ILE has never had a thread about Wim Wenders

I'd always heard that, "No, Paris, Texas is really good," so I put it in the Netflix queue and it came up and I watched it, and... Right, it looks gorgeous, Robby Muller really knows his shit, beautiful poetic landscapes of Texas and L.A., great composition, use of color, visually it gets an A, it's a knockout. But it's also 2 1/2 hours long, and maybe the first 45 minutes are intriguing because you have the whole mystery of Harry Dean Stanton wandering in out of the desert and where's he been for the last 4 years and all that; but then the second section, where he tries to bond with the kid, gets progressively less convincing as it goes (no fault of Harry Dean or the kid, they're both pretty good); the real deal-breaker, though, was the last act, with Nastassja Kinski (where have you gone, Nastassja?) and the Big Reveal about their broken brutal relationship and the great severance and so forth -- which maybe would have been believable enough, plotwise, if it weren't delivered in such self-important, despairing monologues.

It all rang wrong to me (Kinski's Southern accent not the least of the problems). It seemed like a parody of Euro-artiness. Which is how Wings of Desire struck me too. It doesn't surprise me that Wenders is Bono's idea of a great artist (or that Bono is Wenders' idea of a poet).

So anyway, is there still other Wenders that's the really good stuff that might yet change my mind? 'Cuz he's 0 for 2 with me right now, and at the moment I'm inclined to wait another 15 years before trying him again.

Wenders says on the directors commentry to WoD that he prefers the english title and would change the original title to a german translation of "Wings of Desire" if he could. i prefer "Der Himmel uber Berlin".

"(that's an amazing film but the seeds of his downfall are present in abundance). "

-- talking about wings of desire there

-- amateur!!st (-...), September 9th, 2004.

Discuss.

Solveig Dommartin for starters.

Wenders' season, NFT, or whatever ya call it now

Saw "Alice in the Cities" last night. Wonderful film, even better than I remembered it. As for the season itself - it's the usual, all the films you've seen before are on constantly day and night for a month, and the ones you haven't seen are on once... while you're at work.

saw alice in the cities on saturday, absolutely hypnotic movie.

soundtrack to end of the world is great

im seeing him do a q&a on friday, if anyone has any zingers i could use.

Really loved 'Kings of the Road'. Liked the music, even though you can almost see where the whole business of making films with Bono thing came from by just listening to that.

"As for the season itself - it's the usual, all the films you've seen before are on constantly day and night for a month, and the ones you haven't seen are on once... while you're at work."

Call in sick! ;-)

I wish. Can's (well, actually just Irmin Schmidt and Michael Karoli) music for "Alice in the Cities" is really effective, altho it's only one piece.

its not on Soundtracks, is it?

Never been released

I've been looking for that little "Alice in the Cities" soundtrack theme for sooo long. So weird they didn't include it on 'Soundtracks' (although I remember hearing snippets of it in one of the songs on that album)

Errrrrrrrrr, "Alice In the Cities" was made 5 years after "Soundtracks"!

ah! figures...

Anyone seen the premiere of "Palemro Shooting"? Plot sounds quite familiar: phtographer hits the road and embarks on a journey of self-discovery

Tousle-haired moppet? Wuppertal monorail? Warped Canned Heat single?

Haha I actually once went to Wuppertal just to see that damn monorail

I've been looking for that little "Alice in the Cities" soundtrack theme for sooo long.

Similarly, I hunted for the music in "Fear Eats the Soul" for a long time only to find out it's probably just Library Music

Ok, so it seems "Alice in teh Cities" is finally out on DVD

Hmm, it seems like I'm the only one who cares but it turns out that all his early 70s movies are now out on DVD!

We Care A Lot!

I got Alice and the State of Things today. Kings of the Road is next on my list (not sure whether I'll ever have the courage to watch the whole of it again, but that's another issue)

Saw Wenders’ other 2023 movie, the Anselm Kiefer documentary, last night. Totally worth admission price alone for towering scenes of Kiefer at work in his aircraft hangar/studio filled with art, decay, metal, metal decay to be burned or melted down into art. All of it compelling enough that the final scenes where time metaphorically collapses felt unnecessarily “do you see?!” It’s not a conventional documentary - read Wikipedia if that’s what you’re looking for.

I saw that at a small festival a few months ago, I thought it was a great use of 3D and overall really liked it although Wenders’ pretentiousness about the magical mysteries of art was occasionally irritating.

So has anyone seen Perfect Days? I am mildly intrigued

I've had the screener sitting at home. He's never been a priority for me. I do wanna watch the doc, though: I watched the Kaurismäki instead last Saturday.

I haven't seen it, but everyone I've talked to says Perfect Days is pretty good, if not on par with his best work. (At least for my tastes, I don't think he's made a great narrative film since the '80s, but his documentary work since then has typically been stronger.)

I enjoyed Anselm, it was good to see relatively non-conventional documentary. I wasn't familiar with Anselm Kiefer at all beforehand, but I'd like to visit the Eschaton Foundation now of course. The scale of things there looked immense.

Loved Perfect Days, more than the couple other Wenders I've seen (though should rewatch Paris, Texas).

You know the trope of the solitary hitman/samauri whose life is all routine and precision? This is like that, except the guy cleans public toilets instead of guns.