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You haven't seen scheisse but WIM WENDERS has
By Omar Sommereyns
As humans needing a sense of understanding, we often trick ourselves
into thinking we know more than we actually do, but the world will
always be profoundly occult and strange. I'm not talking about metaphysics,
but about the peculiarity of different cultures, the strangeness
and meaninglessness of being. Perhaps you may have traveled extensively
and think you've reached a conclusive comprehension of our surroundings,
but German filmmaker and photographer Wim Wenders is still roaming
the earth to excavate the unknown. A nomadic soul, he believes that
his life is an everlasting road movie, with several stops along
the way.
With films such as Buena Vista Social Club (1999, Cuba), Wings
of Desire (1987, Berlin) and Paris, Texas (1984, U.S.), Wenders
exposes the existential topography of the milieu he's trying to
capture, whether it's in a barren desert or overlooking the multitude
of city dwellers in the German capital.
Even more, the Oscar-nominated Buena Vista helped resuscitate consciousness
to the sultry sounds of Afro-Cuban jazz lead by Ibrahim Ferrer and
Ry Cooder. Also, Wenders has gathered a collection of photographs
throughout the years, which he has taken during his travels around
the world (America's West, Cuba, Israel, Australia). Many of these
are shot in locations (bereft of people) that resemble movie sets
where one senses a premonition that something is about to or has
already happened.
Since there will be a photographic exhibit in New York at the
James Cohan Gallery of his work in early November, L&A recently
spoke to Wenders in case you may be journeying there in the winter.
Q: Why are some of your images in large
format (e.g., 7 to 9 feet) and mostly without any people?
WW: The size is strictly in reverence to the places that are represented
in my pictures. They were awe-inspiring to me and I wanted to do
them justice by printing them so big that the spectator could feel
like he or she could walk right into them. I carried this big and
heavy camera with me for 20 years knowing that one day I would produce
prints that would make the effort worthwhile.
Q: In general in your work there seems
to be a dichotomy between the bustle of urban life and the emptiness
of the open wildland. How does that come into play for you?
WW: In spite of all the bustle, urban life can be emptier and more
desolate than any desert and the desert can leave you with a sense
of completeness and fullness. These are just my two favorite landscapes
and I can't get enough of either one.
Q: Are you an existentialist or what themes
do you like to explore the most?
WW: I was impressed by [French writers] Sartre and Camus when I
grew up and when existentialism was a hip culture. But that was
quite an eternity ago. Later on, when I started to make movies,
they seemed to always evoke the same press reaction, especially
in the States, and I called them my "Triple-A-reviews"
because they always boiled my subjects down to Angst, Alienation
and America. I feel I've grown out of these themes a while ago.
Angels have appeared in my movies since (more As), but lovers too
and a lot of music, and all sorts of cities. If anything, there's
still a quest for love and for identity in them. And I'm still attracted
to working on the road...
Q: How does your film and photography correlate
with each other and what role does each play in your aesthetic view?
WW: Both were more influenced by painting than by the respective
history of film or photography. I wanted to be a painter when I
grew up and I loved Dutch landscape painters and Vermeer, Rembrandt,
Kaspar David Friedrich and Klee. My sense of framing, in photography
as well as in filming, comes from them. When American painters started
to pick up 16mm cameras in the Sixties (Andy Warhol, Michael Snow
and others), I felt that was a very logical step to continue painting
with other means. I did the same and my first short films were really
a continuation of painterly efforts for me rather than any storytelling.
But that changed after a while. Storytelling is my main concern
now. In film, it seems obvious and it is done mainly via characters
and dialogue. In my photographs, I try to let places tell their
stories. Places have an amazing amount of story and history to convey,
if you're willing to listen (and watch at the same time). They can
become wide-open books, not just telling about themselves, but also
about all the people who came by. You might observe the absence
of people in my pictures, but after a while, you see nothing but
the traces they left behind. My aesthetic view? That is dwarfed
by a sense of necessity or an urgency for "truth."
Q: In what way do you consider yourself
to be a nomad?
WW: Traveling is my main profession. In the 19th Century, I would
have been an etcher and a travel writer. Obviously, today, most
of the great journeys have been made, so the greatest remains the
one into the human heart. And my access route to that goes through
the cities and the deserts...to come back to one of your initial
questions...
Omar Sommereyns is the
Life & Art associate editor and a senior at UM majoring in print
journalism. He founded the section with Hunter Stephenson in 2002
and helped it become one of the leading arts sections in college
newspapers nationwide.
Past Interviews: Bret Easton
Ellis, Biz Markie, Fishbone, Del tha Funky Homosapien, the Stills,
Aesop Rock
The Miami Hurricane
c/o Omar Sommereyns
1306 Stanford Dr
UC Room 221
Coral Gables, FL 33124
Email: SOASIS@hotmail.com
Tele: 305 284 2016
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