Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders (2015)
Born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders
(1945-08-14) 14 August 1945
Düsseldorf, Rhine Province, Allied-occupied Germany
Occupation Film director
Years active 1967–present
Spouse(s) Edda Köchl (1968–74)
Lisa Kreuzer (1974–78)
Ronee Blakley (1979–81)
Isabelle Weingarten (1981–82)
Donata Wenders (1993–)
Awards Golden Lion
for The State of Things (1982)
Golden Palm
for Paris, Texas (1984)
Cannes Film Festival
Grand Jury Prize
for Faraway, So Close! (1993)
Silver Bear Jury Prize
for The Million Dollar Hotel (2000)
Website www.wim-wenders.com

Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (German: [vɪm vɛndɐs]; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker, playwright, author, photographer, and a major figure in New German Cinema. In a career spanning over four decades, he has received some of the highest international film awards, including the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his drama Paris, Texas; the Golden Lion for the drama The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival (1982); and Best Director for the romantic fantasy film Wings of Desire at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. He has been nominated for the Academy Awards three times, for his documentaries Buena Vista Social Club, about the music of Cuba, Pina, about the contemporary dance choreographer Pina Bausch, and The Salt of the Earth, about Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. Since 1996, Wenders has been the president of the European Film Academy in Berlin.

Alongside filmmaking, Wenders works with the medium of photography, emphasizing images of desolate landscapes.[1][2]

Early life

Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditionally-Catholic family. His father, Heinrich Wenders, was a surgeon. The use of the Dutch name "Wim" is a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm/Willem". As a boy, he took unaccompanied trips to Amsterdam to visit the Rijksmuseum. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine (1963–64) and philosophy (1964–65) in Freiburg and Düsseldorf. However, he dropped out of university studies and moved to Paris in October 1966 to become a painter. Wenders failed his entry test at France's national film school IDHEC (now La Fémis), and instead became an engraver in the studio of Johnny Friedlander, in Montparnasse. During this time, Wenders became fascinated with cinema, and saw up to five movies a day at the local movie theater.

Set on making his obsession also his life's work, Wenders returned to Germany in 1967 to work in the Düsseldorf office of United Artists. That fall, he entered the "Hochschule für Fernsehen und Film München" (University of Television and Film Munich). Between 1967 and 1970 while at the "HFF", Wenders also worked as a film critic for FilmKritik, then the Munich daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Twen magazine, and Der Spiegel.

Wenders completed several short films before graduating from the Hochschule with a feature-length 16mm black and white film, Summer in the City.

Career

Wenders began his career during the New German Cinema era of the late 1960s, making his feature directorial debut with Summer in the City (1970). Much of the distinctive cinematography in his movies is the result of a highly productive long-term collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller. Some of his more successful and critically acclaimed movies—Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire, for example—have been the result of fruitful collaborations with avant-garde authors Peter Handke and Sam Shepard. Handke's novel, The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick was adapted for Wenders' second feature film, The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty. Handke co-wrote the script for Wings of Desire and Until the End of the World, both featuring Solveig Dommartin.

Wenders has directed several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999), about Cuban musicians, and The Soul of a Man (2003), on American blues. He has also directed a documentary style film on the Skladanowsky brothers, known in English as A Trick of the Light.[3] The Skladanowsky brothers were inventing 'moving pictures' when several others like the Lumiere brothers and Friese-Greene were doing the same.

He has also directed many music videos for groups such as U2 and Talking Heads, including "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" and "Sax and Violins". His television commercials include a UK advertisement for Carling Premier Canadian beer.

Wim Wenders at Cannes (2002)

Wenders' book, Emotion Pictures, a collection of diary essays written while a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3, featuring Peter Capaldi as Wenders, with Gina McKee, Saskia Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton and Ricky Tomlinson, dramatised by Neil Cargill.

