Beijing film fans can finally meet the famous director in May. Courtesy photo/ Goethe-Institut (China)
Stills from Under the Berlin Sky. Courtesy of wenders Foundation
Stills from "Paris, Texas". Courtesy of wenders Foundation
Stills from King of the Highway. Courtesy of wenders Foundation
"In Search of Ozu". Courtesy of wenders Foundation
Wendersbrilio camera photography.
Wendersbrilio camera photography. The picture is from wenders official website
Wenders with Yohji Yamamoto.
This year's May in Beijing can be said to be "Wenders Month", first Wenders cross-border directing of the opera "Pearl Diver" at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, followed by the German Cultural Center In Beijing Goethe Institute (China) and the China Film Archive co-sponsored by the Wenders Foundation, wenders large-scale film special review activities are also launched in Beijing, screening until June 30, there will be 21 films systematically introduced to Wenders' film world.
Wim Wenders is one of the most important figures in contemporary German cinema, together with Schlöndorf, Herzog, Fassbinder and known as the "Four Masters of New German Cinema", he is not only well-known in the field of film and documentary, "Paris in Texas", "Under the Berlin Sky", "Salt of the Earth" and so on have won many international awards such as the Best Director Award in Cannes, and also have made great achievements in the fields of photography and stage plays, and his photographic works have entered the Pompidou Art Center in France, the Guggenheim Museum in Spain and other world art halls. Its reputation is not inferior to that of movies.
"I don't like a state where I'm getting older and things are going to rely more and more on experience, experience is not fun, it's a burden, and I'd rather do something I don't know how to start." The 73-year-old Wenders still looks elegant, speaking at the same pace as his road movies, calm and soothing, but he is a person who likes to try new things, whether it is the documentary "Pina" filmed with 3D technology before, or the crossover director opera "Pearl Diver" now, it is an attempt to break through the comfort zone.
The first Chinese director I met was Chen Kaige
This is Wenders' first visit to Beijing. Before that, he had two "passing by" with Beijing. The first time took place in 1991, when his filmIng Until the End of the World was filmed in nine countries, including one in China. However, due to the limited shooting budget at that time, only the cinematographer and actress came to Beijing, but the Chinese director Chen Kaige assisted in the shooting. Chen Kaige was the first Chinese director Wenders knew, but he can't remember whether the two met at the Cannes Film Festival or the Berlin Film Festival, but only remember that during the film festival, everyone often ate together and gradually became good friends. In addition to The friendly support of Chen Kaige, Wenders also broke the news that director Wong Kar-wai also made a cameo role as a truck driver in the film. Wenders' second miss with Beijing was in 2004, when his solo photography exhibition toured Guangzhou, Beijing, and Shanghai, when his visa was all done, but he did not expect to be ill a week before departure and had an operation, and he could not fly long distances for several months, and missed it again.
"It's only three," Wenders said of the first two misses with Beijing. Because of the film retrospective and the premiere of the opera "Pearl Diver", Wenders' itinerary in Beijing was tightly arranged. He has been trying to establish a connection with the city of Beijing. Wenders feels that the best way to connect with a city is to wander alone, "until the moment you get lost in the city and no one tells you exactly where you are, you can connect with the city." ”
After a few days in Beijing, Wenders decided to become the protagonist of his "road movie", wandering aimlessly through the city. He used an hour of leisure time to walk out of the National Centre for the Performing Arts and unconsciously walked to a small garden next to the Forbidden City, "I was sitting on a bench under an ancient tree and fell asleep, the wind rustled the leaves, and at that moment I established contact with the ancient tree, and we became friends." ”
A prisoner who makes movies and never makes scripts
Wenders has a free nature in his bones, and this freedom permeates his creations. Before shooting, his films hardly had a complete script, "Every time I had a full script, I especially wanted to throw it aside, which would limit my new ideas and become a prisoner of the script." 」 So, Wenders took the approach of shooting, leading the team to really explore the city, "you don't know where you're going to go in the future, what are your plans for the next step." ”
The most classic example is the well-known "Paris, Texas". Originally, the script for "Paris, Texas" was only half written, and the screenwriter wrote that when the father and son left Los Angeles, they stopped. Wenders discussed with the screenwriter, hoping to slowly explore the end of the story during the filming process, and then decide how to shoot later. Halfway through the filming, the screenwriter fell madly in love with a woman, and the script was not written, and ran after the woman. In desperation, the director could only pause filming, let the actors go home first, and hang out in Texas by themselves. At that time, Wenders learned that a very favorite singer was performing in Port Arthur, and there was a kind of performance in a deserted bar, and you could see the person performing, but the other party couldn't see you. This scene suddenly touched Wenders, "it can be changed to the male protagonist sitting in front of the mirror to confess, but the heroine on the other side of the mirror cannot see him." Thus, there is a dialogue of more than 20 minutes of dialogue between the hero and heroine in front of the one-sided mirror at the end of the film.
