Berlin Alexanderplatz is the summa of Fassbinder's art and the culmination of his lifelong relationship with Alfred Döblin's monumental novel of Berlin in the 1920s, a book he said was "embedded in my mind, my flesh, my body as a whole, and my soul." Originally produced as a thirteen-part made-for-television movie (though always intended to reach the cinemas), Berlin Alexanderplatz captures in sweeping detail the decadence of the Weimar Republic in which Nazism had already begun to spread. Fassbinder employs dark and claustrophobic settings, more than one hundred actors, and thousands of extras to deal with his favorite themes: the destructive pressures of society and the inevitability with which people exploit and hurt those they love. With a total running time of fifteen hours, it comes closer than most film experiences to the richness that great novels offer, and concludes with a 111-minute dream sequence epilogue unlike anything Fassbinder ever made. Berlin Alexanderplatz is quite simply a masterpiece.