TIFF’s On the Road: The Films of Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders is a bridge every cinephile must cross, but it has not always been an easy trip. It is a good time to look back at his career because, like his contemporary in the New German cinema of the 1970s Werner Herzog, Wenders has come back into fashion for a third act as a documentarian.
With that, TIFF is offering you the chance to see Wenders early films in new digital restorations as part of a retrospective which runs Jan. 30 to Mar. 17 at the Lightbox.
Where to start with him?
Probably not with the nearly five hour debacle that is 1991’s Until The End of the World. I tried to get through it again for the purposes of this programme preview and, as someone who has quite readily sat through Jeanne Dielman, Stalker and more than one work by the Hungarian great Béla Tarr, I just simply… can't.
Nor could I work with him through the abysmal The End of Violence, or worse still, The Million Dollar Hotel from 2000.
But why work backward? It all peaked with a multi-chapter road trip in the seventies any way.
Wenders is often linked to the Oberhausen Manifesto era in German cinema that fomented a generation of filmmakers including Mr. Herzog along with directors like Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schlöndorff (to pick a couple) to action. This was an out with the old, in with the new moment — as with many European national cinemas at the time, but this one dealing with the miserable memories of years of Nazi propaganda films in the not-to-distant past — to bring cinema back into contemporary life and thought.
It’s interesting that some his earlier features actually see Wenders working more in-step with the general style of that movement. For example The Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (Jan. 28 at 6:30 p.m.) from 1971 and even up to the second part of the famed “road trilogy” The Wrong Move in 1975 (Jan. 30 at 6:30 p.m.).
It’s in Alice in the Cities (Jan. 29 6:15 p.m.) that you see the Wenders’ own verve shining through. I always saw Wenders a bit apart from that New German movement, less societally interested or given to the baroque than Herzog, and more into his own curiosity’s about longing and American culture. In that way he always felt more like a French New Wave director in the mode of Truffaut. But then, Wenders is distinct enough to not need a harbinger.
You get an early look at the documentarian Wenders would become later in the rending collaboration with director Nicholas Ray (Rebel Without A Cause) Lighting Over Water (Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m.) as the two make a film of Ray’s cancer-stricken final days.
The Wenders essentials start with the three hour epic travelogue, Kings of the Road (Feb. 2 at 6:30 p.m.). The combination of Ry Cooder’s soundtrack and the cinematography from Robby Müller make Western Germany feel like the American Wild West and give the film all the character of a 70s American road movie like Scarecrow or Two-Lane Blacktop. It’s a journey taken by two strangers, one who just tried to kill himself, badly, and the other a wandering movie-projector repairman (Wenders favourite Rüdiger Vogler). There’s not much plot, but its seminal and stands up impeccably.
Wenders’ take on Patricia Highsmith’s "Ripley’s Game", The American Friend (Feb. 5 6:15 p.m.), is a notch below Kings of the Road but is still a terrific slow-burn crime film with great work from Bruno Ganz as a supposedly dying assassin and a gruff Dennis Hopper.
Chronologically speaking, Wenders then had a rough time of it trying to make a film for Francis Ford Coppola’s American Zoetrope company in Hollywood. He attempted to put famed hardboiled mystery author Dashiell Hammett as a character in a film mystery called Hammett. It’s was a famous disaster, had to be made nearly twice, and is not featured in this retrospective. I kinda like it though…
He was back on track with the interesting The State of Things (Mar. 1 9:15 p.m.), which is maybe a bit too on the nose about the tensions between European and American filmmaking that infused Wenders work, but strong. Then it was the masterful Paris, Texas (Feb. 6 5:00 p.m.) about a stranger (Harry Dean Stanton) showing up in the desert without any recollection of who he is until his brother (Dean Stockwell) finds him. Stanton and Stockwell then start out to find his wife. This one is actually set in the American Southwest and still looks gorgeous.
Wenders' most famous film, Wings of Desire (Mar. 5 5:30 p.m.), with Bruno Ganz again and Otto Sander as angels who walk among us in black and white Berlin, while of course the living world stays in colour, is a masterpiece. You can’t blame it for the garbagy Nic Cage/Meg Ryan City of Angels re-make.
After that, as noted, it gets a bit spotty. Do make a point of catching the lovely doc Buena Vista Social Club (Feb. 27 4:30 p.m.), about the revival of a group of Cuban musicians though, and his doc Pina, about the modern dancer Pina Bosch (Mar. 6 1:00 p.m.). His 2014 doc The Salt of the Earth, about photographer Sebastião Salgado is not featured however.
Canadaland launches a film series at the Revue
The noted media watchdog podcast and blog, Canadaland, is debuting an intriguing new media-centric film programme at Roncy’s Revue Cinema Wednesday Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m.
The initial edition features Canadaland host Jesse Brown and CBC’s Michael Enright discussing the 1952 Humphrey Bogart vehicle Deadline U.S.A. Your ticket also gets you a glimpse at a live recording of the podcast as well.
Richard Brooks’s flick is a later role for Bogey, his lifestyle had already worn through his features, but he’s sturdy as ever as a dogged city editor. He’s determined to tie a local gangster to a murder while his deceased publisher's heirs scheme to sell the paper out from under him.
It’s pretty good actually, reminiscent of this year’s Spotlight a bit, but falters with some corny speechifying toward the end.
Toronto Screengrab of the Week
Last week we opted for My Big Fat Greek Wedding. This week is a pretty mediocre star vehicle for the woman above. It makes use of plenty of T.O. locations, particularly the Playter Estates hood, despite supposedly taking place in Chicago.
