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19 QUESTIONS Wim Wenders Interviewed by Mark Wickum While working on some text supplements for Anchor Bay Entertainment's upcoming "Wim Wenders Collection" I was given the opportunity to ask Mr. Wenders a few questions via e-mail. These questions were merely intended to flesh out a few biographical and career details that were to be used as reference for DVD liner notes and talent profiles, but Mr. Wenders' in-depth responses deserve to be read in their entirety. What follows is the unedited correspondence. As cliché as it may be, perhaps we could begin with a few words about your childhood. Were your creative interests (film, painting, music) sparked at a young age or did they develop later? Were you exposed to the arts much as a child? I was born just a few months after WW2, in August of 1945. Germany was a strange place to grow up in then. Reconstruction was all the grown-ups had in mind. There was no looking back. And not much fun. You notice that as a child, even if you can't put your finger on the cause. My parents were dealing well with the hard times, though. My mother was singing a lot. And whistling, she was a great whistler! My dad made little money as an assistant surgeon in the beginning, but we scraped by. As he was moving up in his career and switching hospitals every 3 or 4 years, we moved pretty often. I was the only child until my brother Klaus was born, when I was 6. I very much took care of my brother for a while, as my mom was often sick at the time. My passion was reading. I learned to read before I went to school, mainly due to my grandmother who taught me to read, mainly because she was sick and tired of having to read for me all day long. I devoured a book a day. I read at night under the bed cover. My second passion was being a "projectionist." I had inherited a little 9.5mm hand-cranked projector from my dad, along with a collection of films. Their maximum length was a minute or so. They were basically just little scenes, Laurel and Hardy, Buster Keaton, Chaplin, Harold Loyd, short animation, some early Disney stuff. About 20 tiny little reels, which I kept showing at every birthday party of any kid in the neighborhood. That was in the time before television in Germany, which came in 1952 or so. With my projector and my films I was very popular. I showed these films forward and backward, fast and slow. I knew every frame of these films by heart. My next passion was comic strips. I became an ardent collector of Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Superman, Mighty Mouse and all sorts of other comics. Then came photography, with my first camera I got when I was 7 or 8. I had a makeshift darkroom, too. My father had been an amateur photographer in his youth, and I should later inherit his Leica, that he had been given from my grandfather when he graduated. Anyway, photography remained a big thing in my life. Then came Rock 'n Roll, a few years later. That remained a big influence as well. And then, finally, I discovered painting, and wanted to become a painter, more than anything else. I took bike rides from Oberhausen in the Ruhr district where we lived when I was 15 or 16, and made pilgrimages to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, to see Dutch painting. Above all Vermeer, but also the Dutch landscape painting of the 16th and 17th century, and Rembrandt. I think I learned everything about framing from painters, not from movies or photography. All in all, my parents always encouraged my "passions." I lived a very "protected" childhood, and was always encouraged to develop any creative skills. I should also mention that my upbringing was very Catholic. "Solid," so to speak... In 1966 you left your studies in medicine and philosophy to study painting, and later, film. What inspired you to make this change? To tell the truth: I was never so sure if medicine was the right thing for me. I had an admiration for it, undoubtedly. And of course it was what I knew best as a profession. I guess that's pretty much the same for all young people at that age: They almost necessarily consider their parents' profession. But my heart was in something more creative. I loved painting, writing, photography, music. And I felt I had it in me to succeed in that field somehow. Dylan, the Kinks or the Beatles or Van Morrsion had a lot to do with that conviction. They were my age, "My Generation" as the Who were singing. While attending film school you began writing about the movies for Filmkritik. Between school and writing, which was the more valuable experience? No question at all in hindsight: Writing film criticism was the best possible school! And I heavily recommend it to any young future filmmaker. It forces you to watch with more attention, and to be outspoken and articulate about what you saw and how you feel about it. To see films when you want to learn about filmmaking is one thing. To describe that experience and to pass it on to others is something altogether more profound and effective. THAT trains all your senses and your mind as