The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
Wim Wenders, a German director who has directed works such as "Under the Berlin Sky" and "Paris, Texas", is also passionate about photography in addition to filmmaking. His graphic diaries Once and Polaroid Movie Notes: Instant Images were also introduced and published. Its latest photo exhibition, "Wim Wenders: Photographing the Ruins of the World Trade Center," will be held at the Imperial War Museum in London from September 10 to January 9 next year for free viewing.
Wim Wenders was born in August 1945 in Düsseldorf, Germany. In this city where eighty percent of its buildings were destroyed by Allied bombing, he did not see the ruins of various walls as a child, nor did he have nightmares related to them. By the time he was 56 years old, the scene in the TV news of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and then collapsing immediately evoked Wenders' memories of what he saw in his childhood.
Photographs to be exhibited at the "Wim Wenders: Photographing the Ruins of the World Trade Center" photo exhibition
"The images of 9/11 have been lingering in my mind for a long time." Wenders said, "That day, like everyone else, I saw the live broadcast in front of the TV. I'm sure everyone was blown away, but for me, it evoked a series of nightmares, as if I were in the World Trade Center, inside the collapsing building. I strongly wanted to be able to get rid of these thoughts, so I thought that I had to go to New York for myself and see the ruins for myself, maybe it would be useful. ”
So, pingsu loved photography, and with a professional large-format camera, he set off from Berlin to New York. At that time, the area of the Twin Towers had been completely closed, and only Joel Meyerowitz, a famous new York street photographer, had official permission from the New York city government to enter the forbidden area to take pictures, leaving a video record for the world.
Wenders, who had worked and lived in the United States for many years, had known Meyerowitz, who was seven years older than him, and had a personal relationship. According to the regulations, When Meyerowitz enters the ruins of the World Trade Center, he can bring an assistant. In this way, Wenders hid his true identity and walked into the cordon as a little assistant to the master photographer.
Wenders photography
"It was like a huge cemetery." Two decades later, Wenders, 76, recalled in an interview with The Guardian via Zoom, "A dead silence." When everyone talked to each other, they were also whispering, not daring to speak loudly. Every now and then, there would be a whistle, and everyone would take off their hats, because the whistle meant that another body had been exhumed. ”
On that day, Wenders stayed on the scene for a total of about six hours, more often than not observing, and the frequency of actually pressing the shutter was not very high. As a result, there are only five photographs on display, but all of them are huge in size, and the viewer can discover many details from them. He said he wanted to be able to spot something from his surroundings. "As a photographer, I generally don't take portraits of people, mainly about the environment. I always felt that the environment actually talked, and told us something about ourselves. So as a photographer, I pick up the camera and listen with my ear. ”
He still remembers that for a moment, the sun suddenly came out, and the light shone on the adjacent skyscraper, shining brightly. Joel Meyerowitz, who had been filming on the ruins for days, told me that this was the first time he had seen the sun here in so long. It made me think that this place at the moment must be trying to tell us something very special. Rather than going on like crazy, more bleeding, this moment seems to remind us that healing hurts is more important. ”
In the real world, Wendstein said that George W. Bush, then president of the United States, could have pursued a peaceful line, "but in the end he chose that ancient and cruel response - revenge, and that was the worst countermeasure."
Also fraught with problems are the increasingly realistic catastrophic scenes of Hollywood films of the kind that have continued since the 1990s. As early as that year, he thought that the Hollywood CG special effects scenes like "Independence Day" that blew up the White House were difficult to say whether they had no connection with 9/11 at all.
He also naively thought that 9/11 would wake up Hollywood to stop shooting certain types of special effects scenes and disaster movies. Contrary to expectations, in recent years, comic book adaptations of superhero movies, scenes like this are not uncommon, and it has also made Wenders completely lose his appetite.
"I don't watch these kinds of movies, I have no interest, and what other meaning can I make to create this kind of effect other than to make people feel apocalyptic?" He sighed as he spoke.
Michelle Williams (left) and Wenders on set in Lost Angels
In 2004, Wenders filmed Lost Angels, a film that uses michelle Williams' protagonist's road trip to her uncle, a Vietnam Veteran, to find some kind of redemption for contemporary Americans. At the end of the film, the two look at the ruins of the Twin Towers, which also represents Wenders' temporary farewell to the ruins.
Since then, Wenders has focused more and more away from Hollywood, away from traditional feature films. "Compared with documentaries, the current drama films are too stereotypical, and looking back on my past film experience, the more there is no specific script, the more successful the shooting of the work." "Under the Berlin Sky" was filmed without a script at all. Thinking about the story beforehand and just executing it when shooting is not the way I appreciate filmmaking. But unfortunately, the way I admire makes movies is now becoming more and more difficult to achieve. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe