Cast:
Rüdiger Vogler (Philip Winter), Yella Rottländer (Alice van Dam), Lisa Kreuzer (Lisa van Dam), Edda Köchl (Angela), Ernest Boehm (Philip's editor), Sam Presti (Car Dealer), and Lois Moran (the Pan Am booking agent) Directed by Wim Winders.
Review:
"The most pure is still definitely Alice in the Cities because it was my discovery of my own turf and my own territory which was the road, and the first film I made on the road and the first time I had discovered storytelling as a very free gift and not as something with a lot of rules."
It occurred to me that I haven't covered too many German directors recently, and it only seems appropriate to finally get around to a Wim Wenders movie, complete with a pivotal one for a director at a crossroads of what he should do. Wenders was born in Düsseldorf in Germany, and he actually had an interest in still photography as a youth. He actually studied medicine and philosophy before trying his hand at painting. It happened to be that his obsession with cinema (such as the works of John Ford) led him to try his hand at filmmaking; he failed entry test at France's national film school but found a studio office back in his hometown to work and eventually studied at the University of Television and Film Munich while also working as a film critic. He made his first short films in school before graduating with his feature debut in Summer in the City (1970), which had influence from a "great hero" of his in John Cassavetes. He then made his next film with The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), a West German-Austria co-production that evidently took influence from Alfred Hitchcock. His dissatisfaction with the German/Spanish co-production of his next assignment with The Scarlet Letter (1973) led him to consider a different line of approach. Incidentally, that movie features Rottländer and Vogler in small roles. Wenders was inspired by the experiences that Peter Handke (a writer on three of Wenders' films) had as a single parent and probably just as inspired by Handke's 1972 novel Short Letter, Long Farewell, which was about an alienated writer making a journey across America. He also took inspiration from the Chuck Berry song "Memphis, Tennessee", which was about a man trying to re-connect with his daughter. However, he almost did not do the movie at all because he happened to come across the release of Paper Moon (1973) because, well, it coincidentally felt similar to what Winders had in mind for his movie. However, he was persuaded by none other than Samuel Fuller to convince to not give up. Taking inspiration from the photography of Walker Evans (famously known for his large format photography during the Great Depression), the movie was filmed in sequence from North Carolina to the eventual result in Europe as an improvised shoot (as shot by Robby Müller on 16mm rather than 35mm because of budgetary constraints, but the movie was framed for it the way they wanted to, which helped for a subsequent restoration). The film is considered as the first of a "Road Trilogy" crafted by Wenders, likely because his next two films with The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976) each dealt with the road and had Vogler as star. An active director and photographer for over a half-century, one can find numerous highlights of Wenders such as Paris, Texas (1984), Wings of Desire (1987), the documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and most recently, Perfect Days (2023).
What we have here is a wandering piece of curiosity, one that captures a special type of feeling that arises from being unable to do anything other than take photographs in the guise of trying to "craft a story". There is a loneliness that arises in the imagination one can have with this film, since it has plenty of breathing room with its double act of Vogler and Rottländer that just vibes on its own terms in crisscross neatness. The journey is one of absorption rather than finding some sort of meaning to it all, and it probably is noteworthy to say that Winders "felt like a fish in the water" when it came to making the film, one where he could go into an adventure with drifters that sure find "something" in the eyes of travelling with one's eyes rather than seeing it, if you will (a half century later, consider how far one has come since the Polaroid SX-70 in "instant photographs of things"). Rottländer appeared in a handful of films as a youth before moving on to costume designing and eventually a medical doctor. She arrives in the picture not too long into its trappings (110 minutes) and basically snatches the show with her spry energy, one that seems quite natural in expressing the free quirks that come with both the road and becoming an actual person beyond the imagery of oneself. The character played by Vogler has been said in some circles as being the alter ego of Winders in his time and this works out for a worthwhile performance in the drift towards burning in for responsibility rather than burning out into oblivion, particularly when matched with the enigmatic Kreuzer for a few scenes. One hits the road of uncertainty with reasoned assurance with a duo that maneuver the countryside (sometimes with a choice music cue) with absorbing grace that could only come from a filmmaker wanting to let a movie breathe in being an image of the street rather than just capturing it, which works just as well for the ending in closing right on the point needed. As a whole, this is a movie wrapped in the glow of a journey worth taking in feeling and seeing the images for oneself.
Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.
We begin 2025 with the fourth edition of New Directors Month, which you might remember had started with Metropolis for 2024. Through the month of January, we'll feature over ten filmmakers (Shigehiro Ozawa, Stephen Frears, just to name a few) that Movie Night hasn't managed to talk about in the previous fourteen seasons. Onward.
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