Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) s01e04 Episode Script

together with major contributions by many others, present: Based on the novel by Alfred DÃblin a film in 13 parts with an epilogue Well, Biberkopf, is there a problem? No, no.
I just ran out of beer.
I must get some more.
Yes, the beer.
Will I get my milk now? Or am I to kick the bucket first? There she goes again.
All day long.
Nothing else on her mind than to bug a guy.
She used to be a good woman.
How a person can change.
Nothing in her head but bugging a guy.
Your milk will be ready right away.
Hello, Mrs.
Greiner.
Hello, Mr.
Greiner.
I need a fresh supply again.
Mr.
Biberkopf.
You do go through it quickly.
When you need something, you need it, right? How right you are, Mr.
Biberkopf.
How right you are.
You can give me a bottle right now too.
Just for the hell of it.
Sure.
I'm afraid we're out of schnapps.
We've run dry.
And all old Greiner does is booze and snooze.
What should your husband do now that he's out of work? Most guys just hang around nowadays.
How right you are, Mr.
Biberkopf.
That's just what I think.
One thing I don't understand is what they live on over there.
Where? In the shoe store over there.
Four big display windows, everything tiptop.
But I've never seen any customers in there.
And they've employed six girls to serve as well.
That is, if there are any customers to serve.
At 80 marks a head a month.
And maybe when they're old and gray, they'll earn 100.
The shoe store belongs to old Mrs.
Grillmann.
In the past, it was all quite normal.
The windows weren't so big.
It wasn't so pretentious.
Then she married the manager.
Since then, she's slept in the back and she's having a bad time.
He's a good-looking guy.
He made the shop what it is, but he's not yet 40.
And that's the root of the trouble, Mr.
Biberkopf.
Sometimes he comes home late, and she's lying awake.
She's so annoyed, she can't sleep.
That's what you get for marrying a guy younger than yourself.
-Cheers.
-Cheers.
IV.
A Handful of People in the Depths of Silence The importance of fats in nutrition: Fat covers bone protuberances and protects against pressure and impact.
That's why emaciated people complain of pains in their feet when they walk.
Give us another bottle.
Him as well.
One beer's no cheer.
-No.
One beer's no cheer.
-You can't stand on one leg unless one was shot off in the war, but that's not natural either, is it? Well And next to the lawyer there are two fat married couples.
the brother and his wife and the sister with her husband.
They've got a sick girl.
And next to them lives a young baker with his wife.
She's an opera-- An operator.
Yes, an operator at a printer's.
She's got an inflammation of the ovaries.
He told me so.
Oh, yeah? She's got an inflammation of the ovaries.
Women.
What do the two of them get out of life? Well, they've got each other.
And last Sunday, they went to a stage show and a movie, and sometimes their club meeting, and visits to his parents, and Is that all? As if that weren't enough, Mr.
Biberkopf.
Not to mention fine weather, and bad weather, standing by the stove, eating breakfast and so on.
What do you have from life, and all the others, the captains and generals? What does anybody have from life? Let's not kid ourselves! And right above them lives the lawyer, Loewenhund, a real skinflint.
He's got a cleaning woman who sweeps the floor in his waiting room.
He's too cheap to get a vacuum cleaner.
And the guy's not even married! The cleaning woman scrubs and cleans.
She's terribly skinny, but really supple for someone who's had two kids.
Yes, Mr.
Biberkopf, that's stinginess for you.
I refute the assumption made by the district court that wild rabbits in the Grand Duchy of Saxony Altenburg may be regarded as fair game for hunting.
And in the rear block lives a waiter with his wife.
Nicely furnished.
a gas chandelier with glass pendants.
He's at home till 2.
He sleeps and plays the zither.
His wife works in a department store as a supervisor or something, or so she says.
He's been married before, but his first wife must have cheated on him something terrible.
She always managed to console him and make it up.
But in the end he left her.
In the divorce proceedings, he was found to be the guilty party because he'd run away.
He couldn't prove she'd cheated on him.
Then he met his present wife who was looking for a man.
You know what I mean? It's always the same.
She's the same type as his first wife, exactly the same, only a little smarter.
He doesn't notice it when she cheats on him.
--it was not possible.
Full stop.
I firmly hope to be able to visit you next Wednesday and ask you to be patient until then.
