If people did not accept the agency of their disabled neighbors, particularly the vast number of war-disabled, then the consequences would be a destructive form of madness.
27
Chapter 2 Fassbinder: Queer and Disabled Masculinities
Introduction: Fassbinder’s Magnum Opus
Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz has been called the magnum opus of the enfant terrible of modern German cinema. It transforms Döblin’s novel into a 14-part film series, just under fifteen-and-a-half hours, created in partnership with Westdeutscher
Rundfunk, the Italian television network, and the Munich Bavaria Studio. It starred Günter
Lamprecht as Franz, Hanna Schygulla as Eva, Barbara Sukowa as Mieze, and Gottfried John as Reinhold. It premiered in 1980 on West German television, only 4 years before
Fassbinder’s death.
Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz is an extensively critiqued film seen through a variety of lenses. A review of the secondary literature shows a fixation on the roles of masculinity, power, melodrama, and queerness. Justification for these lenses can be found in interviews with and commentaries by Fassbinder himself, who spelled out his interest in
Berlin Alexanderplatz and the queerness of the interactions between Franz and Reinhold.1
Thomas Elsaesser shows the impact of this queerness on the work itself, even going so far as to characterize Franz as a repressed bisexual, and Reinhold as a repressed homosexual.2 He demonstrates the sexual interdependence between Franz and Reinhold and compares this dependence with the dependence of Franz on Eva, who has an “Oedipal” like relationship to
1 Fassbinder, Filme befreien den Kopf, 83-84. Fassbinder wrote that although the relationship between Reinhold and Franz was not sexual, it was “eine reine, von nichts Gesellschaftlichem gefährdete Liebe” that he credits with helping him overcome the fear of his homosexual desires and helped him not to break down. 2 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 229. Elsaessar uses this comparison off the cuff in a string of “doubles'' referring to the idea of fertility and the economy of “symbolic exchange”. 28
Franz.3 Jane Shattuc expands on this conversation and addresses more explicitly the role of women in the series by placing the film’s use of melodrama and female victimization squarely in line with the broader body of Fassbinder’s work.4 What unifies these and other critical receptions of Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz is not only their assertion that
Fassbinder plays with the role of gender, but also implicitly the assertion that this series is no longer a story in which 1920s Berlin is a main character. While Fassbinder certainly draws on
Döblin’s aesthetic and his described depictions of the city for his use during the course of the narrative, the few cinematic acknowledgments of the time period in the film fall short of framing Weimar Berlin as its own complex, multifaceted time period, but rather place 1920s
Berlin as merely a troubling prelude to an ominous future. This reduction has the effect of transforming Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz into Fassinder’s Die Geschichte von Franz
Biberkopf wherein the characters of the story become primary and the setting takes second place, thus forming a more traditional narrative.
Rather than assigning Franz and Reinhold the roles of repressed homosexual and bisexual respectively, it may be more beneficial to understand the criticism of one of
Fassbinder’s biggest queer rivals, Rosa von Praunheim, and his suggestion that Fassbinder’s films are “self-pitying” and “depressive”. In an interview with von Praunheim, Lawrence
Mass lamented, “it disappointed me more than I can say that one of the greatest filmmakers who ever lived and who was gay couldn't find a way to be more explicit about the political and social oppression of gay people. He always abstracted specific issues into essentials of human relations … that our dilemmas are, in essence, simply the timeless and universal
3 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 229. Discussing the role of Eva bearing Mizza’s child, Elsaessar describes the provider relationship of Eva to Franz, and how her sexual desire for him is part of a “nonnal oedipal triad” of Eva seeking sexual satisfaction from the one she’s providing for. 4 Shattuc, T elevision, Tabloids, and Tears, 145-146. Shattuc compares the routine victimization of women in Fassbinder’s work to pornography, but also suggests its relationship to melodramma allows Franz to becom the melodramatic film as he too falls victim to patriarchal violence. 29
problems of human beings.”5 This tendency of Fassbinder’s to generalize the problems of gay people into “timeless and universal problems of human beings” is clearly evident in his reading of Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz manifest in his film.6 Even though there are a few explicitly gay interactions, they are isolated from the work as a whole and serve almost as a foil for the majority of the straight ones. Franz's reading of the one true love story in the work is a foil for his often complicated and unsuccessful relationships with women. Reinhold’s cellmate is a foil for his failed attempts at being with a woman and being a pimp to Franz while free. Rather than accentuate or focus on these queer stories, Fassbinder elects to, like
Lina, throw them back to their writers, instead focusing on the more “universal” themes that reflect his closeted reading of the work. Perhaps he thought these universal themes could challenge a straight audience without leading to their outright rejection. Rather than building a gay narrative, Fassbinder elects to queer a straight one, with the desired ends of tackling human problems larger than just queer ones. The primary way Fassbinder does this in his adaptation of Berlin Alexanderplatz is through an examination of masculinity, impotence and disability.
The significance of these themes for the research on Fassbinder’s film insists that the loss of an arm is equivalent to a “castration” of sorts. Elsaesser views this as the emasculation of Franz throughout the series.7 Eric Rentschler compares the visual appearance of the wound itself to a vagina, suggesting that this appearance itself contributes to the
5 Mass, Homosexuality as Behavior and Identity, 28-29. Interview with Rosa von Praunheim, short discussion about Fassbinder. 6 Fassbinder, Filme befreien den Kopf, 83. Fassbinder says that in his reading, “Franz Biberkopf und Reinhold sind keineswegs homosexuell” and even denies the explicitly sexual relationship between Reinhold and the man in jail. 7 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 226-227. He describes the loss of an arm as being the “provocation of the narrative” and suggests that it enables Franz’s reliance on women, but does not provide cinematic evidence for this claim. He suggest that Franz is able to “renegotiate the phallic mode of masculinity” 30
disgust Reinhold fields, further playing into his more homosexual preferances.8 What this discourse has yet to benefit from is a deliberation on contemporary German and international debates on disability advocacy and rights. One such consideration is the power dynamics of the “stickiness in transactional flow”9 against the backdrop of residual eugenicist tendencies during German abortion debates.1 0 By examining Fassbinder’s portrayal of disability, it will be possible to see the distinct role he sees disability having in the way gender dynamics are enforced, in general, and the compensatory way masculinity functions, in particular. We wil also recognize in the process his queer challenge to idyllic heteronormativity in spite of von
Praunheim’s misgiving.
