Wim Wenders

the longer version is an huge improvement, but if you hated it before it won't change your mind. it's my favorite.

I think Wenders peaked early--in the mid-late 1970s. "until the end..." is one of the brighter spots in his later filmography, albeit a very spotty film.

make sure you see "summer in the city" and the early shorts if they are showing them.

Lisbon Story is a great late career highlight. All went bust after that one

the schedule is kind of maddening; The State of Things only showing during weekday working hours.

no actually that's Tokyo-Ga. also the tix for Until are gone, i'm going to get in the standby line,

Everybody on the standby or rush line got into Goalie's Anxiety so good luck.

At one point during the Q&A on Wednesday Peter Handke said something about his hero Goethe and Ian Buruma thought he was talking about Günter Grass, which really set Handke off.

Sorry, wasn't really a Q&A it was a discussion led by Ian Buruma.

I had no idea these were packed... i suck at guessing what will draw at MoMA, but there wasn't even a Times article!

lol

There's certainly great stuff in the uncut UtEotW, particularly the nightscapes and the Australian desert sunlight. (Distressed digital visions -- meh, if that sorta thing thrills you.) But damn, the plot is usually inert, and all that strained Oedipal stuff with Hurt, von Sydow and Moreau (luminous) in the second half... Wenders definitely gets prophecy points for the two characters who ultimately wander around with video monitors of their dreamlife in their hands.

Solveig Dommartin really couldn't act, at least up to the dubious demands of this role.

Anyway it had the Janus logo on it, so CC should be putting it out soonish.

WW did a Q&A, called the success of the soundtrack "an open wound." "If everyone who bought it had seen the film...!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtVA6nKygFs

Had not known about his marriage to Ronee Blakely until I saw her name in a crossword today.

whaa...? Me neither.

Saw Wrong Move yesterday, and it pretty much was.

Wrong Move is a hard one - the height of his "incommunicability" phase. Rewatched it a couple of years ago when the DVD came out, I was surprised to remember how vividly that film resonated with me as a teen - but I guess I don't have space for this kinda stuff in my life these days.

Hanna Schygulla overshadowed, perhaps, by silent unclothed 15-yo N Kinski

otherwise lots of walking, sitting and talking

i like wrong move, but it wears its influences—and its Themes— on its sleeve more than the other films made around that time. in a sense it's as much a peter handke film as a wim wenders film. but it's beautifully made, and a pleasure just to watch the moving bodies in counterpoint to the moving camera.

there are moments in kings of the road—and big chunks of the wrong move—that ominously prefigure the more gaseous, pretentious wenders films to come. in fact i think you can kind of draw a straight line between some of the more ponderous aspects of those films to the overwhelmingly ponderous wings of desire (which i don't like much, but grudgingly respect)... and of course the later films, where all the received ideas come out like a torrent and overwhelm what was once fresh about Wenders's cinema.

but he kept that stuff in check for a while, up through the state of things, at least. it's tempting (and maybe too easy?) to draw a line through his career around the time of his ill-fated association w/ coppola; nearly all the films made before that are ones i treasure (a major exception being the misbegotten scarlet letter) and nearly all made after that i can take or leave (mostly leave).

the last new wenders i've seen is "don't come knocking," which i would have walked out on except that i came with a group.

Sorry for misspelling: Ronee Blakley

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_W8sPd0uEM

http://articles.latimes.com/1985-10-25/entertainment/ca-14420_1_ronee-blakley

Summer in the City is set in a dirty urban winter -- oh, the 24-year-old film student's japery!

It's about as distended and tedious as any film featuring about 20 Kinks songs on the soundtrack can be.

I'm discovering I really don't like Wenders' deep catalog, so thanks, MoMA.

yeah, it's def. in the "pretentious student film" category, but it's interesting in light of what was shortly to come -- and very rare (it's never been on home video that i know of).

the kinks songs, btw, are why the film has never been properly released (although morbs might argue it's also b/c it's terrible). a similar issue afflicts several of his short films from that period, most of which use american rock music on their soundtracks. indeed, the soundtracks are as often as not the subjects of the films.

i can't recall if summer in the city actually features the song "summer in the city"

it does. the whole thing.

also a complete TV perf of the Kinks doing "Days," which I'll take over Solveig D caterwauling her way through it (RIP). and there's a short lecture on Three Godfathers.

A few minutes later, Franco materializes at the museum, because that is what James Franco does, and walks up to Wenders. Franco gives him a bear hug, then begins talking — about shooting "Every Thing"; about giving Wenders a cameo role in his own new directorial effort "Zeroville" ("Larry the Hippie," Franco says; "Larry the Elderly Hippie," Wenders corrects); about a Björk exhibit at the museum; about several other matters on Franco's mind.

After Franco leaves, Wenders turns to a reporter and asks, "Do you think there's only one of him?"

