I like most of Wim Wenders' work, but this portrait only scratches at the surface and makes the man look smaller than he is. Wenders is a thoughtful and unusually sensitive man, who has interesting things to say about cinema and the world we live in. I prefer the more serious and philosophical side of Wenders, because to see Wim re-enact iconic scenes from his own movies at the original locations is too much hero-worshipping and vulgarity for me. This technique is unintentionally funny in its self-marketing. More distance, dignity and a more sensitive approach to understand an artist's journey would have served this film better.
Another misguided sequence is about money and that Wenders didn't get rich from his art, because he made so many bad deals. That's a topic rarely discussed among artists, but Wenders is certainly not a 'poor man' in any conventional sense: He always wears designer clothes and travels all over the world shooting features at dream locations with stars....this is a rare privilege. I would have liked to learn more about the financial struggles of his auteur career, but in a more in-depth way, not just by telling us, that he didn't get as rich as others. For example, why did Wenders get into so much trouble with his production companies Road Movies and Filmverlag der Autoren, which even blocked the release of "Paris, Texas" in Germany ? Nothing of this is mentioned, only Wim's major trouble with Zoetrope Studios and Francis Ford Coppola. Obviously, the filmmakers - most of them Wim's friends like Campino - didn't dig very deep, maybe to make Wenders look less financially irresponsible ? I would have liked to hear the ugly truth of auteur film financing, because too many people still think, that you can make a fortune with beautiful independent films, but it's even harder today.
Jim Jarmusch, Nick Cave, Peter Handke and many more could have provided more insight into this issue and Wenders' career, but they don't appear here. Why ? And why don't we get an interview with Michael Winterbottom or Lars von Trier, who both reportedly loved Wenders' early films and were influenced by them ? That would have been more interesting than asking Patti Smith about some of her music in Wenders' film. I also missed a discussion of Wenders' ultimate road movie "Until the End of the World", which was a commercial failure at the time, but is still his most ambitious film. Like this one, most of Wenders' so-called failures are barely mentioned or not at all.
I was also unimpressed by the almost random storytelling: You never get a clear idea of how Wim's career happened step-by-step. It's not chronological and very confusing sometimes, even for an informed fan like me. And why didn't we get more interesting interviews, that might have educated people on what's special about his aesthetics ? Instead we get actress Andie McDowell telling us that Wim's films are like paintings. Alright, that's not wrong, but it's not enough: You could say the same about 500 other filmmakers. There's too little about Wenders' love for music, the Road Movie genre, his cinematic influences like Ozu and Edward Hopper, his faith, growing up in post-Nazi-Germany and Wenders' early work as a film critic and late work as a fine artist. The doc never succeeds at analyzing Wenders films in any satisfying way, probably because Wenders himself is too private of a man ?
And here we get the most interesting part of the film, where Francis Ford Coppola and Wim Wenders remember the making of "Hammett" often in a different way....Coppola says, that the fiasco was Wim's fault, because he didn't respect the screenplay and extended the small part of his then-wife (actress Ronee Blakley), who was obviously interested in using her husband to become a major star. Blakley and Wenders divorced before the production of "Hammett" was finally released - without her in the lead. So Coppola might have been right about the woman and the situation: Love made Wim blind and an ambitious actress manipulated her director-husband into changing a major film to get her own big time. I still think that "Hammett" in the final version is a beautiful film and deserves to be re-evaluated. Only because Wenders had different things in mind, with his career-driven then-wife, it doesn't mean that his version would have been any better. In a funny way the noir "Hammett" had become the victim of a real-life 'femme fatale', or ? (An interview with Ronee Blakley would have been great, but we never hear her side of the story...)
It's nice to see that his wife Donata now obviously loves him: She calls her husband a 'genius', but is not silent about his difficult sides. Wim doesn't talk much about the evolution of his Christian faith, only his wife Donata does a little bit. She obviously had a calming influence on him and he seems content now. Maybe she should do a better portrait of the man one day ? If that's too close to home, maybe she could talk to the filmmakers to release a longer and less confusing version of this portrait ? I would appreciate a better version.
Another misguided sequence is about money and that Wenders didn't get rich from his art, because he made so many bad deals. That's a topic rarely discussed among artists, but Wenders is certainly not a 'poor man' in any conventional sense: He always wears designer clothes and travels all over the world shooting features at dream locations with stars....this is a rare privilege. I would have liked to learn more about the financial struggles of his auteur career, but in a more in-depth way, not just by telling us, that he didn't get as rich as others. For example, why did Wenders get into so much trouble with his production companies Road Movies and Filmverlag der Autoren, which even blocked the release of "Paris, Texas" in Germany ? Nothing of this is mentioned, only Wim's major trouble with Zoetrope Studios and Francis Ford Coppola. Obviously, the filmmakers - most of them Wim's friends like Campino - didn't dig very deep, maybe to make Wenders look less financially irresponsible ? I would have liked to hear the ugly truth of auteur film financing, because too many people still think, that you can make a fortune with beautiful independent films, but it's even harder today.
Jim Jarmusch, Nick Cave, Peter Handke and many more could have provided more insight into this issue and Wenders' career, but they don't appear here. Why ? And why don't we get an interview with Michael Winterbottom or Lars von Trier, who both reportedly loved Wenders' early films and were influenced by them ? That would have been more interesting than asking Patti Smith about some of her music in Wenders' film. I also missed a discussion of Wenders' ultimate road movie "Until the End of the World", which was a commercial failure at the time, but is still his most ambitious film. Like this one, most of Wenders' so-called failures are barely mentioned or not at all.
I was also unimpressed by the almost random storytelling: You never get a clear idea of how Wim's career happened step-by-step. It's not chronological and very confusing sometimes, even for an informed fan like me. And why didn't we get more interesting interviews, that might have educated people on what's special about his aesthetics ? Instead we get actress Andie McDowell telling us that Wim's films are like paintings. Alright, that's not wrong, but it's not enough: You could say the same about 500 other filmmakers. There's too little about Wenders' love for music, the Road Movie genre, his cinematic influences like Ozu and Edward Hopper, his faith, growing up in post-Nazi-Germany and Wenders' early work as a film critic and late work as a fine artist. The doc never succeeds at analyzing Wenders films in any satisfying way, probably because Wenders himself is too private of a man ?
And here we get the most interesting part of the film, where Francis Ford Coppola and Wim Wenders remember the making of "Hammett" often in a different way....Coppola says, that the fiasco was Wim's fault, because he didn't respect the screenplay and extended the small part of his then-wife (actress Ronee Blakley), who was obviously interested in using her husband to become a major star. Blakley and Wenders divorced before the production of "Hammett" was finally released - without her in the lead. So Coppola might have been right about the woman and the situation: Love made Wim blind and an ambitious actress manipulated her director-husband into changing a major film to get her own big time. I still think that "Hammett" in the final version is a beautiful film and deserves to be re-evaluated. Only because Wenders had different things in mind, with his career-driven then-wife, it doesn't mean that his version would have been any better. In a funny way the noir "Hammett" had become the victim of a real-life 'femme fatale', or ? (An interview with Ronee Blakley would have been great, but we never hear her side of the story...)
It's nice to see that his wife Donata now obviously loves him: She calls her husband a 'genius', but is not silent about his difficult sides. Wim doesn't talk much about the evolution of his Christian faith, only his wife Donata does a little bit. She obviously had a calming influence on him and he seems content now. Maybe she should do a better portrait of the man one day ? If that's too close to home, maybe she could talk to the filmmakers to release a longer and less confusing version of this portrait ? I would appreciate a better version.