I. Wielding Power over Women for Able-Bodied Franz
Fassbinder’s film demonstrates through deliberate juxtaposition and careful selection how inability and later disability reduce men’s capacity to enact their societal roles. As the wielders of power over women who in fact commit violence against women, these men exercise their power through the male gaze and nonconsenual touch 11. The film begins by showing an outcast Franz regaining his stride and reestablishing his ableness. Having been deprived of his masculine exercise of power in prison, Franz must first wield violence and
8 Rentschler, “Terms of Dismemberment,” 204. The first time Rentschler describes the wound as looking like a vagina, he relates it to Reinholds description as “eklig”. The second time (206) he suggests that it represents that “gap-filling” that women do in Franz’s life. 9 Davis, “Deviance Disavowal,” 121. Davis mentions here “the embarrassment of the normal by which he conveys the all too obvious message that he is having trouble relating to the handicapped person” something which aptly describes the discomfort felt by Franz during his discussions with Reinhold as well as with Reinhold during his discussion with Franz. The dilemma being, that one cannot call attention to the situation or ignore it. 10Herzog, “Moral Reasoning.” While this text relates more directly to the German abortion debate, the dated sentiment representing German ideas towards eugenics as attested to through this debate during the 1980s when Fassbinder’s work was being produced helps provide a broader idea of the public opinion towards treating disability as a minority class in Fassbinder’s time. 11 Rentschler, “Terms of Dismemberment,” 201. Rentschler discusses the “gaze” of the camera and the “reading” characters do, but this can also be tied to the understanding of the “the male gaze” in feminist terminology, in its application primarily to the women of the film. 31
total control over a woman’s body in order to regain this masculinity. This controlling nature is even reinforced by Lina, his first heteronormative relationship.1 2 After being destabilized and emasculated by Lüders, Franz’s sense of masculinity and therefore his relationships become untenable. It is only through the trading and passing along of women as goods - their objectification - that Franz can regain his masculine confidence to lead a relationship with
Cilly. Franz’s intense unreciprocated sense of alliance and homosociality with Reinhold serves as a prop, just as Lüders had served as a prop against the emasculation of unemployment. Unlike Lüders, Reinhold is, however, simultaneously using Franz as a prop for his disability, his stuttering speech. Disabled in this way from the first moment we encounter him, Reinhold provides a foil for Franz’s transition. Presented as a character obsessed with his powers of seduction and his control over the right to women, Reinhold’s weakness is his rewarding homosocial connection with Franz. When that connection is threatened, his primary recourse is to destroy the evidence of that connection by attempting to destroy Franz. Once again, violence proves itself to be the only solution to threatened masculinity. Franz’s disability in the second half of the story robs him of the tools to forge his masculinity. Rather, he becomes reliant on Eva and Mieze by retaining a semblance of his power through their submissive nature and through attempts to provide for them. Biberkopf is able to feel content in this relationship as a hetero- or bisexual man, but he still feels the pressures of both masculinity and ableist capitalism to get a job and work. Reinhold cannot tolerate this state of affairs, as he has lost the source of control over men that he desires dearly. Reinhold feels he must use his power over women to regain his masculinity and reestablish his power over Franz. This proves unsuccessful and after the death of Mieze and exit of Eva, Franz is finally able to reestablish for himself a functional career and an indeterminate future. Fassbinder uses film techniques to underline the importance of these
12 Fassbinder, Berlin Alexanderplatz. Lina throws the books back and they proceed to assault the book salesmen for daring to sell books with gay plots. 32
relationships by treating brutality against women with a stylistic indifference. The intensely invasive control Franz and Reinhold wield over women’s bodies is treated within the cinematography equally as flatly. This presentation makes the film’s audience uncomfortable to a certain degree. To this end, Fassbinder’s film aligns itself with the perspectives of Franz and Reinhold in the mistreatment of women, leaving the viewer instead to make problematizing judgments themselves. This presentation of the horrible as normal can be read as a critique of uncritical heteronormativity, as well as an exposure of masculinity as ultimately defensive in origin. It undercuts the purest cinematic ideals of the model straight man whose strength is unquestioned and whose masculinity is inherently unshakable.
Three scenes in the first part of Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz set the tone for this violent model of masculinity. The first interaction Franz has with a woman following his release from prison is with a prostitute. Franz is upset with his initial interaction, as the prostitute very readily controls the scene, demanding three marks before the interaction can commence. Thereon the interaction takes place on her terms and thus fails to give Franz any sense of reinvigorated masculinity, which he was deprived of in prison. Franz’s body movements throughout the beginning of the scene remain stiff and the prostitute takes the dominant role in leading the interaction, moving Franz’s body towards the bed, even though a voice-over indicates that her mind is elsewhere. Franz gets up and attempts to regain control.
For a moment, he commands the foreground, but this effort is subverted by the prostitute’s controlling touch, as she gropes him in a full shot (see fig. 2.1). She laughs at his apparent impotency and then the shot shifts where she assumes the foreground in a medium closeup
(see fig. 2.2). The rain in the scene and the general darkness are accompanied by an intrusive flashing light, a recurring theme throughout the 14-part film series. The audience is made to feel Franz’s current discomfort. She then begins to patronize Franz and her position and tone emphasize this; Franz remains stiff throughout the interaction as she begins to coddle him
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like a child and read from a magazine (see fig. 2.3). However, strikingly in this moment, the magazine passage is quoted directly from Döblin,1 3 during one of his digressions that medicalizes Franz’s impotency. This further highlights the awkward patronizing Franz receives from this prostitute due to his impotence. The last cut back to the prostitute shows her laughing voraciously at what just transpired. This diegetic laughter is echoed in the background of the next scene, implying that the effect of it on Franz is one of continual embarrassment, shame, and emasculation.
13 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 35. “Die sexuelle Potenz…” 34
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Shortly thereafter Franz seeks out Minna and enters her house. This second interaction is led by awkward extreme closeups. A gross sensuality ensues when Biberkopf plays with his tongue (see fig. 2.4); a countershot shows a clearly distressed Minna. As he walks around the house, he casts his gaze on one of her paintings (see fig. 2.5), that of a soldier receiving some ceremonial sword. The phallic imagery notwithstanding, this is also a reminder of Franz’s time during the First World War as well as a clear representation of masculinity’s relationship to violence. This shot is accompanied by music in contrast to the shots before and after, indicating that this scene is of emotional contemplation and significance. Minna walks in between and around Franz as the camera remains stationary, placing Franz squarely in front of the photo (see fig. 2.6), which further accents this association. It is in this moment that Franz is when handed his right to conquest and his masculinity. An angled-up shot showing the oral obsession of his tongue transitions to Franz grabbing Minna’s arm and beginning to mouth it. The distraught, hard-to-hear sounds continue until Minna’s mention of Ida induces a cut to an obscured frame behind a fish tank.
The horrendous sounds of a disgusting, panting Franz raping a resigned Minna are partially drowned out by a matter-of-fact, dry narration unmoved by the scene at hand. Minna’s inner
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monologue is read aloud and it ends when Franz hits her. This action is not dramatized further by the cinematography of the scene. Rather, no specific attention is paid to the immediate reaction to this violence. After Minna “acquises” to the rape, the camera switches to down angled and up angled close-ups with voiceovers. Franz’s is elated by the rape and then we quickly see a view of the obstructive fish tank accompanied by distracted narration, the heavy erotic breathing and slow string music. The final climactic contortions are shown and Franz begins singing a war song gleefully, exclaiming that he is “entlassen”, “wieder da”, and “frei.” In the background we see the painting from earlier. In his second exclamation
“Franz ist wieder da!” he demonstrates a thrusting motion, making it clear that he is referring to his sexual potency, and by extension his masculinity. Emasculated by prison and a prostitute, Franz has reclaimed his masculinity through the violent conquest of a woman, something the film treats analytically as a matter of fact without any emotion. The last line
Franz says in the scene, “Ich bin doch endlich wieder ein Mensch”, ties directly to Franz’s self-conception of personhood. This personhood prevails among those men who exact their will upon women. When they are able to do so, they believe they achieve personhood. This mentality is accepted per se by the film. The film nevertheless criticises this violent mentality by showing its brutality. It does not however provide any hope for remedying or correcting it.
With this rape, Fassbinder sets about ruining the contemporary ideal of perfect virulent masculine heterosexuality by presenting this clearly violent and brutal masculinity as an unquestioned norm of the plot.
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This violent scene leads directly to the most violent scene of the series. Using the cut to the picture of Ida, she is suddenly alive and the murder plays before the audience. The gore and tragedy of the scene is undercut once again by sober narration that reduces the murder to physics equations. These equations are displayed at the end of the scene. Ida’s last words and the nature of the interaction are shown in order to build the overall tension and development of the scene. The shots in the scene are framed in total shots with the exception of a few closeups of Idas face and one close up of Franz. During one of Ida’s closeups, she laughs, an act which directly precedes the beating. The gore of Ida’s bloodied face is real and tangible, but the realism of the scene is subverted because of the background narration.
Towards the end of the scene Franz’s theme begins to play as Frau Bast examines and presents from the viewer’s perspective the bloody reality of what just transpired.
The laughter in this scene parallels the emasculating laughter of the prostitute and the violence perpetrated against Ida is directly compared in the film to the violence Franz perpetrated against Minna. Franz, whose masculinity was threatened by Ida’s newfound independence, murders her to console his precarious masculinity and reassert his control.
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When a prostitute emasculates Franz by acknowledging his impotency, he goes to rape Minna to prove otherwise to himself. The first offer to interrupt this cycle comes when Eva enters.
Her entry is very quickly rebuffed by Franz who doesn’t want everything to be too similar to his life before jail. Eva’s strong, commanding, and parental presence is likely an additional motivating factor. Refusing Eva’s help will become, in part, a mantra of sorts for Franz’s masculinity until he becomes disabled. These displays of hyper-masculinity and violence are not only critical of masculinity in nature but they are also important for understanding the queering effect Franz’s disability will have by providing a point of contrast for his behavior.
II. Franz and Homosocial Relationships
Franz’s homosocial relationships throughout the series are important for understanding the film’s perspectives on queerness and disability. Franz’s intense friendship with Meck and later Reinhold are drivers of the forward motion of the series. In many instances, these relationships drastically change after the moment Franz is disabled.
