Wim Wenders featured in German film festival

Wim Wenders featured in German film festival

By Jane Freebury

JAKARTA (JP): This week at the Teater Tertutup of the Taman
Ismail Marzuki (TIM) arts center a retrospective of a key name of
contemporary German cinema, director Wim Wenders, is being
featured. The six films being screened are more recent pieces
from a filmmaking career which began in 1967 and has resulted in
over 25 films.

Wenders was among the new generation of independent filmmakers
who broke with tradition in the 1960s and 1970s to explore
possibilities for a film culture which spoke about the real
concerns of German people, the young in particular. Wenders was
among the founding members of the "Author's Film Publishers", a
cooperative which distributed the films of young German
filmmakers.

The State of Things (Der Stand Der Dinge), 1981-1982, was made
at a time of public protest against the spread of nuclear
weaponry in Europe. It won the Golden Lion Award at the Venice
Film Festival.

The State of Things opens on the Atlantic Coast of Portugal,
the edge of nowhere. A place from which you can well imagine it
was once thought that the earth dropped away at the horizon.
Behind the coastline, with its sober cliffs and crashing surf,
the hinterland landscape is eroded, savaged by wind and sun - or
by a calamity far worse? People come into frame and it looks like
a nuclear holocaust has occurred and they trying to survive. They
are forced into desperate acts when some of them begin to "melt".

The refugees clamber towards the shelter of some roofs and
walls and a large skeletal building emerges; the bomb has hit it
and it is now warding off the elements, with the ocean invading
its lower balconies and the wind tearing at its heights. But hang
on there, there's something funny going on. Suddenly, there are
people without gas masks mingling with the holocaust survivors.
Suddenly, you recall a "victim" you saw earlier was holding a
film camera. Abruptly, the glare of the sun softens and the
breeze drops with the change of mood. Gas masks come off and
protection suits are undone as the people change from film
characters to cast and crew.

Things are serious behind the camera on this film shoot. The
film is a remake of a 1950s science fiction film called The Most
Dangerous Man Alive and has run out of money. Gordon, the
producer, has flown to Los Angeles with a rough cut to get more
finance but has not been heard from since. Has he absconded? The
crew has done a few weeks work but can no longer keep on filming
on film stock leftovers. This is not the end of the world, but
perhaps it spells the end of a filmmaker's career.

The unfinished black and white holocaust film (the film within
the film) has a grainy look and perhaps we are not supposed to be
surprised that it ran out of money. Juxtaposed to this, is the
better quality black and white The State of Things . Wenders uses
of black and white in many of his films: Alice in the Citie,
Kings of the Road, Wings of Desire .

The state of mind of the film crew and cast is now
disaffected, but they must sit it out and wait for the money to
arrive. They begin to "show and tell" to the camera and to each
other. To while away time, someone is relating his excruciatingly
awkward youth in golden California, someone is painting (badly),
someone is playing the violin (badly), someone is exercising and
someone is reading a borrowed copy of The Searchers, which the
lender keeps wanting back. In the midst of these distractions
Fritz, the director, leaves the set for America to get to the
bottom of Gordon's disappearance.

Even in black and white, the Californian sky looks wide and
blue compared to the brooding vistas of the Old World. Fritz
rents an convertible for his search and visits a high-rise office
block glistening in the sun, a sign of promise and malevolence.
Fritz begins to sense that he is being followed but manages to
throw his pursuers off course. Then, one night outside a fast
food kiosk he recognizes the pet dog of his long lost producer,
and finally tracks him down, only to be traced and cut down
himself.

In the way that art imitates life and life imitates art, The
State of Things was shot during production intervals while
Wenders was making a Hollywood film Hammett , (about detective
story writer Dashiell Hammett) in collaboration with Francis Ford
Coppolla. There was considerable disagreement between the two men
and Wenders had time off from production to make both this film
and Nick's Film - Lightning Over Water, a film about the
Hollywood director, Nicholas Ray.

Americanization

Wenders' films of this period focus on the Americanization of
his country's culture (what he calls the "colonization of the
unconscious") However, it is important to keep in mind that
Wenders was an enthusiastic fan of American cinema and greatly
admired the work of American directors Nicholas Ray and Sam
Fuller (Sam appears in The State of Things). Rather than deny the
influence of American film Wenders incorporates both European and
American elements into a new synthesis which brings about a blend
of Old World intellectualism and New World contemporary rock
music. The result is a film which can represent the ugly
commercial realities of everyday life while contemplating the
psychological dislocation of the inner being.

Other directors, Francois Truffaut, Robert Altman and Joel and
Ethan Coen among them, have also gone behind the scenes to make
films about filmmaking. But there is a significant difference
with Wenders' piece which also touches on the demands of the mass
market for commercial cinema and the need to revive the rich
German film tradition. This is signified by the shot of a star in
the pavement, Hollywood's tribute to the great German film
director Fritz Lang.

Other films of the festival are:
The Sky Above Berlin (Der Himmel Uber Berlin)
Paris, Texas
Nick's Film - Lightning Over Water
Tokyo-Ga
Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Stadten (Notebook on Clothes and
Cities)