Premiere film critic Glenn Kenny e-mailed legendary director Wim Wenders questions about the spectacular new DVD of his 1987 classic Wings of Desire. Here抯 the exchange.
By Glenn Kenny
PREMIERE: You've been revisiting a good number of your films recently, doing commentaries for not only this release but several other films of yours (not to mention your input on Fassbinder's The Merchant of Four Seasons, release by Wellspring).Your commentaries, I think, are exemplary, and I wondered how you approached them—you seem to be able to apply a certain critical detachment even to assessing your own work. Do you make extensive notes before sitting down to do the commentary, or are you more spontaneous? I suppose I'm asking you to describe your method here.
WIM WENDERS: It's the good old basic method of jumping into the cold water. I know myself pretty well, and if I start preparing myself and taking notes, then the result will become rather intellectual. And that, I guess, is boring for a DVD viewer. So I just sit down in a recording studio, the monitor in front of me, the sound over headphones, and just talk live and spontaneously into a microphone, as the film plays. And I imagine I sit there watching the film with a fan who has seen it countless times, and just answer his curious questions. It's not much of a "method", but at least I have some fun myself,and the viewer hears a relaxed director. In bed at night, afterwards, I then think of everything I SHOULD have said...
PREMIERE: The Wings disc is incredibly beautiful, as are the discs for The American Friend, Notebook on Cities and Clothes, and Lightning Over Water. [The last three are released by Anchor Bay] What is your participation in the transfer of these films to the digital format?
WIM WENDERS: Whenever I saw any of the VHS releases of my films, I was terrorized. I mostly hated them, and I felt bad that people would see those films in that condition. They were mostly made from some duplicate print, and the sound was taken off the optical track. And distributors have never asked me to participate. When DVDs came out, new masters had to be produced, for worldwide releases. And for once, I thought, I was going to get involved every step of the way, as it was going to be worth it. This was truly a valid format for home viewing. It took us almost three years to go through each and every film I've ever made. We always went to the original negatives, as all the tests showed that this guaranteed the best possible result. And as the negatives as such are not color-corrected, we had to do that from scratch, shot by shot. Only that now, with the digital tools, you could be so much more specific. Every single color can be adjusted separately, certain areas of a shot can be treated by themselves etc. Color correction in a movie lab is extremely reduced, in comparison. So in the end the films looked better than ever before. And wherever I still had the original sound tapes, we also remixed the films from scratch, in stereo and 5.1 surround. In the Seventies, Stereo wasn't yet available. So all my feature films since Wrong Move (1974) and Kings of the Road (1975) up to Paris, Texas (1984) can now be seen for the first time in stereo. [Ed. note: the aforementioned titles have yet to see DVD release in the U.S.]
PREMIERE: Not to accentuate a negative, but many lovers of Wings of Desire aren't nearly so enthusiastic about City of Angels, and those people might be surprised at Brad Silberling's participation in the retrospective piece about Wings that appears on the disc. Silberling and various creators of Wings enjoy a genial relationship, and I wondered if you would speak of that, and about your thoughts on City of Angels and Hollywood remakes of European films in general.
WIM WENDERS: I think Brad Silberling really did a good job with City of Angels. His film is much more story-driven, of course, than my film-poem ever was. But that's a Hollywood necessity. I never expected anybody actually being able to remake Wings of Desire anyway. That chemistry was impossible to find again, outside of Berlin, and without the help of my Director of Photography, Henri Alekan, who was the greatest magician of the art of black and white film. He had made masterpieces like the original Beauty and the Beast. Brad wanted me to appear in City of Angels as one of the angels, but I thought it would be better if I never stepped onto the set. I only saw the finished film in a preview, way out in the boondocks, an hour outside of LA. I sat in the last row, hiding deep in my seat, ready for disaster, but after 10 minutes I sat straight in my seat. There was nothing to be ashamed of. In the strangest way I felt sort of responsible for the film. Although I was clearly not its father-well, it was the first time I had become a grandfather.
PREMIERE: Several years ago Jonathan Demme recounted some stories to me about making the music video for the New Order song "The Perfect Kiss," on which Henri Alekan was the cinematographer. He recalled that a splendid time was had by all, and that Alekan actually managed, after the shoot, to out-party all the members of the band. He sounds prodigious indeed, and I wondered if you recall any similar anecdotes attesting to Alekan's zest for life.
WIM WENDERS: Henri was way in his Eighties then! But he was a tremendous womanizer, and even after a long day of shooting of Wings of Desire, he was ready to go dancing if any of the girls on the crew were up for it. He indeed had an incredible youthful energy and had stayed young in his heart. During our shoot he constantly came up with ideas of how to play around with the fact that our angels were invisible. Some of the scenes he suggested were downright naughty, some very funny. We had lots of laughs with him. And he was with his gaffer, Louis, who was three years older than Henri, but just as relentless. Two great film adventurers and inventors.
Glenn picked Wings of Desire as July's Classic DVD of the Month in Premiere. Click here to find out why.
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