Sincerely yours Dear Mr.
Tollmann: Concerning your daughter's case, I have to request further fees amounting to 200 marks.
Payment in installments would be acceptable.
And above them, right next to you at Baumann's place, is where we live.
Greiner here does the administration as well.
He's okay really.
He curbs his drinking, but sometimes he really lets himself go.
"The security companies guard everything.
They walk around here walk through the place, keep an eye on things, put in clocks, burglar alarms.
Guard duty and security service for greater Berlin.
German Security Service, Greater Berlin Security Service, and former Security Division of the Proprietors' Association of Berlin Landowners, United Management, Security Headquarters of the West, Security Company.
" "Sherlock Holmes' collected works by Conan Doyle.
Watching service.
Washing service.
Apollo Laundry Rental.
Adler Laundry for handwashed garments and underwear, specialists in gentlemen's and ladies' fine underclothes.
" --personal liability for diseases: Higher Regional Court, Frankfurt, 1C5.
The acceptability of sexual intercourse for married men may be subject to less criteria.
Legally speaking, however, one has to admit that a personal liability does exist.
That extramarital intercourse, as Staub says: "is an extravagance which entails certain risks", comma, "and anyone indulging in this extravagance", comma, "has to bear the risks.
" In conformity with this ruling, an infection from extramarital intercourse on the part of a person with obligations arising from his terms of employment as an act of gross negligence Excuse me, lady, but Yes? Well It's just that I don't know You see You come in here and What do you mean? Is something wrong? You winked at me, didn't you? Sure I may have winked at you, but Does that mean you don't want to? Oh, great! First you wink.
Then you chicken out.
Oh, what do I care? Limp dick! And on the second floor, here's an old guy.
He's 64, a furniture polisher.
He's bald.
His daughter's divorced.
She looks after his household.
See him coming out every morning.
He's got heart trouble.
I can see it.
He drinks a shot of liquor here occasionally.
He'll have himself put on the sick list soon: "Coronary sclerosis", he said, and "myodegeneratiocordis".
I remember the words, even though they're so hard.
He used to be a sculler apparently.
But what can he do now? Read the paper in the evening and light his pipe, while his daughter gossips in the hall.
She's a real gossip.
It must have been me.
What a guy carries around with him in his stomach.
Cobwebs in a grey corner.
Can't catch any mice either.
Want to drink water.
Whose business is it what I do? Whose business is it? If I want to sleep, then I'll sleep till the day after tomorrow without moving.
And if I feel like lying around till the day after tomorrow, then I'll lie around.
Whose business is it? Whose business is it what I do? Yeah? I heard you vomiting last night.
It sounded terrible, but I thought in the night there was no way I could help you anyway.
So I didn't come.
First of all, you idiot, what right do you have to say anything to me? Secondly, if I choose to stay in this stinking hole from 8 to 12, whose business is it? Don't worry about it.
I'll clean it up.
I'm used to that from the war.
I was a medical orderly.
I had to clean up worse things than that.
It really doesn't bother me.
Did you lose your heart to nature? I didn't lose my heart there, but I felt as if a primeval spirit were trying to tear me forth, when I stood face to face with the Alpine giants, or lay on the shore of the roaring sea, for it surged and seethed in my bones.
My heart was in tumult, yet I lost it neither there where the eagle nests, nor where the miner probes in hidden veins for ore.
Where then? Did you lose your heart to sport? In the roar of the Youth Movement? In the turmoil of politics? I didn't lose it there.
So you haven't lost it anywhere? Are you the type of person who doesn't lose his heart anywhere, but keeps it for himself, conserves it clinically, mummifies it? Are you saying death is the end of everything? "Is belief still possible? Tuesday: Can people change themselves?" Wednesday: Who is righteous in God's eyes?" Good day, Reverend.
I'm Franz Biberkopf, a worker, a casual laborer.
I was a furniture mover, unemployed.
I wanted to ask you something.
How can I stop my stomach pains, heartburn, acid indigestion? Here it comes again! Noxious bile! It comes from drinking a lot.
Excuse me for accosting you like this on the street.
Am I keeping you from your work? But what can I do about this horrible bile? One Christian has to help another.
You're a good person, but I won't go to heaven.