Fassbinder reinforces the importance of these connections with shot-reverse-shots that show
Franz’s longing glances toward his homosocial partners. Franz represents a perfect avenue for
Fassbinder to examine the queerness of homosocial relations and to view the manner in which disability and feminization are met with either violence or acceptance.1 4 In contrast to
Franz, Reinhold’s masculinity is almost never satisfied, and he must constantly search for external validation through coercion and the objectification of women. Fassbinder exploits the “sticky situation” in scenes with Reinhold using close-ups and strategically decides when
14 Sedgewick, Between Men, 697-698. Sedgewick suggest a fundamental contrast between men’s homosociality as being intensely and innately homophobic, i.e. incapable of blurring the line between love and “for each other’s interests” Fassbinder’s reading of Berlin Alexanderplatz does not agree with this conclusion and explores the potential union for male homosociality and male-male love. 40
to isolate the stutter and when to mask it with music.1 5 These effects are used to build a picture of Reinhold where his stutter is not debilitating but still clearly impedes his character.
The objectivization of Reinhold is also shown using shot-reverse-shot. The backward glance of Reinhold also shows a disturbed acknowledgment of Franz’s surveillance. Reinhold is constantly on the defensive, and defends himself against intrusion, surveillance and the threat of emasculation. He reinforces his commitment to his masculine independence even as he fights against it. Fassbinder draws on those parts of Reinhold’s story where he seeks out and rejects cures. Although the repressed homosexual model in Elsaesser1 6 would explain
Reinhold’s fleeting attachment to women, his inability to get rid of those women is better explained by his disability. He is unable to completely form the words needed to dismiss these women. Their continued presence emasculates Reinhold and forces him to rely on
Franz. This forms a parallel with Franz who finally allows Eva to return to his life after his disability and becomes content with relying on Eva and Mieze for a time. The temporary nature of this relationship can be seen in Reinhold’s eventual aggression towards Franz and his resentment of him, as well as Franz’s attempts to circumvent Eva and Mieze’s protection by working for the Pums’ gang. Although Franz’s able-bodied masculinity relies on violence against women and the control of others, even a disabled masculinity, such as Reinhold’s and
Franz after his amputation must also make that reliance. It is these reliances, both on other men and on powerful women, that Fassbinder presents as queer by showing how the shambled masculinity of Reinhold relies on subjecting homosocial bonds to homosexuality, and how the ruined masculinity of Franz relies on a gender role reversal and acceptance of his feminization.
15 Davis, “Deviance Disavowal,” 128. Reinhold’s sympathetic stance to the topic introduced by Franz represents a deviance disavowal strategy which the narrative cinematography supports 16 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 228. 41
Parallels between the possessive nature of the first meeting between Franz and
Reinhold and the first meeting between Franz and Cilly are deliberately accentuated by the cinematography in Fassbinder’s series. In each instance, Franz and Meck’s conversation fades away as Franz’s lustful gaze pursues first Cilly and then Reinhold. The tinkling bell music accompanying their first meeting is almost a cliche with its suggestion of a flirtatious, feminine exchange. The cessation of the diegetic music is replaced by a palpable tension and ascension of the “sticky situation” with Reinhold’s impediment. But Franz doesn’t call attention to this and instead probes his powers of deduction and guesses that Reinhold has done time. Reinhold’s two point lighting also shrouds his face in mystery and his line of sight is clearly diverted from Franz by emphasizing a sense of feminine demureness or submission in this situation, (see fig. 2.7). This deliberately delicate and drawn out constructed scene places specific importance on Reinhold’s character from the time of his introduction. His
“seductive” and “devilish” qualities are accented but his weakness and fear are also central to his portrayal, as shown by his backward glance when first he notices Franz watching him (see fig. 2.8). Here Fassbinder clearly lays out and accents Reinhold’s impediment and simultaneously casts him for an object of Franz’s own desire, a “love-interest” of sorts for the protagonist. As has been conspicuously documented, this “love-interest” reflects Fassbinder’s reading of Döblins novel, in which he explicitly mentions the tension between Reinhold and
Franz as a central component of the work 17.
17 Fassbinder, Filme befreien den Kopf, 83-84. As above 42
One of the more deliberate acknowledgments of the homosociality between Reinhold and Franz is also one of the scenes in which Reinhold’s emotional vulnerability and impediment are most prominent. It is this scene that Fassbinder chooses to set at the urinal, a
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feature which is in and of itself a stark representation of awkward homosociality.1 8 Fassbinder codes the scene from the beginning in terms of a homosocial alliance and combines this alliance with Reinhold’s disability. This implies a central link between Reinhold’s decisions to lean on Franz and the homosocial “safe space” of the male gendered restroom. The audience and Reinhold enter the scene forced to endure the intrusive noises of Franz urinating before the plot is allowed to proceed. Franz is, in this case, subjected to Reinhold’s gaze, but unlike Reinhold, this gaze appears normal to him and doesn’t affect his behavior. Even when
Reinhold’s superior stature is present and Franz is subjected to the downward facing glare of
Reinhold he remains completely composed and independent, as (see fig. 2.9). This illustrates an uncharacteristic fearlessness in Franz that is enabled further by Reinhold’s “inferior” position as a stutterer. Franz feels like he’s helping Reinhold both in a homosocial manner, because of his associations with Reinhold as a fellow and ally, but also as a paternalistic figure who helps out of pity, which will become impossible after Reinhold exerts his power over Franz and reduces him to a similar state of disability. Reinhold’s sexual desires are also in play towards the end of this scene when he seductively leans on the door (see fig. 2.10).
While in this position, he gives his appraisal of the women and things he will be sending
Franz. Here Reinhold is crafted into a visual metaphor of the door-to-door salesman, who, even halfway out the door is still marketing his wares - women and stolen goods alike.
18 Barcan, “Dirty Spaces,” 13. That being an isolated space constrained for men alone, the boundaries and limitations of masculinity are tested in this space and “gender and sexuality are organized and policed” in the bathroom, 44
One of the scenes mentioned in both Elsaesser1 9 and Rentschler 20 is Reinhold’s inspection of Franz’s arm. This scene is one of several in which Döblin’s language is directly recognizable. The interpretation and staging of this scene however, are clearly and
19 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 227. Although the scene is described and expounded upon in the footnote, it is mentioned here as a “crucial scene” 20Rentschler, “Terms of Dismantlement,” 204. 45
completely of Fassbinder’s own doing. The low warm light and the introductory shots from behind a window paint a picture of a secret meeting between two men. This moment would not go unexploited by Fassbinder, who amplifies Franz’s discomfort and anxieties with a droning soundtrack and a slow, painfully awkward recitation of Reinhold’s desires. The execution of those desires is additionally a slow, painful process, captured in full, but obstructed by extreme close-ups of Reinhold and Franz’s wound. It is the only real confrontation during the course of the film that the viewer has with Franz’s disability and it is kept as an intimate, awkward secret between these two men. The awkwardness of Franz reclothing himself is also captured here just as the power imbalance that drives it is further accentuated. The close tension of the intimate exchange between Reinhold and Franz is then resolved when Reinhold moves away and begins ranting about how to solve this issue. His impulse to “fix” Franz2 1 and make him have an arm again is personal, it’s what he would do for his stutter if he could. His longing glances lean in toward Franz and his arm (see fig. 2.11 and fig. 2.12). In his attempts to subject Franz, Reinhold has still given Franz an injury he can fix. The audacity that Franz would be willing to live with such an emasculating impairment is deeply disturbing to Reinhold. Reinhold’s hatred of the disabled is clearly part of his own self-loathing as he willingly accepts Franz’s depressive acquiescence to his statement “wenn ich ein Krüppel seh’, dann sag’ ich immer dann lieber leichter ganz weg damit”.2 2
Fassbinder’s work is particularly interesting in this regard as this final interaction is unchallenged by the scene structure or characters. Reinhold is allowed to muse while sitting on his bed without any emotional gesture or consequence and the resolution of this “post coital shame” remains unseen. Reinhold re-exerts his control over Franz here, but even
21 Poore, Disability , 199. Fassbinder’s relationship to disability was called into question by Poore for his heavy reliance on tropes. Earlier in the work, Poore outlines the ongoing conflict between medicalization and “fixing” disability and those who are striving for acceptance and equity. It is therefore probable that Fassbinder is leaning into this trope favoring the prioritizing of “fixing” disability rather than accommodating it 22 Fassbinder, Berlin Alexanderplatz. Episode 9, 24 min 46
though Franz is “castrated,” Reinhold leaves disappointed, because Franz is more independent and accepting of his disability than Reinhold could ever be. This acceptance doesn’t come from Franz directly but rather from his stable support base among the strong women who allow him to grow even as he resents his reliance on them at times.