well. Your writing from this period is as much about music as it is about movies. Even before you made your first feature film you seemed compelled to marry rock music with the images you saw onscreen. Does Rock 'n Roll mean as much to you now as it did then? Absofuckinglutely! I feel that Rock 'n Roll and movies are truly twin arts today, able to enhance each other immensely. They're both absolutely "contemporary," with their ears to what is happening at the moment, what are young people's most immediate needs and concerns. Together, they can even go further than each one on its own. The right music can really bring out the best of the pictures it's going with, can offer more coherence, "protection" against misunderstanding so to speak. I'm listening to as much music as ever before. Only I've enlarged my musical vocabulary to the Blues, to World Music, especially Latin, and to some "Classic" music as well. Rock 'n Roll is still there at the core, though. These early writings also communicate a passion and interest in all things American: Westerns, Easy Rider, CCR, Elvis, etc. The films and music that you wrote about often evoked the open landscapes of the American West--landscapes that recur throughout your own filmography. Was your wanderlust inspired by these sounds and images or were you drawn to John Ford, Anthony Mann, John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, etc. by an earlier fascination with America? My fascination with America was born very early, (by comic strips, literature, magazines, movies) and kept being fed later by Rock 'n Roll, more movies and more books. Even my encounter with reality wasn't able to exorcise this preoccupation with America. I traveled there first at the age of 26. Of course I experienced some heavy-duty disappointments, and some of the American Dream started to look more like a nightmare (the huge gap between the rich and the poor there, but also for instance the lack of knowledge America had of the rest of the world, its deeply rooted "provincialism" and self-involvement if not to say its narcissism) but on the other hand my love of the American landscape only increased when I got to know it, and also my admiration for certain "American Values" like its radical defense of liberty and individuality. Was the process of making your first short films a difficult experience or did you feel that they came about naturally? My first shorts were very "painterly" films, in the tradition of films made in the context of the "New American Underground" movements by painters like Andy Warhol or Michael Snow and others. I saw filmmaking as an extension of painting, not as a tool of storytelling first. Well, that changed drastically over the years, until I ended up at almost the opposite position. But these first shorts were made in a very carefree way; on a 16mm camera I had purchased myself (from a pawn shop, in return for my beautiful silver Selmer tenor saxophone), investing all the money I had. The only difficulties, if any, were the debts I had to keep paying off for years. You first worked with frequent collaborators Robby Müller and Peter Handke on these early shorts. At what point did you begin to see your particular style of filmmaking and storytelling emerge? How much of this style was shaped by your closest collaborators? True, I worked on most of my early films with Robby as cameraman.
We learned a lot TOGETHER, more than from each other. There is no
greater experience than the FIRST TIME you do something. That innocence
exists only once. Ever afterwards you can try to capture it again,
but you're fooling yourself if you think you can really be that
innocent again. You cannot UNLEARN what you once learned, at less
only partially. I admired Peter Handke's writing, his style as well
as his guts. My filmmaking owes a lot to him, that's for sure. I
was lucky to have had more than one chance for a "first film."
My first was the film I made to graduate from film school. We all
had the budget to make a 15 to 20 minute film on 35mm. Everybody
went for that. I figured that with the same kind of money (about
$ 15,000 at the time) I could make a much longer film, if I shot
in 16mm b/w, especially if I could keep the shooting ratio down
to a maximum of 1:2. Which I did. I ended up with a film of 2 hours
and a half, titled SUMMER IN THE CITY, after the Lovin' Spoonful
song. I dedicated the film to the Kinks. There was a lot of Rock
'n Roll music in this film. Which is the reason why it never came
out anywhere. To buy the music rights would have cost several times
the entire budget. But I made a first long film, with Robby, for
whom this was the first film as D.P. Then, after film school, I
got a chance to make a "real" first film, based on a best-selling
novel of my friend Peter Handke. THE GOALKEEPER'S FEAR OF THE PENALTY
KICK. If Peter hadn't given me the right to the book, very graciously,
I would never have started my directing career. It was shot in 35mm,
in color, with a real professional crew, again with Robby. Very
influenced by Hitchcock, somehow, but also quite rigid and severe.
