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January 11, 2008
I haven't seen many films of Wim Wenders apart from Paris, Texas and Wings of Desire
Wenders was part of the New German Cinema, a disparate movement united simply by its members' determination to make personal films, whatever the cost, and which included Fassbinder and Herzog. In this s article in Sight and Sound Nick Roddick says that:
Movements usually start with a public get-together of sorts (in the case of New German Cinema, the 1962 Oberhausen Manifesto), which no one notices at the time. They yield results locally, but by the time they gain international recognition the first flush is generally over. Then they move into a kind of international afterlife, referenced as a reality long after they are gone. This is especially true of cinema and even truer of German cinema.
He adds:
Film needs money as much as artistic commitment, so those who begin on the fringes with almost no money are grudgingly co-opted into the mainstream as soon as their money-making potential becomes clear. As a result, making film is all about making compromises; movements, on the other hand, are about remaining pure. One of the interesting things about Wenders is that he embraced those compromises - in a way Fassbinder and Herzog did not - in the evident belief that his artistic vision coupled with his deep love of American cinema would overcome the obstacles.
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the two that I most enjoy in his 'new german cinema' mode of film are 'alice in the cities' and 'kings of the road' both speak to the relations amongst humans in fascinating ways.