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III. Franz and Post-Disability Reliance on Women
In the Döblin novel, Eva’s entrance into the story represents a transition toward a new cast of characters who accompany the new Franz on his journey through Berlin.2 3 In
Fassbinder’s retelling, Eva is never truly absent and her presence is merely unwelcomed and
23 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 248. This is where Döblin introduces Eva into the novel, alongside Herbert, who plays a slightly more significant role in Döblin’s text. 48
a threatening reminder of a past Franz wanted to escape. Throughout the story, Eva is present and willing to offer help. Only after Franz has been completely torn from all stable footings does he finally seek this support. In fact, contrary to his previous engagements, Franz openly welcomes the intense control Eva establishes over his life in a short amount of time. Eva at once fills the role that Reinhold once occupied, and assumes a new appointed role as Franz’s defender.2 4 She even assumes sexual control over Franz that he consents to, but only barely.
This role reversal has the effect of queering Franz’s character by explicitly subjecting him to the manipulations of an empowered Eva.
The visit from the representative from Pums gang, Bruno, contains a great number of particularly interesting cinematic choices, namely the use of monologue, positioning, and shot size. It is in this scene where Eva is least herself and the least put together of any other scene. Her voice and opinions are clear but their presentation throughout the scene is far from clearly authoritative. These opinions are colored by impassioned shouting that is initially stifled by Franz, but she is ultimately heeded, even when she steps back from her protective role to allow Franz to take action. Franz’s ultimate non-performance in this act of self-defense cements his need for Eva’s guardianship. Outside of this scene, Eva resumes her friendly, even matronly control over Franz’s life. Throughout the first part of the scene, the backward-facing Eva is visible in every shot with Franz. Shot using a somewhat poetic positioning, Eva stands to his left, filling in a portion of the screen once occupied by Franz’s now-absent arm (see fig. 2.13). As Franz walks around the room, he passes behind her, placing her between himself and Bruno. These movements place Eva at the perfect location for the up-angled full shots that establish Eva and Franz’s reaction to Bruno’s hand in his pocket. This stage then immediately shows a very dramatized display of Eva walking out in
24 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 229. Fassbinder directly related Reinhold to Eva through the “supply of women'' and a “more phallic version of Mieze''. Elsaessar does not, however, mention disability as the cause of this supplementation, but rather views Eva as one of a set of “pairs'' set up in Fassbinder’s work as a set of foils. 49
front to protect Franz by taking a chair and standing directly between Franz and Bruno. She then collapses into hysterics. The scene then switches to close-up cuts between Bruno and
Franz, who then monologues and makes an attempt to approach Bruno aggressively - saying
“immer vorwärts, wir können uns retten”2 5 - but then falls in agonizing pain as Bruno, somewhat astounded, leaves.
This scene in particular is heavily theatrical and out of place in the overall logic of the film. The hysterics of both Franz and Eva call attention to Fassbinder’s curious interpretation of Döblin’s source material that suggests that the description provided may in fact have happened at a more rapid pace than in the time frame used to describe it. However, this highlights the scene as uncharacteristically theatrical through its willingness to modulate time. It is one of the few times where Franz’s disability seems to legitimately weaken him and also one of the few times that Eva is placed directly in harm’s way. We can therefore conclude that the purpose of this scene is to establish vulnerability, both of Eva and more significantly of Franz, that is a far step down from the relatively independent Franz who earlier in the film was only trying to be upstanding.
25 Döblin, Berlin Alexanderplatz, 260. One of many interesting paraphrases of the book directly into the text of the film. The words are the same but their order and tone is slightly shifted. “Wir retten uns schon. Wir kommen vorwärts” 50
Eva’s ability to provide for Franz is most clearly highlighted in her introduction of
Mieze to Franz. Fassbinder exploits the “sticky situation” in this scene directly prior to Eva’s admission of Mieze’s imminent presence. She is caught in a dance with Franz that she desperately wanted but is ruined by Franz’s dismay at realizing his new inability to dance as a lead with one arm (see fig. 2.14). 26 Eva does not truly realize this, but understands the failure afterwards. Her reminder depresses Franz, but it also clearly demonstrates her leadership in his life. Even without directly addressing his lack of an arm, Eva’s enjoyment of her newfound close kinship with Franz extends to her conception of Franz as the same person he was before his amputation. This conception is incredibly helpful for Eva, but also allows her to view the unusual amount of control she assumes over Franz’s life - such as providing him a partner, giving him money, and attempting to get him to father her child - as normal and well-meaning rather than a potential hindrance. Like Reinhold, Eva is vested in Franz’s sexual satisfaction. Unlike Reinhold, she also understands women and is capable of procuring
26 Davis, “Deviance Disavowal,” 123,125. This fits well both with what Davis describes as making the disability the focal point of the interaction, which construes the interaction as a faux pas, as well as what Davis describes as the ambiguous predicator. Eva’s invitation to dance may either have been a faux pas calling undo attention to the missing arm, or an ambiguous predicator wherein Eva’s invitation to dance was a courtesy made with knowledge of his missing arm but invited in spite of it. 51
a successful fulfilling relationship for Franz.2 7 Her command and poise as she walks to the window to wave Mieze up gives the explicit and implicit air of satisfaction as counter closeups of Franz reveal an amazement and slight terror (see fig. 2.15), as his worries about being inadequate for a relationship are eliminated completely without any effort on his part.
Without much preparation, Eva and Herbert leave Franz to his conversation with Mieze, having already chosen the time and place for them to meet. Having just been unintentionally insulted over his arm, Franz is naturally nervous about the arrangement, but the sense of helplessness allows him to gleefully succumb to this choice made by Eva.
27 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany, 229. Eva’s phallic desires for a child and control also play into her paying to have sex with Franz, which Elsaesser describes as being in direct relation to Fassbinder’s obsession with the power dynamics of prostitution and pimping 52
Even after Eva successfully orients Franz’s life around a woman of her choosing, the stakes for her have not risen enough. At the beginning of the scene where she has sex with
Franz, he says, “warum kiekst mir so an?” which parallels Reinhold's inquiry about the glances Franz gives him. Then, as the camera backs out to a full shot of the doorway, Eva quickly approaches Franz and kisses him before he has the chance to resist. Initially, Franz protests and tries to resist by asking about Herbert. It is of particular significance that Franz uses his remaining arm to cast Eva off, and she matches this by grabbing his arm with hers.
This leaves her remaining arm, her “upper hand” so to speak, to pull his head into hers for a kiss in the following close-up shot. In an interesting parallel to the rape of Minna, Fassbinder takes Eva and Franz to the floor together and holds the camera above a piece of furniture (in this case a table rather than a fishbowl) (see fig. 2.16), so as to suggest the sexual action underneath. The camera then pans down through the obscuring object to the scene of sexual partnership on the floor. In direct contrast to the violent disrobing of Minna that Franz perpetrates at the start of the film, Franz is now incredibly passive. Instead, Eva uses both of her hands to begin to undress Franz and to hold his head where she wants him to be. Unlike
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with the rape of Minna, the climactic close-ups segue to a return to the furniture shot. Then,
Eva abruptly leaves with no justification required other than that she wants to. This places
Franz even further in the place of Minna, as he is left in a close up and the viewer sees him contemplate the events that have just transpired.