And why? If criminals exist, I can tell you all about them.
Loyal and true, we swore it to Karl Liebknecht.
We stretch out our hands to Rosa Luxemburg.
I'll go to paradise when I die, and they'll bow down before me and say: "That's Franz Biberkopf, loyal and true, a German.
Does odd jobs, loyal and true.
High flies the banner, black, white and red.
But he kept it to himself.
He didn't turn to crime like the others who want to be Germans, and who cheat their fellow citizens.
" If I had a knife, I'd stick it in his gut.
Now it's your turn to run to the preacher, my boy.
Boy, oh, boy! Go ahead, if you think it's fun and you can still squawk.
Loyal and true.
I'll not have anything to do with it, Reverend.
It's not for me.
Scoundrels don't even belong in prison.
Not even in prison.
I've been to prison.
I know it inside out.
First-class merchandise.
A great opportunity.
There's no two ways about it.
It's no place for scoundrels.
Two times two is four.
Two times two is four.
There's no two ways about it.
Here you see Here you see a man Excuse me, but I've got such stomach pains.
I must control myself.
Water! Water! Water! Water! -Here.
-Thanks.
You've been lying there like that for three days, flailing about and shouting, sobbing and groaning.
If you only knew what came out of you: all the sweat and wild thoughts.
I've been like this for days? For days? Days on end.
I was thinking of having you taken away, or getting a doctor.
But I've always believed it's better to let a guy decide for himself what's good for him.
Yeah, you're right.
So, for days.
Boy, I must really have been plastered, huh? I don't know.
It wasn't just the alcohol.
There was something else too.
Bullshit! What else? I just drank too much, that's all.
I simply boozed too much.
I've got to go down and mingle with the people in the street, stretch my legs.
One foot in front of the other, then the other one in front of the first.
That's the answer! Franz Biberkopf, strong as a cobra, but unsteady in his legs, went to the Jews on Muenzstrasse.
The man wants to put his house in order to sort things out.
Here we go again, Franz Biberkopf.
Cold, but fresh! Who'd like to stand in a hallway now, be a street vendor with frozen toes? Loyal and true! It's good to be out of the parlor, not to have to hear the women shrieking.
Here comes Franz Biberkopf, walking down the street! People do the best they can.
They've got kids at home, hungry mouths, gaping like birds' beaks.
Open up and shut again.
Open and shut.
Shut.
Open.
Open.
Shut.
Excuse me, sir.
I'm very sorry.
It's just that the roofs might begin to shake, to swing and shake.
They might slip down Iike sand, Iike a cap from your head.
Why, they're all All aslant, sloping over the roof timbers, all in a long row.
Nothing can happen.
They're nailed down, with strong beams underneath.
And there's roofing felt and tar Strong and true stands the watch The watch on the Rhine Good morning, Franz Biberkopf! Upright we stand, chest out, back straight.
We're German citizens.
That's what the prison warden said.
Good morning, sir! The people walk so quietly down the street.
The coachmen unload their goods.
Officials inspect the houses.
There comes a call Like thunder's roar Like clash of swords Well, then, we can walk along here too.
The guy with the brown wool jacket, I know him.
I'm sure I know him.
He's got work.
Well, we can do that as well.
Later.
You hold it with your right hand, pull it up, hold it tight, then down it comes.
That's working people for you.
That's us, the proletariat.
Up the right! Down the left! Up the right! Down the left! Man's fate is like that of the beasts.
Just as they die, so does he.
A great white bull is driven into the slaughterhouse.
Open before it.
The hall of blood, with sides of meat with quarters and chopped-up bones.
The great bull has a broad forehead.
With sticks and blows, it's driven to the slaughterer who hits it lightly on the hind leg with the flat of the ax.
A drover seizes it around the neck from below.
The animal stops, yields with a strange ease, as though it consented, now that it has seen everything and knows this is its fate, and there's nothing it can do.
Maybe it thinks the drover's movement is a caress.
The man looks so friendly.
It yields to the drover, who pulls it on.
It tilts its head to one side, mouth upward.
The knife plunges into the white bull's throat.
Reddish-black, the blood gushes out over the knife, over the slaughterer's arm, exultant, hot blood.
The moment of metamorphosis: from the sun your blood came.
The sun hid itself in your body.
Now it comes forth again.
