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Wim Wenders in correspondence
with
RS: To supplement the interview movie clips, I would like to ask you the following questions. What do you recommend young filmmakers/directors to read?
WW: I did find the Russian filmmaker Eisenstein's theoretical works extremely interesting and worth reading. (But I read those in German and I'm not sure they're available in English. I guess, though, they are.)
The same goes for all of Pasolini's writings. Francois Truffaut's film "Nuit Americaine" (titled in English "Day For Night" if I remember correctly, is a great film about the filmmaking process. There is a book about my own "master", Yasujiro Ozu, written by an American, (whose name is just escaping me, but it will come,) that is just the best book ever about film. (In the Encyclopedia Britannica in my back study, there is an article about Ozu that gives the name of the book and the writer, maybe you have to look it up and remind me.) Now it came to me: Donald Ritchie is the author. Nothing replaces viewing the history of movies, though, especially of silent films, and there is no better learning process than writing down your observations and your experience with a particular film afterwards. (You can quote any of these comments here...)
RS: Also, the importance of collaboration was discussed in the interview (in particular with Sam Shepard). Since collaboration seems to be key to success in the filmmaking process, what do you recommend young filmmakers/directors to read in order to become better "collaborators?" If learning to "collaborate" is a matter of experience, what experiences (aside from working on a film-set or watching movies) do you recommend?
WW: Concerning "collaboration" and its doubtless merits for the process of filmmaking I recommend to see Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 456" (Did I get that number correctly?) mainly for its ending. Some sports are a great preparation for "teamwork", especially soccer (and I guess football as well, but I don't know it that much.) Hockey, too. Any sport, where you have to anticipate what your teammate will be doing or thinking BEFORE he does it. But then, the greatest lesson just cannot be learned other than by doing and that is: TRUSTING. Or learning when to trust and when not. Some people just never trust, and that makes them incapable of collaborating. Some people trust too much, and that is even worse. But all through the history of cinema, a few egomaniacs have proven that there are always exceptions of the rules, and that you CAN make movies without trusting anybody but yourself. It's not my recommended path, though....
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