During the filming process, the director found that if the heroine on the other side of the mirror turned off the light in the room, and the light on the male protagonist's side was still on, the heroine could still see the male protagonist. Finally, the director put this scene into the film as well.
The road movie style was formed by tight budgets
Road movies are an important genre in Wenders' filmmaking, and Alice in the City, The Wrong Move, and The King of Highways are the "travel trilogy" he became famous for. In Wenders's view, loneliness is the biggest problem of people in contemporary society, "everyone goes out to party, sits at the table, everyone is playing with their mobile phones with their heads down, and they don't communicate with each other." Wendstein said that most of the people he knows are lonely and searching, not the kind of people who live happily, and road movies can be a good carrier for showing the lonely and alienated relationships between people.
Moreover, road movies are more creatively free and do not have much capital investment, and Wenders has found a balance between creative freedom and cost control. 1974's Alice in the City had a small budget, but Wenders was shot step by step along the journey, so that both the actors and the audience had a sense of realism on the road, and it was also an ideal way for Wenders to shoot. "If you have a lot of budget, you lose a lot of creative freedom, you only have more freedom with a small budget, and you need to use your imagination to fill the situation of insufficient funds." In 1982, Wenders directed a film called "The State of Things", which is about the various situations faced by a director who has no source of funds in the process of making a film.
In his creation, Wenders also considers the audience. Many of his works have few lines in the first half, but near the end, the protagonist gushes like a leprosy, such as the more than 20-minute dialogue between the male and female protagonists at the end of "Paris, Texas", and the 10-minute dialogue between the male protagonist and death in "The Palermo Shooting". Wenders said that this is to take into account the audience's feelings, "you have to understand your own audience, if the protagonist of the film is talking at the beginning, the audience is not interested, so put the lines behind." 」 ”
He was deeply influenced by Ozu and Antonioni
Wendstein says his favorite american Westerns of the 1950s and 1960s. It is not difficult to understand that many of his films are set in the United States and are in the form of road movies.
American cinema was the driving force behind Wenders' decision to become a director, but the biggest influence on his filmmaking was the Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu, the Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, and the Italian director Antonioni. In 1985, Wenders went to Japan to shoot a documentary about Yasujiro Ozu, "In Search of Ozu"; in 2008's "Palermo Shooting", he had Dennis Cooper play "Death", which is a reference to the "God of Death" in idol Bergman's "Seventh Seal".
For the predecessor Antonioni, Wenders expressed his admiration for his idol in a cooperative way in the movie "Days on the Clouds". Antonioni suffered a stroke in 1985, but later wanted to make a film, but the insurance company refused to provide insurance because the director could not speak. The producer finally thought of a way to find a co-director to work with, and finally chose Wenders. "He couldn't talk, I needed to analyze what he really wanted, and slowly we found a way to find out what kind of film he really wanted to make in his head." After the film was finished, it was confirmed that the director did not necessarily have to be able to speak in order to make the film. ”
Wenders outside of the film
1 Abandoning medicine and practicing art
Wenders was born in 1945 in Düsseldorf, Germany. Since his father was a doctor, after graduating from high school, he studied medicine (1963-1964) and philosophy in Düsseldorf and Freiburg, but American rock music and foreign art influenced Wenders from an early age, and abandoning medicine became his first life choice.
In 1966, Wenders went to Paris to study engraving at the Johanny Friedland Studio, and a year later returned to Germany to study at the École Supérieure des Filmes and Television in Munich. The year he graduated, he made his film debut, Summer of the City.