The animal gasps dreadfully, as if it would suffocate, wheezing and rattling.
When Job had lost everything, everything a person can lose, neither more nor less, he lay in a cabbage patch.
Job, there you lie in a cabbage patch.
Ha, ha! Just far enough from the doghouse so that the watchdog can't bite you.
You can hear its teeth gnashing.
The dog barks, comes one step nearer.
When you turn around, begin to stand up, it growls, tears at its chain, leaps forward, slavering and snapping.
Job, there is the palace and the gardens and the fields that once were yours And the cabbage patch in which they threw me, I didn't even know about it, nor the goats they drive by in the morning, which pass close to me, tugging at the grass and chewing on it, stuffing their cheeks full.
All that belonged to me.
Job, now you've lost everything.
You may crawl into the shed at night.
-Yes.
-People are afraid of your sores.
Radiantly you rode through your lands, and the people thronged around you.
Now, before your nose, there's a wooden fence with snails crawling up it.
-Oh, yes.
And you can study the worms: They are the only creatures who do not fear you.
Your scabby eyes, you heap of wretchedness, you living morass, only now and then do you open them.
What torments you most, Job? The loss of your sons and daughters? The fact that you possess nothing? -No.
That you're cold at night? Or is it the sores in your throat, on your nose? What is it, Job? Go away! Open your eyes as wide as you can.
You want to drive me crazy, to take away my thoughts as well.
And if you did open them, would it hurt? I don't want Although your thoughts cause you endless suffering, you don't want to lose them.
No one need waste prayers on me when I'm dead.
I'm poison for the earth.
When I pass, people have to spit.
You can't open your eyes? They're glued shut.
They're glued shut.
You lament because you're lying in a cabbage patch, and all that's left to you is the doghouse and your sickness.
I have no strength left, that's it.
I have no more strengthto hope.
No desires.
I have no teeth anymore.
I've grown soft.
I'm ashamed.
That's the most terrible thing.
It's written on my forehead.
The game is mine! That's what makes you suffer most, Job.
You don't want to be weak.
You'd like to resist, or you'd rather be full of holes, your brain gone, your thoughts gone, wholly beast.
Seventy-three.
Forty-seven.
Heal me if you can.
Whether you're God or Satan, an angel or a man, heal me.
You'll accept healing from anyone? Heal me! Maybe my price is high and terrible.
Heal me.
I am Satan.
Heal me.
And if I am Satan, how will you settle with me? You don't want to heal me.
No one wants to help me, neither Satan nor God, no angel, no man.
-And you yourself? -What about me? -You don't want to help yourself.
-What? Who can help you if you don't want to help yourself? No, no, no God and Satan, the angels and men: They all want to help you.
But you don't want it.
God, because He loves you.
Satan, to possess you later.
The angels and men, because they are God's and Satan's helpers.
But you don't want it.
No, no! God and Satan, the angels and men want to help me? Nobody wants to help me.
No.
No! Just calm down.
That's right.
You're a good beast.
You know it has to happen.
Stockyard, slaughterhouse and market form an indivisible economic unit, with 258 officials, including vets, inspectors, branders, and their assistants, permanent employees, laborers.
Regulations dating from October 4th, 1900, general provisions, entry regulations, fodder supplies.
Scale of fees: market, pen and slaughtering fees.
Fees for the removal of feeding troughs from the pig market.
Seventeen times three is 51.
Things are getting expensive.
It's becoming harder and harder to calculate and tougher to keep up with the competition.
On this day, his first sores healed.
The sun rises and sets.
The days grow brighter.
Baby carriages on the streets.
February 1928.
Franz Biberkopf continues to drink in his loathing of the world, in his discontent.
He drinks all he has, come what may.
He wanted to lead a decent life, but there's so much scum around he wants nothing to do with the world anymore.
And even if he's a bum, he'll drink his last penny away.
And on the second floor, here's an old guy.
He's 64, a furniture polisher.
He's bald.
His daughter's divorced.
She looks after his household.
See him coming out every morning.
He's got heart trouble.
I can see it.
He drinks a shot of liquor here occasionally.
He'll have himself put on the sick list soon: "Coronary sclerosis", he said, and "myodegeneratiocordis".
I remembered those words, even though they're so hard.