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-wim-wenders-20150312-story.html

Pretty good question tbh

I skipped Until the End of the World at the time--I wasn't even crazy about Wings of Desire--but there's a clip in the Steve Jobs documentary that makes me want to see it now. I'm sure it's the mess that most people said it was, but the clip seemed prophetic and immediate. In any event, Amazon prices are insane.

Janus Films was a number of Wenders' films in the pipeline for a travelling retro...and eventual Criterions (if they haven't already had the treatment). They are:

The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Alice in the Cities
Wrong Move
Kings of the Road
The American Friend
The State of Things
Paris, Texas
Tokyo-ga
Wings of Desire
Notebook on Cities and Clothes
Until the End of the World (Director's Cut)
Buena Vista Social Club

Haven't watched this shit since the 90s. Only one way to find out if I can still appreciate it.

Until the End is about to be reissued for sure

but the clip seemed prophetic and immediate

was it Claire screaming "you killed me! I am dead! my heart is dead!" because the batteries on her iPad were at 0% and Gene wouldn't let her plug it in to recharge?

No dialogue, just people staring blankly at what looked like a 1991 version of personal-device screens. I encounter a lot of that day to day.

WW back in NYC for the IFC Center retro

http://www.ifccenter.com/series/wim-wenders-portraits-along-the-road/

An interesting new review of the directors cut

http://gu.com/p/4bpjd

At one point Hoffman says "you can laugh now but..." and I can say the same w/r/t an earlier film - at 15yo Wings of Desire broke my brain and opened me up to whole realms of artistic expression I was unaware of. It has longuers and silly sections but I can honestly say that film changed my life.

i was shocked at the pan around Shea Stadium in Alice -- a place i spent a fair amount of time in the summer of '73 -- and as a topper, WW fixing this shot on decades-long Mets organist Jane Jarvis.

http://auteurs_production.s3.amazonaws.com/post_images_danny/multiple%20images/Alice%20in%20the%20Cities/alice_1.jpg

A scene that has stayed with me for 35 years, now on YouTube of course.

http://heardjustwhatiseen.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/in-the-rain-and-snow/

Has anyone seen the new 3D one? His 3D documentaries have been pretty interesting, so I'm cautiously optimistic.

I saw Kings of the Road three times within a couple of weeks in 1984 when it had a short run in this dingy neighborhood theatre that mostly played softcore porn. Very susceptible to its mood and look at that particular point in my life (I was 22 or 23). For almost the first half tonight, I was second-guessing myself a little--still looked great, but it seemed rather mannered, and just kind of puttered along. Then all the good stuff showed up: Lisa Kreuzer (especially the Truffaut-like tear), the motorbike, "Just Like Eddie," the complicated train-leaving shot, the Last Picture Show-like ending (a little pat, nice anyway). Rüdiger Vogler's sleepy-eyed amble gets a little wearing at times, and I thought the scene between Hanns Zischler and his father was the film's clumsiest--much better in Five Easy Pieces. Great discovery: Crispian St. Peters' "So Long" (the guy who did "The Pied Piper"--I'm now wondering if it was his "You Were on My Mind" in The Goalie's Anxiety, not a remake). I thought the one projectionist looked a lot like R.W. Fassbinder, not accidental I'm sure.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJeglDl1SiI

Seems like my main takeaway from seeing the restored Wrong Move tonight was that Hanna Schygulla was probably the coolest person in the world in 1975...and that the long walk'n'talk on the mountain road about midway through is possibly the most beautiful example of its ilk.

https://www.criterion.com/boxsets/1186-wim-wenders-the-road-trilogy

Rental place here has The Wrong Move--how would you rank it against the other two?

i'd say the weakest of the 3. more arty and a bit like Himmel Uber Berlin (still pretty good though)

The most angsty. In full brownish 70's color

Saw the 4-1/2 hour cut of Until the End of the World tonight. I fleetingly contemplated leaving during the intermission--I wasn't hating it, just wasn't terribly interested and drifting a bit. Glad I stuck around for the science-fiction-heavy second half, especially the whole dream-capture segment. Some of the images were beautiful, and there really was a kind of prophetic brilliance to Hurt and Dommartin in the throes of device-addiction. Liked some of the soundtrack: the Lou Reed and Peter Gabriel songs, the one played by the in-film pick-up band. There's a really good sci-fi film buried in here; not sure why Wenders decided to couch it in a rag-tag, elephantine road movie (and the video conference call at the end felt like a sitcom).

Didn't like Wings of Desire in 1987, liked it even less tonight. The colour section isn't bad, and Falk is funny. Found the first couple of hours oppressively self-important. People are sad and lonely, and (or but) there are angels watching over us with tender, imploring gazes--didn't need two hours to get that across. I almost always like the look of post-1970 B&W films, but even the cinematography seemed contrived (the massing birds was nice). The club scenes felt like a blueprint for the roadhouse scenes in Twin Peaks. (Thought I spotted Jim Jarmusch but didn't see his name in the credits.)

the one where james franco is a novelist in quebec one is the worst movie i have ever seen in my life

lol ive been curious abt that flick