2 1500 films a year
While in France, Wenders went to the Film Archive to watch a large number of films, watching 5 films a day, because he was afraid of forgetting what he watched when he came home at night, so he developed the habit of watching films in the dark and taking notes. Wenders said that he went to the archive to see a movie because the dormitory did not have heating facilities and movie tickets were cheap. Over the course of the year, Wenders watched more than 1,500 films, during which time he gained an in-depth understanding of European cinema and became interested in American cinema from various periods.
3 famous photographers
In the "Four Masters of the New German Cinema", compared with Fassbinder, who is known as the "heart", Schlöndorff on the "limbs", and Herzog, Wenders is compared to the "eyes", which shows the recognition of the industry and the public with Wenders' ability to visually reflect the world.
Wenders likes to take pictures with Polaroid cameras, and he estimates that he took more than 12,000 Polaroids between 1973 and 1983, of which only 3,500 remain. In 1986, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France held its first photographic exhibition, and since then his works have been exhibited around the world.
In 2004, the China Millennium Monument Art Museum in Beijing, the Shanghai Art Museum and the Guangdong Museum of Art jointly held the "World Film Master Wenders Chinese Photography Touring Exhibition". According to the latest news, from May 22 to June 5 this year, Wim Wenders and Mrs. Donata Wenders, planned and organized by the Beijing Contemporary Art Foundation and jointly with professional cooperation institutions across China, will carry out a series of photographs in Dunhuang, Chengdu, Bishan and Shanghai in China to create "New Urban of China": a picture of urban times change and portraits at work. The photograph will also be exhibited in the near future in cooperation with professional institutions around the world and China.
4 Favorites to travel
For Wim Wenders, what he really likes to do is neither a film director nor a photographer, but a globetrotting. Wenders once described the relationship between photography, film and travel this way: "Every photograph can be the first shot of every film." Every movie is also the beginning of a trip. ”
As a result, he published not only books on filmmaking and photography theory, but also his travelogues and essay collections on his travels around the world. Wenders's books published in China include: the Chinese translation of the photography collection "Once: Pictures and Stories", "Time with Antonioni" behind the scenes of the shooting of "Days on the Clouds", and the early collection of essays "Wenders on Film".
5 Rock 'n' Roll "Youth"
Wenders was also a full rock 'n' roll youth. His debut novel, Summer of the City, was dedicated to the band Whimsical. In many of his later works, rock music also played an important role. "Alice in the City" has Chuck Berry's concert, "Under the Berlin Sky" has "The Liberation of the Abandoned City" and "Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds" live performances, and "The End of the World" has invited idol Lou Reed to star.
He once said: "Today rock and roll are more closely related to movies than ever before, and literature, drama and painting seem to be more closely related to movies, but they are far less accurate and direct than rock and roll."
6 Documentary & Yohji Yamamoto
In the 1980s, Wenders traveled the world photographing his master artists. Wenders' character documentaries are divided into two genres, one is to shoot deceased people, and the other is to shoot people who are still alive. The former is represented by "Tokyo Trip – In Search of Ozu", "Mirage of Light", "Soul of Bruce", and "Pina". The latter is represented by "Returning to the Light on the Water", "Urban Fashion Shorthand", "Leman Havana", and "Salt of the Earth".
In 1989, Wenders chose The Japanese fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto to complete a documentary film called "Urban Fashion Shorthand", in which Wenders appeared as the main actor, talking about art cities, identity anxiety, films in the digital age and many other modern propositions. The planning of Yohji Yamamoto's autobiography, Yohji Yamamoto: I Dropped a Bomb, also began with Wenders' years of correspondence with him.
7 Wim Wenders Foundation
In the fall of 2012, Wenders and his wife Donata founded the Wim Wenders Foundation in Düsseldorf, where films, photography, literary works, screenplays, letters, etc. are uniformly managed and protected. In addition, the Foundation awards the Wenders Scholarship to film projects in the canton of Düsseldorf, with a total of 100,000 euros, which is awarded annually for young filmmakers and artists in the region.
Photo by Teng Chao, Reporter from Beijing News: Courtesy of Goethe-Institut (China)