Conclusion
Fassbinder’s illustration of Franz’s path - from rapist to the subject of female sexual desire, to the manipulations and subjections to Reinhold - paints a clear picture of the everyman as fundamentally weak and manipulatable. In contrast to Döblin, Fassbinder’s idea of a disabled man was not compatible with an everyman. The prevalence of disability in
1920s Germany was unrivaled. In his reading of Berlin Alexanderplatz, Fassbinder grasps for the universality of Franz Biberkopf and the “everyman”-ness of the story.2 8 In doing so, he suggests that the average heteronormative man is just as capable as Franz of falling from the secure perch of powerful masculinity to feminization and subjugation. This suggestion allows
28 Waine, Changing Cultural Tastes , 82. The idea that “the novel is akin to the chronicling of everyday life” or that the modern German novel was similar to a work of documentary journalism, can be seen in the Döblin novel but is far less visible to Fassbinder, despite his plea to tell “stories about people”. 54
Fassbinder to subvert the well-defined ideals of heteronormative gender roles and propose that masculinity is a fundamentally defensive position, one always in need of maintenance in order to restablish a totality of control that was never achieved or even fully possible. Rather than writing an explicitly queer narrative, Fassbinder takes a classic of German modernist literature and breathes new life into it, without substantially updating or modernizing its content, beyond extracting it from its close relationship with 1920s Berlin. He did, however, use film techniques and amendments to the novel’s structure to allow for a construction of a narrative that places chauvinism under intense scrutiny by allowing the plot to play out in such a way that contradicts its central premises. Men are no more or less masculine then they have ever been. Rather masculinity itself is fragile, unattainable, and always predicated on the economy of compensation, part of which is inevitably compensation for nonperformance and disability.
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Chapter 3 Qurbani: Disability and Racialized Bodies
Introduction: A Twenty-First-Century Berlin Alexanderplatz Burhan Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz searches to carve out its own space in the history of Döblin’s novel entirely - to capture the meaning of Berlin Alexanderplatz in a completely different setting with completely different rules compared to Fassbinder’s.
Qurbani’s film has, like Fassbinder’s and Döblin’s versions of Berlin Alexanderplatz before it, received a mix of accolades and criticism, including a nomination for a Golden Bear at the
Berlinale.1 Existing scholarly literature on the film consists exclusively of critical film reviews. English- and German-speaking reviewers have expressed at once an almost universal acclaim of the film’s aesthetic elements. One reviewer even named it a
“Meisterwerk”2 and another called it “almost inappropriately pleasurable to look at.”3 Some reviews, however, have been critical of the film’s relation to its source material by suggesting that the film represents an oversimplification of Döblin’s messier narrative.4 Other reviews address the emphasis that Qurbani places on the struggle of trying to be a good person in a morally ambiguous society. 5 Another common concern is the degree to which Qurbani’s film is successfully “contemporary” or whether the film is dragged down by its attachment to
Döblin’s novel. This is often addressed with particular regard to the role of female characters in the film,6 few of which are given agency and most of which function as props for the figure of Reinhold. Some of the stylistic elements that allowed Fassbinder’s adaptation to function
1 Killian, “Regisseur Qurbani.” 2 Rodek, “Berlin alexanderplatz, 2020.”; Rodek, “Ich bin Deutschland.” 3 Kiang, “Film Review.” 4 Schmidt, “Ein Roman nimmt Rache.” 5Young, “Film Review.”; Boehme, “Er Will Ein Guter Mensch Sein.” 6 Kiang, “Film Review.” 56
are brought into the Qurbani film, and have been questioned as potentially threatening the film’s “contemporality.” One of these is its strong focus on central figures at the expense of a potentially broader exploration of the contemporary milieu.7 However, these criticisms are shaped by distinctly colored lenses and do not suffice to analyze the film in terms of its unique accomplishments. What Qurbani’s film offers is a chance to view yet another, now contemporary interpretation of the role of disability in Döblin’s novel. Additionally, it allows us to examine the structures of the plot and staging that retell Franz’s story in terms of racialized bodies in twenty-first century Germany. I will explore these aspects of Qurbani’s film by first comparing the work to Döblin’s novel and examining the structural changes in the plot of Berlin Alexanderplatz. I will then examine the cinematic references in Qurbani’s film to Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and use this as a foundation to discuss the way
Qurbani plays with cinematic technique in order to emphasize his unique story of disability.
Finally, I conclude my examination of Qurbani’s film by elucidating its relationship to disability, race, and modernity.
I. Modernizing and Adapting Döblin’s Text Qurbani’s film makes several interesting choices regarding how to modernize the plot of Döblin’s nearly 100-year-old story. Qurbani has been quoted as saying that he first set out to make a film about drug pushers in Berlin’s Hasenheide and then found the story of Berlin
Alexanderplatz to help him explore the troubling German equation of “black = pusher”.8 In light of this, it is interesting how much of Döblin’s source material Qurbani keeps, and how much he recasts or eliminates that are outside the scope of his exploration.
Firstly, it must be noted that neither Fassbinder’s series nor Qurbani’s film make use of Montagetechnik in the way Döblin’s novel represents it. Döblin’s montages of life in the metropolis of Berlin that interrupt and detract from the overall plot of Franz are excluded
7 Kiang, “Film Review.” She suggests that “it sometimes feels like the four or five characters at the heart of the story are the only people who exist within the city limits” 8 Rodek, “Ich bin Deutschland.” Originally written as “Schwarzer = Dealer” 57
completely from both works. This directs their plots away from the city and focuses them instead on character. Unlike Fassbinder, however, Qurbani substitutes Döblin’s interruptions for scenes featuring the milieu of twenty-first century Berlin with Francis, his version of
Franz,9 present. He takes additional care to cinematically highlight the setting throughout
Francis' story.
For Qurbani, the Hasenheide is a far more significant setting than the titular
Alexanderplatz. While Alexanderplatz is referenced a few times with the image of Berlin’s iconic TV tower, the Hasenheide is the most recognizable location in Berlin where the plot actually takes place. Qurbani interrogates the contemporary milieu through the eyes of
Francis primarily in this park. Reinhold serves as a guide to this “new world” that Francis enters by painting a very clear picture of what happens in this park. Qurbani draws the viewer past groups of Black men on benches wearing fanny packs and sport clothing and sitting together. Reinhold then points out nearly every black man in frame and identifies their job in the drug ring. Even a drug purchase is shown directly. The exchanges between people in the park suggest that the buyers are primarily White, and the sellers are primarily Black. The most noteworthy scene, however, might be the one where Reinhold does not address a man who is being stopped and searched by the police (see fig. 3.1). The search is humiliating and entails pulling the man’s pants down while his mouth is held open and examined like an animal. This story, like many in Döblin’s novel, is left unexamined and its inclusion in the film serves to illuminate the setting much more than to provide any significant information about the characters therein. Later in the film, Qurbani takes the Hasenheide and uses it to show the scale of the operation in an intense chase scene where a now-disabled Francis flees the police with the rest of the pushers behind him. In both of these scenes there is a common
9 Although Francis is renamed by Reinhold to Franz early on in the story, I will be using Francis here to differentiate between the Francis of Qurbani’s plot and the Franz of Döblin’s and Fassbinder’s plots. 58
thread of White control over Black bodies. Reinhold’s treatment of the pushers underneath him combines with the reality of policing in this park, where a potentially innocent black man is stripped and held by the police in one scene and the heavy breathing of a police chase dominates in another. Franz’s initial role in this environment as a cook subordinates him to even the pushers. Qurbani makes this clear at the end of the scene when Francis is made to go back and warm the food again. Even as the scene demonstrates the tough reality of pushers in
Hasenheide, it also reinforces the idea that the only way to gain real respect is to participate directly.
Recasting is one of the most significant changes in Qurbani’s film and the choices made in this recasting have implications for how Qurbani orchestrates the role of race in
Berlin Alexanderplatz. Qurbani uses Eva and Berta to represent two sides of the idea of integration by recasting their roles from the novel. In line with Fassbinder’s own interpretation more than Döblin’s, Qurbani portrays the confidence and control offered by
Eva on Francis’ life as something that he initially resists, but returns to after the loss of his arm. The primary difference is that Qurbani’s Eva has a clear source of social power. She is a second-generation, fully integrated light-skinned Black German business owner. Her sympathy for Francis lies both in her attraction to him and in her allyship. Her power lies in her successful integration. This leaves Francis’ masculinity relatively pristine in comparison
59
to the ruined masculinity of Fassbinder’s Franz. Berta, on the other hand, becomes a more significant character in that her refrain, “die Transe, die Schwarz-Amazone, und der einarmige Bandit'' directly attacks the hope of integration altogether. While Francis is capable of delivering an impassioned speech about the ways in which he, too, represents Germany,
Berta is there to warn Francis that he will always be a part of the “freak show” and that even integrated individuals are not safe from this characterization.