Some influences of the Nouvelle Vague, too, some Bergman... In a
strange way, I tried to film like Peter had written the book. Every
line became a frame, a shot. And I would advance line by line. Very
naive, but kind of unique as well. But somehow not a way to continue.
You could just make ONE film like that, not several. The film was
shown at the Venice film festival, where it won the critic's award,
which got me some notoriety, and as a result of that I was offered
another film. Which was the problem, right there. I hadn't chosen
it, it was presented to me. Based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's Scarlet
Letter. I was very intrigued, as the novel had been a favorite of
mine in High School. Anyway, the thing turned out to be a big mistake.
I had to learn the hard way that making a period film was something
very different, and that I just didn't know enough, neither about
America in the 17th century nor about women. To make a long story
short, the experience left me pretty devastated, and I wasn't so
sure at all anymore if this filmmaking deal was something I sincerely
wanted to pursue. Maybe I should go back to painting or to writing...
Or give myself one more chance to find out if I should continue
making movies, but then, it would have to be on my own terms, radically,
and I would have to be responsible for everything, from the idea
to the script to the setting to the final cut. It would only work
if the story would deal with people I really liked and could relate
to. So I picked the 2 actors from SCARLET LETTER I had truly loved,
the little girl who played the part of Pearl, and a sailor, who
had just appeared in a side scene, Rüdiger Vogler, who had
already played another supporting part in GOALIE'S ANXIETY, a village
idiot. Anyway, I based my next film on these two, and made a film
that was entirely mine, a 100%. And THAT film, ALICE IN THE CITIES,
finally was the "first film" that made me feel I could
keep doing this, and that I actually had a voice as a filmmaker.
The little movie didn't owe anything to anybody. It was a matter of survival. We were 15 directors and writers, none of whom would have found a producer or be able to make a film of his own. But together, we were strong, and we could produce films, whereby each one was backed by ALL of the others. After we had made our first films, we realized we could handle production, but the REAL problem emerged afterwards: Nobody was there to distribute our films. We were totally outlawed in the cynical German film industry of the late Sixties, early Seventies. We were ridiculed, really. So we had to take distribution into our own hands as well, and our company "Filmverlag der Autoren" (The Author's Film Society) turned from a production to a distribution business. It showed Fassbinder's films as well as Herzog's, or Kluge's or mine. With THE GOALKEEPER'S FEAR OF THE PENALTY and THE SCARLET LETTER, you were adapting pre-existing works to the screen. How comfortable were you with the writing process at this stage in your career? I wasn't confident enough to base a film on a story of my own, or on experiences of my own. But I soon learned that nothing else counted, and with the exception of THE AMERICAN FRIEND, which was based on Patricia Highsmith's Ripley's Game, I went on developing my films from scratch afterwards. You expressed some frustrations with THE SCARLET LETTER, including the restrictions of working on a period film and working with a completed script. Do you still think of these things as restrictions? Is the screenplay still as confining for you today? Would you ever consider making another period film (excluding science fiction)? I made a second period film later on, HAMMETT, and wasn't so happy with the result, either. Going into the past just isn't my cup of me. I find the future much more attractive. (UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD took place in the year 2000, but was conceived in 1978 and finally shot in 1990, so you could call it a "moderate science fiction.") Scripts can be a curse, or a blessing, and I have often gone from one extreme to another. I made movies with NO script whatsoever, like ALICE or KINGS OF THE ROAD alternating with pretty solid scripts like WRONG MOVE or THE AMERICAN FRIEND. I was never scared, I must say, to work without a script, but I got scared quite often by the limitations of a preconceived concept that would allow no more spontaneity and forbid the freedom of changing your mind. THAT for me was the much bigger risk. The "road trilogy" of ALICE