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WINGS
OF DESIRE
1987
Director:
Wim Wenders
Screenplay:
Wim Wenders
Peter Handke
Director
of Photography:
Henri
Alekan
Editor:
Peter Przygodda
Music:
Jürgen Knieper
Production Design:
Heidi Lüdi
Cast:
Bruno Ganz
Solveig Dommartin
Otto Sander
Curt Bois
Peter Falk
Festivals/Awards:
1987 Cannes
(Best Director)
1987 Gildepreis in Silver
(Best German Film)
1988 FELIX, European Film Prize
(Best Director)
1988 German Film Prize in Gold
(Best Director)
1988 Bavarian Film Prize
(Director)
Producers:
Wim Wenders
Anatole Dauman
Production:
Road Movies Filmproduktion/Berlin
Argos Films/Paris
Length:
128 min.
Format:
35mm
B&W and Colour
Original
Title:
Der Himmel über Berlin
Original
Language:
German
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The sky over Wenders' war-scarred Berlin is full of gentle,
trenchcoated angels who listen to the tortured thoughts of
mortals and try to comfort them. One, Damiel (Bruno Ganz),
wishes to become mortal after falling in love with a beautiful
trapeze artist, Marion (Solveig Dommartin). Peter Falk, as
himself, assists in the transformation by explaining the simple
joys of a human experience, such as the sublime combination
of coffee and cigarettes.
Told
from the angel's point of view, the film is shot in black
and white, blossoming into color only when the angels perceive
the realities of humankind. Ultimately, Damiel determines
that he must experience humanity in full, and breaks through
in to the real world to pursue a life with Marion.
A
hugely acclaimed and multi-award winning movie including Best
Director for Wenders at Cannes 1987; which was remade in 1998
into City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan.
Bruno
Ganz (Damiel)
Song
of Childhood
By Peter Handke
When
the child was a child
It walked with its arms swinging,
wanted the brook to be a river,
the river to be a torrent,
and this puddle to be the sea.
When
the child was a child,
it didn’t know that it was a child,
everything was soulful,
and all souls were one.....
>
Continued
> German version
Solveig
Dommartin (Marion), Wim Wenders
Essays,
interviews, articles:
What
is Peter Falk doing in Wings of Desire?
-
and much more at: p.o.v - a Danish Journal of Film Studies
Angels
and The Modern City - by Eric Mader Lin
Reviews:
by
Roger Ebert - Chicago Sun Times
by
Desson Howe - Washington Post
by
Anthony Leong
by
Bryant Frazer
Related:
A
Concrete Curtain - The Life and Death of the Berlin Wall
Curt
Bois (Homer), Otto Sander (Cassiel)
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Other
recommended reading:
- Barry, Thomas F. "The Weight of Angels: Peter Handke
and Der Himmel über Berlin." Modern Austrain Literature
23.3/4 (1993): 53-64.
- Caldwell, David and Paul W. Rea. "Handke's and Wender's
Wings of Desire: Transcending Postmodernism." German
Quarterly 64.1 (1991): 46-54.
- Green, Peter. "Germans Abroad: Herzog, Wenders, Adlon."
Sight and Sound Winter 1987/88: 128-29.
- Helmetag, Charles H. "...Of Men and Angels: Literary
Allusions in Wim Wender's Wings of Desire." Film/Literature
Quarterly 18.4 (1990): 251-53.
- Hooks, Bell. "Representing Whiteness: Seeing Wings
of Desire." Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics.
Boston: West End Press, 1990. 165-71.
- Kolker, Robert Philipp and Peter Beicken. "Wings
of Desire: Between Heaven and Earth."Wim Wenders: Cinema
as Vision and Desire. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993. 138-60.
- Paneth, Ira. "Wim and His Wings." Film Quarterly
42 (Fall 1988): 2-8. (Interview)
- Rogowski, Christian. "'Der liebevolle Blick'? The
Problem of Perception in Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire."
Seminar (Nov. 1993): 398-409.
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