Francis (taken from the French form of Franz) is the most drastically changed figure in Qurbani’s film. Aside from the shift in focus from the “everyman” to a Black immigrant, his character traits are also substantially different. Franz Biberkopf of Döblin’s novel is, particularly to modern readers, an altogether disagreeable character. He is a sexist, proto-fascist, self-pitying drunkard whose origin includes a murder which he supposedly did not intend, even though he did intend to beat his partner. Fassbinder’s portrayal adds to this his relative overweightness and his uncomfortable propensity for oral fixation. Qurbani’s
Francis is, by contrast, neither a murderer nor a particularly bad person. Although he eventually falls into robbery and selling drugs with the Pums gang, his initial attempts to be upstanding are not met with objective failure. Although Reinhold treats women as objects and invites Francis to do likewise, Francis is always at least partially hesitant and in general much softer, never coming close to the kinds of physical harm Franz Biberkopf committed. Francis is also cast as a fit, attractive individual, with no notable physical or mental flaws prior to the accident. The end result of these changes creates, for the first time in the retellings of Berlin
Alexanderplatz, a protagonist that the average filmgoer can easily and uncomplicatedly identify with. Moreover, Francis is rather eloquent in comparison to Döblin’s Franz
Biberkopf, as he is able to rely on his command of ideas rather than songs and cultural references. This intelligence was criticized by Kiang who suggests that Franz would know
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better than to stick by Reinhold.1 0 However, Francis’ decision to stick with Reinhold in spite of his better judgment is actually representative of the struggles many new immigrants might face when their support network and island of familiarity contain corrupting forces. The recharacterization of Francis and the allowances Qurbani gives him to be a relatively unproblematic, almost “good” individual allows for audience identification. This is necessary because unlike Döblin’s, Qurbani’s everyman is not, in fact, an “every”man.
The recasting of several characters and the restructuring of plot elements combine with a reinvigorated setting and different use of Montagetechnik to allow Qurbani to deliver a political message with his film. It directly addresses the difficulty of being “good” or
“upstanding” as an immigrant in a society where those traits are intertwined with privileges that are systematically denied to immigrants.1 1 What is however, of particular interest is the role that corporal control plays in this power dynamic. Qurbani takes the sentiments expressed in Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz and magnifies them by extending Reinhold’s control over Franz’s body beyond the loss of his arm. Qurbani establishes the idea that
Reinhold’s control over Francis is coerced by having Reinhold force Francis into taking part in his sexual escapades rather than leaving him a willing participant. Renaming Francis to
Franz, choking Francis for fun, and forcing Francis to dress in a racist ape costume, are additional ways that Qurbani’s Reinhold shows his dominance over Francis and his body.
Francis only subjects himself to this to find his leg up, to be able to become “upstanding” by gaining the prerequisite privilege. For him, that means having a German passport and enough money to support himself and a pregnant Mieze. This “exploit” at being upstanding is shown to be far more effective than Francis’ initial attempts at being upstanding as a worker, when his refusal to let a major injury go untreated costs him his job. The emphasis on the control of
Black bodies by White Germans extends to Qurbani’s reinterpretation involving Reinhold’s
10 Kiang, “Film Review.” 11 Rodek, “Berlin Alexanderplatz, 2020.” 61
responsibility for Francis losing his arm. In contrast to previous works, in which Franz views the loss of his arm as some sort of punishment and Reinhold silently accepts this, Qurbani shows Reinhold quick exuberance to give Francis that responsibility, demonstrating a white judgment over Francis, a self-justification for Reinhold rather than an self-pitying acceptance for Franz. Francis says “vielleicht hab ich das verdient, vielleicht das ist die Strafe”1 2 but
Reinhold is quick to confirm it and reinforces Francis’ doubt. But, unlike previous versions, it is unclear whether he is speaking about his relationship with Reinhold or his survivor’s guilt for Ida. Given his resistance to accept Reinhold’s initial judgment and the emphasis on the idea of not being able to be “loyal,” it would seem far more probable that it was the latter.
Qurbani makes it clear in this scene that people like Reinhold are perfectly content with exploiting the emotional and situational weakness of immigrants, even when those immigrants are otherwise incredibly strong. Perhaps the clearest meaning of disability in
Qurbani’s film lies in this idea. The only other disabled character in the film is Ottu, a version of both Meck and Otto Lüders recast as a Black immigrant who wears an eyepatch.
Like Francis, Ottu begins the film with a typical body type and becomes disabled at some point between his initial work place with Francis and his current position within the drug ring. Both Ottu and Franz have injuries caused as a direct result of White control over their
Black bodies and the exploitation of their situation. Their injuries are caused by the increased risk Black immigrants must endure in order to find a place in German society where they can be “upstanding” in the eyes of a culture whose standards equate moral “goodness” with fiscal privilege.
II. Dialoguing with Fassbinder’s Film Series The legacy of Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz weighs heavily on Qurbani’s adaptation of Döblin’s story. From casting to lighting to the selection of certain scenes,
Fassbinder’s seminal series plays a key role for understanding the narrative drive of
12Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz . 1 hr 40 min 62
Qurbani’s film. Qurbani’s complex film techniques take Fassbinder’s inspiration and modernize them, perhaps even more effectively than the director’s adaptation of the plot itself. The cinematic neon lighting, droning musical score and camera positioning and movement drive the emotional center of the plot by exploring Francis’ feelings of confusion, alienation, allyship, and hope that did not fit into the dialogue. Qurbani draws on the history of Berlin Alexanderplatz, both the novel and more significantly Fassbinder’s film, in order to place the story of a Black immigrant in Germany in the German literary canon and reinforce its presence by examining the ability of the classical canon to tell contemporarily relevant stories.
One of the clearest cases of Qurbani’s film directly referencing Fassbinder’s series is in the casting of Reinhold and Mieze. Reinhold in Qurbani’s version is the spitting image of
Reinhold in Fassbinder, and Mieze’s soft, childlike voice is a clear homage to Fassbinder’s casting decisions. This move, not only to cast the characters of Mieze and Reinhold as white, but also to directly tie their presentation to Fassbinder’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, serves to anchor the film in German cinematic history, while also casting native Germans as grounded in their historical context. While Francis, Eva, and Berta are all representations of the new
Germany “Wir sind die neue Deutschen,”1 3 Reinhold and Mieze are different versions of the interaction between a Germany grounded in tradition and history and twenty-first-century
Germany. Reinhold begins Qurbani’s film in a way completely foreign to the Reinhold of
Fassbinder’s film. It is almost comical to watch the spitting image of Fassbinder’s Reinhold looking around for refugees to work for him. Reinhold’s image is borrowed from Fassbinder to lean on his characterization as a member of the underworld. This emphasizes a White connection to the operations of Berlin drug rings and draws a connection for the audience to emphasize the continuity of underground crime in a city like Berlin. This cuts against
13 Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz . 2 hr, 7 min 63
audience biases associating migrants with the Berlin underground by reminding viewers that
Reinhold and the Pums gang were also thieves and assorted criminals in a time of desperation and stagnation. Reinhold represents the exploitation of Black and refugee needs in order to maintain an underworld that has, in some way, always existed in Berlin. He represents the maintenance of a criminal network that is run by and for White Germans.
Mieze’s work as a prostitute also cuts against any presupposed segregation between a
“pure” White German society and a Black, immigrant underground. Representing another disparaged profession, Mieze represents being “upstanding” without privilege. Contrary to
Döblin’s novel or Fassbinder’s series, Mieze never strays from Francis and remains an example of loyalty and dedication. In a scene made exclusively for Qurbani’s film, Mieze enacts revenge on a customer who assaulted her with Francis’ help. This scene sees her beating the assailant while Francis examines his colonial relics. Qurbani uses this parallel as a call to allyship. The harm this assailant caused both to Mieze and more broadly the victims of
European colonialism is mirrored in the character of Reinhold, who exploits Black immigrants, is arrested for almost murdering a prostitute, and murders Mieze. Mieze offers an example of solidarity between the downtrodden who have always called Germany home and
Germany’s new arrivals.