IN THE CITIES, WRONG MOVE and KINGS OF THE ROAD boosted your international audience and reinforced the idea of a "New German Cinema." Since your own unique films were being categorized with those of a disparate group of fellow countrymen did you feel any sort of competition or perhaps camaraderie with filmmakers like Fassbinder and Herzog? With the benefit of hindsight, what are your current thoughts on the New German Cinema of the 1970s? The "New German Cinema" as a category was an invention of film critics, worldwide, especially in America, who needed to find some common label for us. But unlike the Nouvelle Vague in France or neo-realism in Italy we really had no artistic or stylistic program in common. We just shared our common devotion and passion for the cinema, whereby each of us had found his own grandfathers or fathers, his own tradition. There couldn't have been a more disparate gang of filmmakers figuring under a same name. That's also why there was relatively little "competition" among us, but a very strong sense of solidarity. We really helped each other a lot, realizing that by strengthening each other, every one of us got stronger, too. There was real "camaraderie," as you call it, yes. Very little jealousy. We just weren't in each other's way. THE AMERICAN FRIEND paid homage to film noir and the masters of crime fiction. Your films are always about the characters, but you clearly have a fondness for genre stories (not only crime, but science fiction and fantasy as well). Unlike many filmmakers, though, you don't look down on the material as "just another genre piece." What is it that draws you to these genres? When I sat in the darkness of the Cinemathéque in Paris, watching hundreds and hundreds of film, every day, for almost a year, I was thrilled to discover the notion of genres. Each one was like a new language I learned, like a new country to discover. Each one came with its own set of rules and rituals. And once you knew those, you could REALLY appreciate the exceptions of those rules, or whenever somebody clearly transcended the boundaries of a genre. In my mind those genres were great and necessary things, like grammar is for language. When I started making films myself, I realized, though, that I had little talent for genres. For some reasons, I could just not at all adhere to the limitations they imposed. But they still remained a valid notion in my eyes, even if they escaped me, much to my regret. I just didn't have the discipline. I guess I got as close as I possibly could with THE AMERICAN FRIEND that was certainly some form of a "thriller." At least in my book. HAMMETT brought you to Hollywood, but the protracted production made room for two additional films that are often viewed as more personal and experimental: LIGHTNING OVER WATER and THE STATE OF THINGS. In their own unique ways, each of these films says something about the struggles that face a European director in Hollywood. What lessons did Hollywood teach you during these years? Many, and I wouldn't want to have missed any of them, even if some
were painful or appeared frustrating at the time. This is a vast
subject, but in a nutshell, I came to understand that directing
a studio film in Hollywood was a very different profession altogether
from directing a film in the European "auteur" tradition.
Which itself is almost an obsolete category today, and has been
largely replaced by the term "independent cinema." Directing
a film where you're a hired hand is really more like being an engineer
in some form of industrial process, or maybe better: like being
a General in a military operation. In the more European tradition,
which became largely synonymous with "independent films"
worldwide, the director is really more of a storyteller. I'm not
saying that you can't be creative inside the studio system--history
would ridicule such an opinion--but all your decisions have to be
approved, or not, by another more powerful institution which is
"The Studio," often in the person of a powerful producer
or head of production, but very often also in the form of some committee
or conglomerate, where any "storytelling" or "artistic"
issue plays second fiddle to commercial considerations. Anyway,
my own conclusion was that I'd rather continue doing what I was
good at, and where I could do my best, and if that meant to work
with reduced means and smaller budgets, that was fine with me. One
of the lessons in Hollywood is that the more money you have, the
less you're free to do with it what you esteem necessary or important.
