February 29
WENDERS CLASSICS
7:00 - THE AMERICAN FRIEND
Wim Wenders (1977) 125 mins M
Wenders’ evocative & playful adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s ‘Ripley’s Game’ is a suspense-filled cult film providing an important transition between the director’s earlier, grounded European work & the increasingly internationalist preoccupations & sensibilities of his globetrotting cinema of the last 30 years. Shifting between Hamburg, Paris & New York, this melancholy examination of shifting identity displays a fascination with the Americanisation of Europe & betrays the core influence of two of its featured actors: Nicholas Ray & Sam Fuller.
Starring Bruno Ganz, Dennis Hopper, Lisa Kreuzer, Gérard Blain, Daniel Schmid, David Blue & Jean Eustache. Cinematography by Robby Müller, music by Jürgen Knieper & edited by Peter Przygodda.
35mm print courtesy of the Goethe-Institut.
CTEQ Annotation:
‘American Friend‘ by Carlota Larrea
9:15 – WINGS OF DESIRE
Wim Wenders (1987) 130 mins PG
An angel (Bruno Ganz) soulfully watching over the stranded citizens of West Berlin is tempted by the pleasures of the flesh when he falls in love with a trapeze artist (Solveig Dommartin). Wenders’ profoundly moving & often magical modern fairytale is an extraordinary essay on the weight of history & memory. Shifting between black-&-white & colour it evokes both Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life & Powell & Pressburger’s A Matter of Life & Death. Now itself a significant artefact of a soon to be united Berlin, it is a fascinating time capsule featuring Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Crime & the City Solution, & Peter Falk. Co-written by Peter Handke & luiminously shot by Henri Alekan. Produced by Anatole & Pascale Dauman, edited by Peter Przygodda, original music by Jürgen Knieper, assistant director Claire Denis, assistant camera Agnès Godard & production consultant Chris Sievernich. Dedicated to Ozu, Tarkovsky & Truffaut.
35mm print courtesy of the Goethe-Institut.
Presented in conjunction with:
Backdrops:
WINGS OF DESIRE
THE AMERICAN FRIEND