Qurbani also incorporates adaptations of film techniques used in Fassbinder’s series by creating cinematic parallels. Drawing inspiration from the flashing neon light in Franz’s apartment and perhaps also from the mass commercialization of neon at the time of Döblin’s novel, Qurbani exploits the dynamic lighting capabilities of neon to imbue his film both with a careful metaphoricity as well as a sense of neo-noir. The harsh, often dark environment of the city is contrasted with the reds, purples, and blues of the interior of clubs. The red filter in particular plays a central role in drawing parallels between the death of “Ida” (see fig. 3.2), and Francis’ situation; the neon cross in scenes where Francis is confronted with the bull (see
64
fig. 3.3), is coded with the same purple and blue light which mirror the light in Eva’s club, representing places of allyship and security. This signifier of genuine allyship is then subverted by the metaphor of Reinhold as the bull and thus alludes to Reinhold’s exploitative, fake allyship. Natural light is also filtered to provide the same effect. When Francis declares,
“ich bin Deutschland,”1 4 the yellow light behind him mirrors the colors of the Euros he’s holding. The scene is a mirror of the same scene at the beginning of the film with Reinhold
(see fig. 3.4). While Fassbinder’s series was criticized for being too dark to see,1 5 it may indeed be possible to suggest that Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz is eerily “too light.”
Although it retains the general mood of noir by playing with darkness and limiting audience exposure to sunlight - several scenes are set either at night, in partial overcast, or under some form of shade or grey filter - Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz does not hide from its audience in this darkness. Rather, it colors dim light specifically to match the tone and thematic positioning of the scene. By doing this, it splits narrative elements into categories and colors of experience.
14 Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz. 2 hrs 3 min 15 Elsaesser, Fassbinder’s Germany. 232. 65
66
Although Qurbani’s film is distant from the melodrama of Fassbinder’s series, it nevertheless retains an affinity for melodramatic music as a mode of emotional communication. Its film score is laced with recurring references to one particular song, “Piel” by Arca, that recurs throughout the film,1 6 and is played alongside sharp ringing tones and fuzzy droning. This suspenseful discomforting music morphs into slower higher ringing tones as the work progresses, but is interrupted at times by silence, diegetic music, and instrumental hip-hop, trap, or techno tracks. This continual droning emphasizes a sense of foreignness and foreboding not present in the mournful harmonica theme of Fassbinder’s series. Instead, it follows Francis’ perspectives throughout the film. Upbeat scenes with dancing and scenes that signal widening opportunities for Francis are accompanied by techno or trap, while other scenes when Francis is in danger or subjected to the will of others opt for more dizzying music styles. This dizzying effect is also copied by something completely different from any of Fassbinder’s techniques, namely drastic rotational camera movement.
The beginning of Berlin Alexanderplatz illustrates several of the film techniques
Qurbani uses to tie his work to Fassbinder’s as well as to distinguish itself from it. Together, this tension makes clear the different story he will tell. The film begins with a thick red filter, the camera upside down (see fig. 3.5), and diegetic sound mixed with a low drone. The drone is then interrupted by a high-pitch tone and a mournful soprano voice. As the scene develops, the camera rotates around an axis parallel to the ground and returns the view to the right-side up position. Qurbani employs dramatic angular movements in this scene to illustrate panic and confusion. He then vaults the viewer into the dramatic moment of Ida’s death without any clearly established setting or plot. This setup focuses the viewer on the emotions over specific details and discourages detachment from the events. The viewer sees only a drowning individual; they are in a state of discomforting confusion, and this parallels Francis’ own
16 Borcholte, “Kaltes Kartoffelherz.” 67
desperate disorientation in this moment. The temporary relief of a flashback is quickly overtaken by an unsteady handheld shot showing Francis walking ashore. Although the film is never again so ungrounded, this initial propensity for unusual angles is repeated in several later scenes that capture Francis’ perspective. When Francis loses his arm, several shots are filmed directly from an eyeline perspective that trace his delirious gaze. Similarly when the removal of his bandage leads him to collapse on Mieze’s floor, the camera collapses with him, showing him and Mieze straight on, who is also on the floor. This willingness to place the audience directly in Francis’ line of sight underscores Qurbani’s motive of crafting
Francis as a character of identification, by using techniques beyond his adaptation of Döblin’s plot. By following Francis’ face closely and moving with his perspective during key moments, Qurbani places him at the center of the audience's empathy. When Francis is confused and his head is spinning, so is the audience.
III. Old Stories with New Characters Although Qurbani may have set out to tell a story about drug pushers in Hasenheide, his Berlin Alexanderplatz is ultimately an adaptation of Döblin’s novel. The primary difference is, however, the substitution of the 1920s proletarian worker with a 2020s member of the precariat from the global south. Ultimately, Francis’ suffering is not substantially different from Franz Biberkopf’s; the only difference is the source. While Döblin’s novel targeted the industrial milieu and Fassbinder’s series targeted heteronormative culture and 68
masculinity, Qurbani’s film targets the moral ambiguity in survival and the systems of oppression that make immigrants appear “immoral” bý merely surviving. In doing so, it presents ideas of national pride, the body under capitalism, and the Black body as a subject of white exploitation that extend Döblin’s story into the present.
Qurbani’s film positions itself differently than many modern “immigration” films in
German cinema. It begins with an allusion to the difficulties of the journey to Europe, a popular topic in recent German “immigration” films that often focus on the perils of refugee travel and the institutional barriers to entry.1 7 But like in his other work, Shahada (2010),
Qurbani chooses to focus instead on the problem of integration. In stark contrast to the
“culture-clash” comedies of the 2010s, such as Willkommen bei den Hartmanns (Verhoeven,
2016), 18 Berlin Alexanderplatz tells the immigrants' story critically, pivoting away from tropes and assumptions about refugee’s cultural knowledge, command of language, and religious beliefs. This is made easier by retelling Döblin’s narrative. By grounding his plot in a canonical film and novel, Qurbani can selectively alter plot elements to demonstrate differences between native and immigrant experiences without isolating them from distinctively German experiences.1 9 Francis’ actions throughout Qurbani’s film not only mirror the actions of the German protagonist in Döblin’s novel, but are also partially believable actions of a migrant in a foreign country. Retelling Berlin Alexanderplatz allows
Qurbani to tackle subjects beyond those found in a typical “integration” or “immigration” film by addressing the same questions that were posed in both the original source and previous adaptations: Qurbani’s film can address masculinity, as it directly confronts the prostitute scene from Fassbinder where Franz is unable to perform sexually; It can address
17 Hagener, “Migration and Refugees,” 120. 18 Hagener, “Migration and Refugees,” 120. 19 Kiang, “Film Review.” This also received a fair amount of criticism. Kiang writes, “the immigration issue feels like an insertion rather than a fundamental addition.” 69
the question of morality and capitalism looming over Döblin’s text; and it can offer its own interpretation of what it means to be disabled.
Qurbani’s film has a particularly interesting relationship to disability when compared to Fassbinder’s series and Döblin’s novel. It takes from Döblin the idea of hiding the amputation in the scene at a slaughterhouse. This time, however, it is represented by a building, ostensibly in Africa, where Francis attempts to take a machete and slay a bull. But here he is instead restrained and slain by Reinhold who mysteriously appears. This metaphor of the bull is reinforced by the presence of a bull skull in Reinhold’s apartment. This bull skull is placed equally behind Francis and Reinhold in several scenes. This combines with different refrains of the slaughterhouse to suggest that both Francis and Reinhold occupy this role at different times. At the beginning, Francis battles the bull Reinhold but cannot slaughter him. By this scene, Francis takes the place of the bull and is slaughtered in its stead.
In contrast to the mechanized processing of cattle and sheep in the slaughterhouse, Qurbani opts for a much more personal association with slaughter. The industrialization of gore may not be displayed in Berlin in this instance but exploitation gore lives on through the figure of
Reinhold, who slaughters Francis in place of the bull. This scene is followed by a series of blurred, tilted scenes that offer an exposition for the details of Francis’ rescue and amputation. During this sequence, two of the most important lines regarding the relationship of the film to disability are delivered. They are, “Willkommen in der Freak Show” and “Die
Transe, die Schwarz-Amazone, und der einarmige Bandit.” 20 These lines, using the language of “freak”2 1 reinforce a parallel between being trans, being Black, and being disabled. This parallel helps explain Francis’ relative acceptance of his condition early on.
