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To coincide with our international travelling retrospective of Wenders' photographs, Haunch of Venison talked to actor, director, artist and long-time friend of Wim Wenders, Dennis Hopper about his relationship with Wenders and his work. HV: When did you first meet Wim Wenders? Dennis Hopper: Wim and I first worked together back in 1976 in Germany - I flew straight into Hamburg from doing Apocalypse Now in the Philippines. The film he was directing, The American Friend, had seven film directors as its actors - it was a wonderful experience. It was also the first film to be distributed from Germany since the Second World War, which opened that possibility for other German filmmakers, such as Fassbinder. And then Wim and I have stayed in touch ever since. We're a bit alike; both of us are compulsive creators - we don't know how to stop creating. But Wim also has this amazing ambition and tenacity. When he sets his mind to a project he's like a pitbull - he perseveres regardless of finance, or other concerns, and makes wonderful films. HV : Both of you are also cross-genre artists. You're best known as an actor, but you've also had a retrospective of your photographs at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and you've directed films. How do you feel working in one medium effects the other? DH : Part of what I love about Wim's photographs is how they resemble production stills, shot flat-on, the kind of thing you would take when looking for a location. He must have started out looking for streets and places as ideas for scenes to shoot a movie in, but then out of that he's developed an art form with its own aesthetic and intentions. You rarely see people in Wim's work, but you often get the sense that they were there; you feel their absence. For me they evoke a sense of loneliness very much like an Edward Hopper painting, or Balthus. HV : There's been some discussion of Wenders' works carrying in the tradition of Hopper through the medium of photography capturing the sense of a story in a scene or place within a striking composition. Wenders actually used Hopper's Boulevard of Broken Dreams as a vignette for a scene in his film The End of Violence, and many of his films have this artistically composed sense. DH : Absolutely. There's a lot of nostalgia in Hopper's work, like in the landscapes with old Victorian buildings and railroads in them. Or that same hotel room he paints over and over again, with a neon sign outside a window and a man or woman sitting alone on a bed. Wim's photographs are similarly evocative - especially the ones from Montana - you notice each detail and imagine or feel what might have taken place there. In Balthus' paintings too, people are never looking at each other - even the dog looks one way while a person looks another, always staring off in isolation. In his own way, Wim shares this sensibility. HV : And according to Wenders, although he never arranges the scenes he shoots or manipulates the image, a photograph is always subjective and reveals as much about the photographer as the image taken. In this way, he says, a camera works in both directions. DH : I think I understand what he means. It's remarkable how, despite the different characteristics of each place, whether in Japan, Israel of America, Wim's photos all have a similar feel, this same feeling of absence and loneliness. And then the scale is so magnificent - the detail is just superb. I call it wet photography - it's so slick. The size is so powerful and when you stand in front of one, you really get drawn into the image.
For further information about works by Wim Wenders, please contact Adrian Sutton or Rory Blain T +44 (0)20 7495 5050
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