It's me, Franz.
You? My God! Turn out the light, please! Please, please, please, please! How did you find me here? I've known for a long time you were here.
I always knew where you were.
But now I thought: "There's just no end to it.
" So I thought I have to help you.
I don't need anyone's help.
I'll help myself.
My God, Franz, you know very well You know very well I still love you.
And now that lda's not around anymore, why don't you come back to me? Try to get it into your head: I don't want a woman earning money for me anymore.
I don't want anyone walking the streets for me.
I swore it.
Do you understand? And even if it's full Even if the world's full of meanness, full of filth, I swore to myself, I'm finished with it.
Understand me, please.
Sure, Franz.
I understand.
Just so you know, I'll always be here for you.
Okay, Eva.
I understand.
It's okay.
And I thank you.
But believe me, I must get out of this alone or it'll be the end of me.
One or the other.
There's no other way.
Leave me now! Be a good girl and leave me alone.
Should l leave you some money, maybe? No, thanks, Eva.
I know you mean well, but l Even though I could use it, I can't take anything, l I just can't.
That's what people are up to.
All day long and at night too.
Up to their crooked tricks.
I should take a flowerpot and pitch it down on them.
What business do those guys have here, where I live? You're from the insurance? -Bauer's the name.
-I'm Muenzer.
There's nothing we can do.
They've done a clean job.
It's too much, inspector.
The fifth burglary in the wholesale company in 18 months.
These guys are so brazen, they tried to break through the wall, because there's an alarm on the door.
It's too much! Well, the walls are damn thin.
The whole building is shaky.
It's like an enormous Easter egg.
And none of you saw or heard anything? What was that? Did somebody see something? Well, do something about it! There's too much of it.
There's nothing we can do.
We should look for fingerprints.
Try, at least.
I've already given instructions.
Very good, Wichmann.
I saw that mob, but I'm not going to rat on them.
But if they come here again where I live and sleep, I'll go down there myself, as sure as my name's Franz Biberkopf.
Did anyone say anything? I thought somebody said something too.
-Did you hear anything? -No.
No.
Did you say anything? No.
Maybe you should have said something to the police.
I don't rat on anyone, not even on bums like that.
Well, maybe you're right.
Good morning.
Good morning, Baumann.
You know something, Baumann, I know now what the strangest thing in the world is.
Do you? People.
That's right.
Good morning.
Good morning.
-Oh, good morning.
-I thought I'd drop by Come on in.
Well? Lost your thirst, Biberkopf? It's like I said: The strangest thing in the world is people.
No need to be afraid, Mr.
Biberkopf.
I hear everything that goes on next door: That the Greiners want to go in with those crooks.
That was their first idea yesterday.
But last night, Greiner changed his mind.
It would be crazy to split it, he said, absolutely crazy.
And why should they? He managed to persuade her to do it alone with him, just him and her today.
-Here, you don't have any left.
-Thanks.
But I thought Greiner had made a deal with those guys.
Yeah, but that was last night.
Now he's decided to put one over on them.
I see.
Can they pull it off? The two of them alone? What do you think? No way.
They don't even trust each other, and that makes it easy to put them over a barrel.
She just spilled it all to the kid over there.
I think she's got her eye on him.
Well? Nothing new.
The Greiners are still downstairs.
Old Greiner will have the surprise of his life when the others suddenly turn up.
He'll have to share it with them then.
"Loeser and Wolf, Berlin, Elbing, top quality for all tastes.
Brazil, Havana, Mexico, Little Comforter, Lilliput cigars number 8: Twenty-five pfennigs each.
Winter Ballad, pack of 25: 20 pfennigs.
Number 10 cigarillos, unsorted, Sumatra wrapper at a special price in boxes of 100: 10 pfennigs each" I beat everything.
You beat everything.
He beats everything.
"With boxes of 50, in cartons of 10.
Dispatch to all countries of the world, Bolero: 25 pfennigs.
This innovation gained us many friends.
I beat everything.
You fall flat" Be quiet for a moment! I think they're coming.
Old Greiner seems pretty mad, pretty mad.
What else? They're squabbling.
Now they're starting to drink.
Now they've made up again.
Funny, he doesn't think they might have betrayed him.
What does that mean? No, I'm sure it means something.
