“Inside the theater he breathed freely.” –Peter Handke, The Anxiety of the Goalie at the Penalty KickARRIVALBefore I attended the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen for the first time in early May, the place-name had already been linked to a handful of geographical-cultural associations in my mind: the site of the legendary declaration of the 1962 Oberhausen Manifesto by a new generation of German filmmakers that announced the official break from Germany’s post-war cinema (‘The old is dead. We believe in the new’ was their dictum); the place where Wim Wenders grew up and shot a portion of his film Alice in the Cities (remember Alice and Philip Winter driving around town and its environs searching for her grandmother?); the city where Peter Handke premiered his earliest play ‘Self-Accusation’ in 1966; and, most importantly, its centrality in the Ruhr Region—the industrial rust belt of Germany. Some of these things were...
- 5/25/2018
- MUBI
A major talent of the New German Cinema finds his footing out on the open highway, in a trio of intensely creative pictures that capture the pace and feel of living off the beaten path. All three star Rüdiger Vogler, an actor who could be director Wim Wenders' alter ego. Wim Wenders' The Road Trilogy Blu-ray The Criterion Collection 813 1974-1976 / B&W and Color / 1:66 widescreen / 113, 104, 176 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date May 30, 2016 / 99.95 Starring Rüdiger Vogler, Lisa Kreuzer, Yetta Rottländer; Hannah Schygulla, Nasstasja Kinski, Hans Christian Blech, Ivan Desny; Robert Zischler. Cinematography Robby Müller, Martin Schäfer Film Editor Peter Przygodda, Barbara von Weltershausen Original Music Can, Jürgen Knieper, Axel Linstädt. Directed by Wim Wenders
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...
Reviewed by Glenn Erickson
This morning I 'fessed up to never having seen David Lynch's Lost Highway. Now I get to say that until now I've never seen Wim Wenders'...
- 5/16/2016
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
Joan Fontaine movies: ‘This Above All,’ ‘Letter from an Unknown Woman’ (photo: Cary Grant, Joan Fontaine in ‘Suspicion’ publicity image) (See previous post: “Joan Fontaine Today.”) Also tonight on Turner Classic Movies, Joan Fontaine can be seen in today’s lone TCM premiere, the flag-waving 20th Century Fox release The Above All (1942), with Fontaine as an aristocratic (but socially conscious) English Rose named Prudence Cathaway (Fontaine was born to British parents in Japan) and Fox’s top male star, Tyrone Power, as her Awol romantic interest. This Above All was directed by Anatole Litvak, who would guide Olivia de Havilland in the major box-office hit The Snake Pit (1948), which earned her a Best Actress Oscar nod. In Max Ophüls’ darkly romantic Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948), Fontaine delivers not only what is probably the greatest performance of her career, but also one of the greatest movie performances ever. Letter from an Unknown Woman...
- 8/6/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
At its current length, it shapes up as a major must-see for specialty film lovers while the presence of William Hurt, giving one of his best performances at the head of a talented, and often distinguished, international cast, should lure in more mainstream types. And the film's first half is so visually dazzling and moodily hip, that the picture could easily leap to the level of pop phenomenon.
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 9/11/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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