Wenders was collaborating with artist/journalist and longtime friend Melinda Camber Porter on a documentary feature about his body of work, Wim Wenders - Visions on Film, when Porter died - the film remains incomplete.[4]

Wenders is a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. The project was founded by Martin Scorsese and aimed at finding and reconstructing world cinema films that have been long neglected. He serves as a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.[5]

Wim Wenders (2008)

In 2011 he was selected to stage the 2013 cycle of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival,[6] a reflection of his capacity to produce imaginative tributes to great works of art.[7] The project fell through when he insisted on filming in 3-D, which the Wagner family found too costly and disruptive.[8]

While promoting his 3-D dance film, Pina, Wenders told the Documentary channel Blog in December 2011 that he has already begun work on a new 3-D documentary, this one about architecture.[9] He also has said that he will only be working in the 3-D film format from now on.[10] Wenders admired the dance choreographer Pina Bausch since 1985, but only with the advent of digital 3-D cinema did he decide that he could sufficiently capture her work on screen.

He will stage director debut for Georges Bizet's opera Les Pêcheurs de perles starring Olga Peretyatko, Francesco Demuro, conducted by Daniel Barenboim at Berlin State Opera in June 2017 (Staatsoper).

Photography

Alongside filmmaking, Wim Wenders works with the medium of photography and his poignant images of desolate landscapes engage themes including memory, time, loss, nostalgia and movement.[1][2] Wenders' long-running artistic project, Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, began in the early 1980s and was subsequently pursued by the artist for the next twenty years. The initial photographic series in this body of work was titled Written in the West which Wenders produced when criss-crossing through the American West in preparation for his film Paris, Texas (1984). This became the starting point for the artist's nomadic journey across the globe, travelling through countries including Germany, Australia, Cuba, Israel and Japan to take photographs which capture the essence of a moment, place or space.[11]

Selected exhibitions

2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2006
2005
2004–05
2004
2003
2000–04
2000
1996
1995
1993–95
Wim Wenders (2005)
1989–94
1989–94
1986–92

Legacy and honors

Wenders has already received many awards, including the Golden Lion for The State of Things at the Venice Film Festival (1982); the Palme d'Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival for his movie Paris, Texas; and Best Direction for Wings of Desire in the 1987 Bavarian Film Awards[14] and the 1987 Cannes Film Festival. In 1993 he won the Bavarian Film Awards for Best Director for Faraway, So Close!.[14] In 2004, he received the Master of Cinema Award of the International Filmfestival Mannheim-Heidelberg. He was awarded the Leopard of Honour at the Locarno International Film Festival in 2005. In 2012, his dance film Pina was nominated for the Best Documentary Feature of the 84th Academy Awards.[15]

He has been awarded honorary doctorates at the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989 and at the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium in 2005.

In 2012 the Wim Wenders Foundation was created in Düsseldorf creating a framework to bring together the cinematic, photographic, artistic and literary lifework of Wim Wenders in his native country and to make it permanently accessible to the general public worldwide.[16]

He was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2015.[17]

