Wim Wenders turns 80: The director with an irrepressible urge for freedom

You shouldn’t stop travelers – and you can’t do it at all, is the message that director Wim Wenders gives his audience at hand. That ranges from various roadmovies, its cinematic hobbyhorse, to angels that turn their back on secular love because of the divine kingdom of heaven. On August 14th, Wenders, who is “still the traveler and then only director or photographer”, will be 80 years old. A look back at its most important stops along the way.

Before Wilhelm Ernst “Wim” Wenders made a name for himself as an important representative of the new German film in the 1970s, he was very different. First he wanted to be a priest. Then he sent himself to step into his father’s footsteps and studied medicine for a short time, even shorter philosophy and sociology. Finally he broke off his studies to follow a career as a painter. Yes, a certain restlessness was noticeable to this Wim early and she should never leave it again.

In the mid -1960s, he finally found his destiny – but she was not yet: he applied to a film college in Paris, but was rejected there. In 1967 he finally landed in 1967 at the University for Television and Film (HFF) founded a year earlier. For him it was the logical consequence that he saw his first “short films, so to speak, as a continuation of painting by other means,” as he in 2009.

Around four years later, Wenders, alongside Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1945-1982), Volker Schlöndorff and Werner Herzog, were among the greats of the new German film. As a counter-movement for the previously popular homeland and hit snaps as well as the Karl May clarification, its representatives set themselves the task of steering the focus on political, social and socially critical content.

After his early works, including the film adaptation “The Fear of the goalkeeper at the penalty” and “The scarlet -red letter”, the road movie became his passion. Mainly because it perfectly breastfeeded his own thirst for artistic freedom from all genres. Through his two works “Alice in the cities” and “over time”, he realized that thanks to the road movies “, he could also practice this profession of film director on the go and that there was a kind of film where you could tell continuously and chronologically”. The fact that “the route” always writes the script “and can also play music, even has to play, has particularly attracted him as a filmmaker. Because a road movie without music is “practical unthinkable”.

With his films, he also knew how to inspire the other well -known representatives of German cinema. If a Werner Herzog can be carried away for such a hymn of praise as in the documentary “Wim Wenders – Desperado”, which was published in 2020, then that means something. Wenders made “half a century of films and there is no really worse.” Every young film student would therefore give Herzog the advice: “If you want to make films, watch Wims films.” He awarded this tip with a subsequent “Du Depp!” Reprint.

Incidentally, the said documentary was shot by Eric Friedler and Andreas Frege, the latter is better known as Campino by the dead trousers. With the singer, Wenders connects the common birthplace of Düsseldorf and an intimate friendship. Conversely, he controlled the music video for the pants song “Why don’t I get full?” at. In the course of his career, Wenders showed his special love for music in a variety of ways and not only with his road movies, but also with the Oscar-nominated strips “Buena Vista Social Club” and “Pina”.

Internationally, Wim Wenders has also been an instance for decades. In Cannes, he was last represented in the competition in 2023 with “Perfect Days” (his tenth participation so far), and an Oscar nomination also won the German-Japanese co-production. He had gained a foothold in the USA at the end of the 1970s after grandmaster Francis Ford Coppola invited him to make the film “Hammett” there under his production management.

The cooperation did not go harmoniously, on the contrary. Producer Coppola was at most dissatisfied with the film and bluntly felt the turn. “The whole filmmaker seemed questioned to me,” said Wenders retrospectively his crisis as a direct consequence of the dispute.

And what does a director who struggles with his profession? He makes a film about it: “The state of affairs” appeared in 1982 and is about a film team that is abandoned by the producer. The fiasco around “Hammett” had something good and the phase afterwards: During his time in the USA, Wenders noticed that “I was not an American director and would never become one. Never could make American films, but that I was a German in my heart: ‘European filmmaker'”.

This knowledge did not detract from his worldwide success: Wenders’ Roadmovie “Paris, Texas” won the Golden Palm of Cannes in 1984 and was also well received on the US market. Just like his fantasy drama “The sky over Berlin”, published internationally under the somewhat kitschy title “Wings of Love”. The film, which comes into guest roles with Peter “Columbo” Falk and musician Nick Cave, tells the story of the Angels Damiel (Bruno Ganz), who “degraded” into an ordinary person out of love for a woman. The drama was ennobled as a “beautiful film” by the American film critic icon Roger Ebert-and almost ten years later as “City of Angels” with Meg Ryan and Nicolas Cage.

“I would like to feel a weight on myself that cancel the limitlessness of me and makes me earth festival”, formulated in “The sky over Berlin” Engel Damiel his wish for earthly limitation. At this point, the restless Wim Wenders does not seem to have arrived at the age of 80. Where his artistic journey leads him next and how long it still goes, the director may not yet know. That’s the nice thing about a road trip: you never know what to expect behind the next curve. You can only take care of good music along the way.