Of course, there are some glorious exceptions to that rule, too,
fortunately. There was no truth to seek behind Ford or Hawks, in my book, they WERE the truth. But the landscape of the American West had long been exploited since then, and hollowed and falsified. Much of it had become "Marlboro Country." Still, I felt, you could treat this landscape with respect, and still, you could tell stories in there from scratch. The film is indeed a walk on a tightrope between American ideas and a European view. It is heavily influenced and shaped by Sam Shepard's writing (and what a glorious script he gave me!) and my own vision of America, which after all, was very European. Or German, for that matter. WINGS OF DESIRE brought you back to Berlin, and the story seemed to be rooted in an entire city and its people, and not just in a handful of characters. LISBON STORY (one of my favorites) seems to be another example of this. The story seems to emanate from the place and not the characters. Do you see any distinction between "character films" and "location films" or are the people and places of equal importance? It is utterly important for me that a film starts with a desire for its very own place. Most of my movies started FIRST with a sense of place, and then this place, or this landscape, found and determined their story. "Called the shots," so to speak, imposed "their own story." Both WINGS and LISBON STORY are good examples of that. But you could almost take any other film of mine as well. I don't like the term "location" for the places of my films. There is something condescending in that word. For me, PLACES are leading characters. UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD (another favorite) was a project that had been gestating for some time and is obviously a work of great scope and ambition. Are you satisfied with the currently available version and will your complete cut ever see a wide release in theaters or on home video? The Reader's Digest version I was forced to release at the time would have broken my heart if I had left it at that. I knew that. And I felt I owed it to my actors, to my crew and to the musicians who had worked on that fabulous score, to finish the real work we had done. It had epic proportions, that was for sure. Together with my editor, Peter Przygodda, we added another full year after the delivery of the commercial version at the time, at our own expense, and finished what I considered "the real film." Of five hours. Which exists since then and which hopefully will see not only the light of day in the form of DVD releases, but also a few theatrical screenings here or there. I have shown it four or five times already, and EVERYBODY who saw it had the same reaction. "Wow! Now we get it. That's a whole different ballgame!" At the time we had to condense the film so much that all the fun had gone out of it. The "message" had become very heavy, if not to say heavy-handed. The very narrator had become more or less a side character, for instance. Did you develop a personal relationship with Antonioni prior to collaborating with him on BEYOND THE CLOUDS? Were both of you pleased with the results of the collaboration? We knew each other a bit, ever since we had met in Cannes when Michelangelo had shown IDENTIFICATIONE DI UNA DONNA in 1982, I think. Which was a couple of years before that terrible stroke which had handicapped him since, at least as far as his speaking ability was concerned. His spirit, his brilliant intellect, his director's mind and eyes were in no way handicapped at all, which he proved with BEYOND THE CLOUDS. I was happy that I could be instrumental in getting this film made. My guess is that Michelangelo was pleased, too. But I wouldn't dare speaking for him. If you know him a bit, you learn to avoid that mistake... These days, you're one of the few European directors who are able to work in Hollywood without having to compromise his art. How is it that you've been able to keep your independence in an environment that encourages conformity? I wouldn't categorize Hollywood that much myself. There are "conformist products" being made, sure, but there are also courageous and inventive films made, every now and then. The basis for my independence has been my Berlin-based production company, Road Movies, which produced or co-produced all my films (with the single exception of HAMMETT) and which allowed me to have a final cut on each and every one of my films since then. Finally, I was hoping you'd want to write a few words about your current film and photography projects. I'm working with Sam Shepard on my next project, entitled for the time being DON'T COME KNOCKIN'. It's the first time the two of us work together again since PARIS, TEXAS. The reason we waited so long was that we both were hesitant to repeat such a great experience, by fear that we might ruin it. But 18 years were enough of a wait, we both figured. Hopefully, we will be shooting in early summer of 2003. I'm very proud of my photo exhibition "Pictures of the Surface of the World" that is currently showing at the gorgeous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and will eventually travel to the Guggenheim houses in Las Vegas and New York. These are huge formats, some of them 15 feet long, and I took these pictures over 20 years, carrying some pretty heavy equipment on my back across some remote places, knowing I would print them some day, their sizes corresponding to the places that I took them of...
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