A traveling projection-equipment mechanic works in Western Germany along the East-German border, visiting worn-out theatres. He meets with a depressed young man whose marriage has just broke... Read allA traveling projection-equipment mechanic works in Western Germany along the East-German border, visiting worn-out theatres. He meets with a depressed young man whose marriage has just broken up, and the two decide to travel together.A traveling projection-equipment mechanic works in Western Germany along the East-German border, visiting worn-out theatres. He meets with a depressed young man whose marriage has just broken up, and the two decide to travel together.
- Awards
- 3 wins & 1 nomination
- Paul - Garage Owner
- (as Dieter Traier)
- Little Boy
- (as Patrick Kreuzer)
- Masturbating Projectionist
- (uncredited)
- Spectator at Pauline's Theater
- (uncredited)
- Teacher
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThere had basically been no script for the movie. Except for the first scene after the opening credits when the two protagonists meet each other, everything is improvised or developed on set.
- GoofsThe VW beetle driven into the Elbe river is not visible anymore when Robert reaches the waterside. Later after Bruno hands over an espresso to Robert, the beetle is shown as finally sinking.
- Quotes
Robert Lander: What are you writing?
Little Boy: I'm describing a train station. Everything I see.
Robert Lander: And what do you see?
Little Boy: The tracks, the gravel, the timetable, the sky, the clouds. A man with a suitcase. An empty suitcase!
- Crazy creditsOpening credits provide the aspect ratio and other technical specifications of the film to come.
- ConnectionsFeatured in Im Lauf der Zeit: Outtakes and Deleted Scenes (1976)
The comparison with Dennis Hopper's 'Easy Rider' is inevitable. I'm sure that Wenders knew well and loved this movie. His heroes depicted on screen by Rüdiger Vogler and Hanns Zischler are not necessarily marginals such as those played by Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper, but same as the ones in the American movie, they cannot care less about social conventions, and choose the roads as a way of life. Roads mean running away and discovering. Self-discovery before anything else. Roads mean taking life as it is, meeting other people, trying to communicate, to connect one loneliness with another. From 'Easy Rider' and 'Kings of the Road' we learn and understand more about the America of the late 1960s or about Germany in the mid-1970s than from dozens of other books or movies.
Wenders' film has a second theme parallel to the one of roads - it's the decaying cinema houses. One of the film's heroes lives out of maintaining the projection equipment of the old cinemas in the small rural German villages. A job that becomes increasingly useless. Wenders anticipates Giuseppe Tornatore's "Cinema Paradiso" for over a decade. 30 years after the end of the Second World War, the ruined Germany was disappearing, taking with it signs and symbols of a way of life that had not only negative aspects. The two characters of the film, apparently lost in a world dominated by order, are actually the symbols of a lost freedom.
'Kings of the Road' lasts three hours, three hours spent by the two characters in a truck, on country roads along the temporary border between the two Germanies, between one cinema already in ruins to another, or to one that still functions without spectators. Not much seems to happen in the movie. And yet the three hours pass quickly, like in a spell, because every minute is full of artistic substance, full of life.
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Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Languages
- Also known as
- Im Lauf der Zeit
- Filming locations
- Künsche, Lüchow, Lower Saxony, Germany(Robert at the gas station looking for his way)
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- DEM 680,000 (estimated)
- Gross worldwide
- $284
- Runtime2 hours 55 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.66 : 1