20 Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz . 1 hr 11 min 21 Poore, Disability , 97. Poore discusses the Nazi breakup of Freak shows and their replacement with a desire for the extermination of disabled inviduals. Before there was a suggestion that at least the freaks were somewhat independent, but after the Nazis, their medicalization and discrimination was codified and intensified.. 70
One of the more graphic scenes in the film before this moment of acceptance involves
Francis undressing his wound for the first time, unwrapping it and almost bleeding out. The shock and loss of blood from unwrapping his arm cause him to black out, and the film follows the discovery of his unconscious body by Mieze with an image of the unconscious body of Ida floating in red water. This parallel reinforces the idea that Francis sees his amputation as part of the cost of abandoning Ida and surviving rather than some debt to
Reinhold. Unlike Fassbinder’s and Döblin’s Franz, when Francis visits Reinhold he will almost succeed in choking him before stopping himself. From the end of this black out scene onward, the amputation causes Francis no particular weakness. He enters into his relationship with Mieze willingly, not because of his arm, but because he needs the help as an immigrant.
This difference illustrates how the idea of the freak show functions for Qurbani’s film. Rather than becoming a freak, Francis already was one according to the society in which he wishes to live. The costumes Reinhold forces him to dress up in show this. Even the fully-integrated
Eva is still a “Schwarz-Amazone” at the end of the day. In this sense, it is much clearer that although Francis feels a palpable survivor’s guilt, he does not view his new position as completely socially distinct from where he was before. When he gets involved with Reinhold again, he is convinced by the assertion that Reinhold respects him more than the average
German,2 2 even though Reinhold whispers all of the troubling lines about “Krüppel ” under his breath in the process, which Francis is capable of fully rejecting. What wounds him is
Reinhold’s assertion that he doesn’t know anything about loyalty, which unintentionally refers to the source of Francis’ guilt, his abandonment of Ida.
Unlike Döblin and Fassbinder’s Franz, for whom the amputation represents a “fall from grace” and an entrance into a different class of individuals - be it “ruined men” or the poor war wounded of 1920s Berlin - Qurbani’s Francis begins out of society’s grace. While
22Qurbani, Berlin Alexanderplatz . 1 hr 40:50 min 71
Franz was imprisoned for murder, he isn’t marked with that stigma; Francis is marked by a stigma from the very beginning as a Black immigrant in Germany. Although the loss of an arm is certainly a material hindrance for Francis, his physical prowess shows no diminishment, nor does he have any inclination to hide it beyond wearing a jacket. Unlike the
White Franz, Francis can mostly avoid the curiosity into his arm and the resulting burden of explaining it 23 because the public imagination is already flooded with assumptions about the brutality of migration. Francis cannot be made into an outcast, nor does his disability suddenly render him one, because he has been from the start. The model of viewing disability as a social issue, like race or gender, places the work squarely in line with contemporary views on disability that view disability as societally imposed rather than an inherent deficit of an individual.2 4 In fact, by acquiring a German passport, and a German girlfriend, as he states in his speech, Francis becomes more integrated by acquiring wealth and privilege, in spite of his amputation. The ending of the film, which had been disparaged by multiple critics as
“able to be discounted,” 25 conveys the hope of integration in the form of Franz and Mieze’s daughter that Mieze posthumously gives birth to. Although Franz, Eva, and Berta may continue to exist at the outer edges, the daughter represents a hope for a new Germany where
Francis’ proclamation of “ich bin Deutschland” can become fully realized, for queer, Black, and disabled Germans alike.
Conclusion Qurbani’s attention to milieu in Berlin Alexanderplatz is useful for capturing one of the lost facets of the original work, its contemporaneity. While retellings and rereadings of
23 Davis, “Deviance Disavowal,” 123. Francis avoids the handicap as a focal point of social interaction, only because the biases of race precede the mediation of a social interaction on those grounds at all. 24Poore, Disability , 276. One particularly notable from this section quote is, “disabled people actually wanted and tried to be a part of society but found that society constantly rejected and excluded them.” 25 Young, “Film Review.”; Kiang, “Film Review.” Kiang used the phrase “deeply inadvisable” 72
the story must hark back to Döblin’s novel and certainly Fassbinder’s film series as a historical fiction, Qurbani’s film can be read both as a contemporary work of fiction and as a demonstration of the parallels between the present and 1920s Germany. Qurbani’s film captures the narrative of Berlin Alexanderplatz in a twenty-first-century setting that accommodates these parallels. The feelings of urban alienation, societal othering, and moral ambiguity that plagued 1920s Berlin and its proletarian underclasses still disproportionately plague those outside of the privileged of the first world in modern times. Although some ableist feelings towards amputees have changed, individuals with disabilities nevertheless remain subject to judgment, speculation and exhibition. The hope of Berlin Alexanderplatz lies in continuity: that even through tragedy and loss, life carries on, even for abnormal people and atypical tragedy. Berlin remains, as it was, a city of many ideas, moralities, and abnormal people looking for “ein anständiges Leben” amid an uncertain future. More specifically than in Fassbinder or Döblin’s, Qurbani’s epilogue allows us a small bit of hope in the form of a child, a hope for an integrated future where belonging, escape from alienation, freedom from the ideals of masculinity and strict heteronormativity, and an end to
White subjugation of Black bodies are possible. A hope for a new day in Berlin, as Qurbani’s film ends, with Francis dressed up in “upstanding” attire, in a new Berlin Alexanderplatz.
73 Conclusion
The three stories of Berlin Alexanderplatz allow for a critical examination of the cultural attitudes towards disability and the tandem cultural issues it intersects from the
Weimar Republic into the twenty-first century. Döblin’s novel deals with the difficulty of curing a patient depressed by society and highlights the barriers to reintegration disabled people experienced following the First World War. This seminal modernist novel challenges the reader to examine the societal reaction to disability beyond simply the purely medical response. In fact, it places the field of medicine in question by exposing the limits of its curative powers. Fassbinder then takes disability and maps it onto the politics of gender.
Implicit in Fassbinder’s retelling of Döblin’s story is the erosion of masculinity. Fassbinder’s
“ruined men” allow the film to explore the limits of homosocial interaction by queering them at the boundaries of society. Finally, Qurbani uses the disability of black and brown migrants to show the exploitation of migrant bodies for the profit and benefit of white Germans. This alienates the disabled characters in his film from the support systems available to white
Germans and reintroduces the challenges experienced by Döblin’s characters. The societal devaluation of disability intersects the societal devaluation of black and brown bodies. This cultural model of Berlin Alexanderplatz provides interesting clues to how Fassbinder and the
German public felt about disability in the early 1980s. It suggests that for Fassbinder’s interpretation to have societal resonance, the comparison of ability and gender must have been acceptable and understandable. Qurbani’s film likewise suggests that a comparison of race and ability is acceptable to modern audiences, likely through an understanding that their oppression is societal. The cultural model also provides clues into the response of reviewers, who barely mention disability and do not acknowledge the film as disability representation.
74 There are two primary barriers that prevent Berlin Alexanderplatz from being characterized as a “positive” representation of disability. Firstly, the story is guilty of turning disability into a functional part of the plot. This criticism is present in modern discussions of representation for a variety of minority groups. The ultimate goal of representation is to create art that represents, without being about the features that distinguish the target population from the “normal.” Even Qurbani’s Berlin Alexanderplatz does not attempt this type of representation with race. For disability, each of the adaptations preserves a specific difference for Franz that separates him from the “normal” protagonist that originates from his disability: subjection to medicine, feminization, racial patronization. However, the multifaceted and intersectional nature of the stories do relieve them of an overt focus on disability as a central component of the narrative - even if it is often overlooked. This “silent” representation simultaneously achieves the goal of representation without obsession, but fails to provide any forward motion towards perception and the empathetic acknowledgment of disability. This combines with the ringing repeats of the word “Krüppel ” echoing from
Döblin to Fassbinder to Qurbani: a term which - given the nature and context of its use - functions as a slur. Qurbani’s choice to limit the use of this word to the antagonist in his film represents a subtle acknowledgment of the potential damaging power this word has. His portrayal of Francis as a morally clean protagonist is almost too sanitized. What this shows is that while disability is represented in Berlin Alexanderplatz its representation is shaped and limited by the advocacy of the times. This limitation allows us to advance interpretations of
Döblin, Fassbinder, and Qurbani as benchmarks, not of authentic representations of disability, but rather of the often distorted perceptions of disability by able-bodied people. The continued interest in Döblin’s story and its retellings provides some hope that someone may come along to give this story yet another new perspective, with disability at the forefront,
75 unfunctionalized and explored from an intimate perspective. Only time will tell if such things lie in the next 100 years of Berlin Alexanderplatz.
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