Filmography

Year English title German title Notes
1970 Summer in the City First full-length feature film (Dedicated to The Kinks)
1972 The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (UK) or The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (USA) Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter Adaptation of a novel by Peter Handke
1973 The Scarlet Letter Der Scharlachrote Buchstabe Adapted from the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne
1974 Alice in the Cities Alice in den Städten First part of Wenders' Road Movie Trilogy
1975 The Wrong Move Falsche Bewegung Second part of Wenders' Road Movie Trilogy, with Nastassja Kinski
1976 Kings of the Road Im Lauf der Zeit Third part of Wenders' Road Movie Trilogy
1977 The American Friend Der Amerikanische Freund Adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's novel Ripley's Game
1980 Lightning Over Water Documentary about the last days of Nicholas Ray
1982 Hammett Fictional story about Dashiell Hammett, American writer; based on a novel by Joe Gores
1982 Room 666 Chambre 666 Short documentary interviews directors on the future of cinema, including Steven Spielberg, Jean-Luc Godard, and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Filmed at Cannes
1982 Reverse Angle Short film documents Wenders' disputes with Coppola during Hammett
1982 The State of Things Stand der Dinge
1984 Paris, Texas
1984 Docu Drama Documentary
1985 Tokyo-Ga Documentary about Japanese film director Yasujirō Ozu
1987 Wings of Desire Der Himmel über Berlin Written with Peter Handke. A guardian angel is tempted to prefer human experience over the outsider's immortality.
1989 Notebook on Cities and Clothes Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Städten Documentary about Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto.
1990 Red Hot + Blue Music video for "Night and Day" performed by U2
1991 Until the End of the World Bis ans Ende der Welt
1992 Arisha, the Bear and the Stone Ring Arisha, der Bär und der steinerne Ring
1993 Faraway, So Close! In weiter Ferne, so nah! Sequel to Wings of Desire
1994 Lisbon Story Partially a sequel to The State of Things
1995 Beyond the Clouds Jenseits der Wolken (with Michelangelo Antonioni)
1995 A Trick of Light Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky Also known as The Brothers Skladanowsky
1995 Lumière et compagnie segment
1997 The End of Violence
1998 Willie Nelson at the Teatro
1999 Buena Vista Social Club Documentary about Cuban musicians; made with Ry Cooder
2000 The Million Dollar Hotel
2000 Un matin partout dans le monde TV Short
2001 Souljacker Part 1 Music Video for "Souljacker Pt 1" by Eels
2002 Ode to Cologne: A Rock 'N' Roll Film Viel passiert - Der BAP-Film Documentary about the Cologne rock group BAP
2002 Ten Minutes Older Contributed segment "Twelve Miles to Trona"
2003 Other Side of the Road Short
2003 The Soul of a Man Documentary about Blues musicians
2004 Land of Plenty
2005 Don't Come Knocking
2007 Invisibles Documentary (segment "Invisible Crimes")
2007 To Each His Own Cinema (segment "War in Peace")
2008 Palermo Shooting
2008 8 (segment "Person to Person")
2010 If Buildings Could Talk Short
2011 Pina Premiered Out of Competition at the Berlin Film Festival.[18]
2012 Mundo Invisível segment "Ver ou Não Ver"
2014 The Salt of the Earth Documentary about photographer Sebastião Salgado
2015 Every Thing Will Be Fine
TBA Les Beaux Jours d'Aranjuez
2017 Submergence Filming starts in March 2016

Selected bibliography

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "Wim Wenders: Places, Strange And Quiet – in pictures | Art and design". Theguardian.com. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  2. 1 2 Art Photography. "Wim Wenders: Show, don't tell". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  3. ↑ A Trick of the Light at the Internet Movie Database
  4. ↑ http://www.wimwendersfilmfestival.com/#!a-b-o-u-t/cfp1
  5. ↑ "Profile Jury". Filmaka.com. 1945-08-14. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  6. ↑ "German Information Centre South Asia | Facebook". German-info.com. 2015-03-08. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  7. ↑ Archived April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ↑ Archived April 2, 2015, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ↑ Archived February 6, 2014, at the Wayback Machine.
  10. ↑ "It's 3D or Bust for 'Pina' Director Wim Wenders - Speakeasy - WSJ". Blogs.wsj.com. 2011-12-23. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  11. ↑ Rose, Barbara (2004-01-01). "Wim Wenders: Pictures From the Surface of the Earth". Brooklynrail.org. Retrieved 2015-03-17.
  12. ↑ http://www.wimwendersvillapanza.it
  13. ↑ "Wim Wenders, Pictures from the Surface of the Earth". Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow.
  14. 1 2 Archived March 25, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  15. ↑ "Nominees for the 84th Academy Awards". Oscars.org. Retrieved 2012-01-28.
  16. ↑ http://wimwendersstiftung.de/en/the-foundation/
  17. ↑ "Homage 2015 and Honorary Golden Bear for Wim Wenders". Berlinale.de. Retrieved 5 October 2014.
  18. ↑ "Berlinale 2011: First Competition Films". Berlinale.de. Retrieved 2011-01-03.

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