German film director Wim Wenders (pronounced "Vim Venders") visited campus Friday, Feb. 23, as part of the Bellknapp visiting scholars series. Wenders spoke about his life in film to a packed audience at the Jimmy Stewart Theater at 185 Nassau St.
Wenders is not known as a director who churns out blockbuster action movies with never-ending violence and dismal plot lines, but rather as someone who has a poetic, philosophic motivation behind his films — an example of a true filmmaker-artist.
After being questioned, Wenders often remains silent for several moments, clearly trying to avoid an overly hasty response. He speaks quite slowly, with a clear, strong voice that portrays a thoughtful confidence.
When asked which film had influenced him the most, Wenders, after a contemplative pause, named the 1966 film "Blowup" by writer/director Michelangelo Antonioni.
"I was literally blown up," he exclaimed.
Yet Wenders is certainly no nostalgist, glorifying films of the past at the expense of contemporary movies, Wenders cites Ang Lee's, "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" (2000) as the film that "left the greatest impression" on him in recent years.
"The new technological advancements that are changing the film industry are of great importance, comparable to when sound was first put into films," he said. " 'Crouching Tiger' is a remarkable use of such technology. I feel very privileged to be able to make movies in our present time."
At Wenders' lecture, the director spoke primarily on the philosophy behind his films — the importance of place over almost every other element.
"The loss of place is a lost quality in movies — it comes with a loss in reality," Wenders said.
"Places have stories and make these stories happen. Places find the story," ge added. "My films all start with a place wanting to tell a story."
In many of Wenders films one finds an underlying theme of the Americanization of Germany.
No other German filmmaker has dealt more extensively or more obsessively with the American presence in the European unconscious and the ambivalence toward this American influence.
Born Aug. 14, 1945, in Dusseldorf Germany, Wenders studied medicine and philosophy in college before moving to Paris in 1966 to pursue his artistic interests — at that time, painting and engraving.
"When I was young, all of the arts fascinated me," he said. "I wanted to be a painter, a writer, a musician, a photographer . . . Then I finally realized that in filmmaking I could be all of those things at once."
Wenders returned to Germany the following year and it was then that he began to cultivate his interest in film.
His 1971 film "Die Angst des Tormannes beim Elfmeter" ("The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick") — only the second feature-length effort from the young director — caught the eye of the international film community and was awarded the prestigious "Critics Award" at that year's Venice Film Festival.
Wenders' 1977 gangster film "Der Amerikanische Freund" ("The American Friend"), which starred Dennis Hopper as a mob lackey who tricks a family man into performing a pair of contract murders — first put Wenders on the map in the United States.
His largely autobiographical 1982 movie "Der Stand der Dinge" ("The State of Things") garnered him top honors — the Golden Lion — at the Venice Film Festival.
This was followed in 1984 with Wenders' best known, and most critically-acclaimed film "Paris, Texas" starring Harry Dean Stanton and Natassja Kinski, for which he received the Palme d'or, the highest award at the Cannes Film Festival.
Wenders garnered the Best Director prize at Cannes in 1982 for his immensely popular "Der Himmel ber Berlin" ("Wings of Desire"), a love story about a guardian angel who roams the streets of Berlin, but falls in love with a mortal and wishes to become human so as to experience the joys of everyday life.
The movie was remade in 1998 as "City of Angels," starring Nicholas Cage and Meg Ryan.
Wenders more recent work includes "Bis ans Ende der Welt" ("Until the End of the World") (1991); "In weiter Ferne, so nah!" ("Far Away, So Close!") (1993), with Willem Dafoe — a sequel to "Wings of Desire"; and "The End of Violence" (1997), with Bill Pullman, Andie Macdowell, and Gabriel Byrne.
He also directed the acclaimed 1998 documentary film, "Buena Vista Social Club," about the Cuban musical scene.
Wenders latest film, "The Million Dollar Hotel," is a crime story set in Los Angeles, starring Mel Gibson, Milla Jovovich and Jimmy Smits.
The film won the Silver Bear award in the Jury Prize category at last year's Berlin Film Festival, a prize equivalent to second best picture (behind "Magnolia"). U2 front-man Bono is credited with the story and also contributed to the soundtrack.
In the 1970's and '80's, Wenders was one of the most prominent figures of the so-called New German Cinema, a groundbreaking group of directors including Fassbinder, Herzog and Schlondorff, whose films explored major themes such as the Third Reich, Germany after the war, terrorism in the '70s, and gender roles.
"Our films were all very different. Contrary to the some of the French New Wave directors, we had no common aesthetic principle or philosophy," Wenders said of the group. In fact, it would be hard to imagine another group of directors whose films are more different from one other.
"Yet we did have one very important thing in common," he continued. "We were all trying to make films in a country that had no producers and no audience. The latter, of course, was the biggest problem . . . So we pooled our resources and together formed a studio to release our films. We knew that we needed to help each other to help ourselves."
Wenders films have generally not been widely seen by audiences in the United States, and his latest film, "The Million Dollar Hotel," is likely to be missed by most movie-goers as well.
The film is not being heavily promoted by Lion's Gate Films, its distributor, and, despite a limited opening on Feb. 2, it remains unclear when, if ever, the film will see a nationwide release.
Wenders has often been criticized for making slow and unwieldy movies that lack commercial viability, but Wenders says he is a director who does not make movies for profit or fame, but rather for the art in itself.
He has his own vision, his own philosophy, and it is this that drives him to keep making films after over three decades in the industry.
"I'm still making movies much more from the guts than from the brain, and I intend to keep it that way," he said.
Still, one gets the sense that, in Wenders, there is some of the character Zoltan in "The End of Violence" — the middle-aged director who turns away from a conversation with a cop muttering to himself, "Why do I make films in America? I should have stayed in Europe."
The New Germany, where Wenders began his career, however, no longer exists.
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