I think it must mean he loves her more than she loves him.
Yes.
That's it.
You'll be leaving us soon, won't you? What do you mean? Oh, just a feeling.
I don't know.
But I do.
You're fit again.
You've sweated it all out: Your illness, I mean.
Baumann! Baumann! My God, Baumann, wake up! The cops are outside their door, ringing like mad.
They've just woken up.
I reckon you'll be leaving today.
Makes me sad somehow, though I don't know why.
Get in the car.
It's in your own interest to get out of here fast.
What's up, damn it? -I need the key for my bar in there.
-Here's the key.
Now clear off! Hello? Anybody here? He just came in.
He'll be right back, I expect.
You can tell him I brought the crate back.
That's it.
Finished.
Well, then Well, then Well, then Take care, Job.
Thanks, Satan.
Bitterly cold: February.
People wearing overcoats.
Anyone who has a fur wears it.
The women wear thin stockings and freeze, but it looks good.
The steam engine pounds on Alexanderplatz.
A lot of people have time to watch the pile driver pounding away.
Alexanderplatz is one big construction site.
Where do they get the money? Berlin's a wealthy city, and we pay our taxes.
The workers turn up early from Reinickendorf, Neukoelln, Weissensee, regardless of the cold or wind.
A pot of coffee and sandwiches! We've got to slave away.
Up there are the drones.
They sleep under their eiderdowns and bleed us dry.
Anyone who thinks bread made from subgrade white flour can be improved with artificial additives is deceiving himself and the consumer.
Nature has its own laws and avenges every abuse.
The impaired health of nearly all civilizations today is caused by consuming degraded or artificially refined food.
"Attempts to regulate the sexual life of married couples by contract" Well, I'll be! Biberkopf! My God, it's been a long time since we last saw each other.
Yeah, quite some time.
You've been away a long time.
Anything wrong? No, nothing wrong at all.
I just I just needed some peace and quiet, to be alone for a while.
Sometimes a guy needs that.
At least I do.
Sure, everyone needs to be alone now and then, to have time to think things over.
I was thinking I'd give the newspapers a try again.
Well, business is pretty quiet just now.
You know, I'm 65 years old now.
Sixty-five.
And suddenly, I had rheumatism in my back, from one day to the next.
Yeah, rheumatism starts when you're 60.
That's right.
The factories are not taking people anymore.
Seven months ago, I had an operation out in Lichtenberg, in the Hubertus Hospital.
One ball's gone.
Tubercular, they said.
I've lost one ball, but I've still got the pains, I can tell you.
Well, then you'd better be careful.
In the end, it'll be the other one too.
Train to Alexanderplatz.
All aboard! Yes, yes.
So, now you're 65, and you've lost one ball, and you've got rheumatism in your back.
That's life.
You need connections Connections are everything, and you need a good location.
When it rains, it's wet.
And it also depends on what's happening in the world.
Sporting events are good, or a change of government.
When Ebert died, they tore the newspapers from our hands.
Why are you making a face like that? Nothing's as bad as it seems.
Just imagine, if something fell on your head, you wouldn't have to worry about anything.
Well, there you are.
"Attack on tenant protection laws.
Zoergiebel pays the penalty: 'There's no place for me in a party that betrays its principles.
' English censorship in Amanullah.
News blackout in lndia.
Crisis in the Reichstag.
Talk of March elections.
Struggle in Central Germany continues.
Arbitration committee to be formed.
" By the way, your friend Meck, he's selling clothes and so on on Clemensstrasse.
He's doing a good trade.
Read all about it! Deutsches Tageblatt Well, I'll be! Franz! -Meck! Franzy! You I could have sworn-- That I was up to my old tricks again? No way.
That's over and done with.
You've been looking after Lina? Yeah.
She was all alone, felt lonely.
Are you mad about it? Bullshit! On the contrary.
It's better than having her sit around sad and lonely just because I've gone away.
Where is she now? She just left one day.
Yeah, that's how it is.
People meet, get to know each other, then one day, it's all over.
What are you selling here? Oh, garments: dresses, skirts, pants, windbreakers.
That sort of thing.
Where do you get the stuff? Only girls who want support for a kid ask where it came from.
You'll do your deals until you're caught, and that'll be the end of it, I'm telling you.
End of part four, with