The grand theme of Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’s fantasy of angels in Berlin before the end of the Cold War, is storytelling in all its forms as a coping mechanism of the human race. Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and his more objective but similarly empathetic cohort, Cassiel (Otto Sander), whose wings are only fleetingly shown, regularly swap tales of the small behaviors and interactions they’ve witnessed after traversing the skies and streets to hear “only what is spiritual in people’s minds.”
Among those observed are an elderly poet, Homer (Curt Bois), wandering the sites of his vanished haunts from the pre-Nazi era, wondering why “an epic of peace” has never been sung; Peter Falk, playing some eternal version of himself, arriving to shoot a film and provide a good measure of American soul and humor to Berliners and angels alike; and waitress turned trapeze artist Marion preparing...
Among those observed are an elderly poet, Homer (Curt Bois), wandering the sites of his vanished haunts from the pre-Nazi era, wondering why “an epic of peace” has never been sung; Peter Falk, playing some eternal version of himself, arriving to shoot a film and provide a good measure of American soul and humor to Berliners and angels alike; and waitress turned trapeze artist Marion preparing...
- 5/10/2023
- by Bill Weber
- Slant Magazine
William Hurt was tall, blond, and attractive, and the product of a prep-school education and training at Julliard. For someone whose first movie came out in 1980 — the year Ronald Reagan was elected and “The Official Preppy Handbook” was published — he could have had a much different career as an actor, one that was blander, less eccentric, and less daring.
But the approachable exterior camouflaged a complicated, difficult artist, one who constantly challenged himself, even when dealing with his own inner demons. As Mark Harris noted on Twitter upon hearing of Hurt’s death at the age of 71, “Hurt always seemed profoundly uncomfortable being a good-looking leading man, which may be one reason that his performance in ‘Broadcast News’ is absolutely perfect — he understood that he was playing someone who was miscast.”
Before making his way to the screen, Hurt had already established his bona fides on the New York stage,...
But the approachable exterior camouflaged a complicated, difficult artist, one who constantly challenged himself, even when dealing with his own inner demons. As Mark Harris noted on Twitter upon hearing of Hurt’s death at the age of 71, “Hurt always seemed profoundly uncomfortable being a good-looking leading man, which may be one reason that his performance in ‘Broadcast News’ is absolutely perfect — he understood that he was playing someone who was miscast.”
Before making his way to the screen, Hurt had already established his bona fides on the New York stage,...
- 3/14/2022
- by Alonso Duralde
- The Wrap
Jonathan Taplin on Wim Wenders: “If you think about Wings Of Desire, I think it’s one of the most profound spiritual films that ever has been made.”
In my conversation with Wim Wenders on Until The End Of The World (Bis Ans Ende Der Welt), his masterwork from 1991, he told me how it was his "dream come true" that Jeanne Moreau "accepted to travel all the way to Australia with us and spend months and months in the Outback." Wim spoke about the relationship between Max von Sydow and William Hurt, the influence Sam Shepard had, the contributions from Peter Carey and Michael Almereyda on the script, the scenes of Tom Farrell, and that ultimately the film is Solveig Dommartin's and his story.
Until the End of the World producer Jonathan Taplin on Wim Wenders’ script: “He wrote it before Paris, Texas …” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second instalment with Jonathan Taplin,...
In my conversation with Wim Wenders on Until The End Of The World (Bis Ans Ende Der Welt), his masterwork from 1991, he told me how it was his "dream come true" that Jeanne Moreau "accepted to travel all the way to Australia with us and spend months and months in the Outback." Wim spoke about the relationship between Max von Sydow and William Hurt, the influence Sam Shepard had, the contributions from Peter Carey and Michael Almereyda on the script, the scenes of Tom Farrell, and that ultimately the film is Solveig Dommartin's and his story.
Until the End of the World producer Jonathan Taplin on Wim Wenders’ script: “He wrote it before Paris, Texas …” Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
In the second instalment with Jonathan Taplin,...
- 8/4/2021
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
An amazing Blu-ray year is capped by a genuine favorite, rescued by its filmmaker and set aside for almost twenty years. Wim Wenders was forced to make a shortened version of what he hoped would be his greatest success, following Wings of Desire: but he cleverly saved his 4.5-hour uncut version, making its Blu-ray debut on December 10. Longform video is currently the rage, so perhaps the time has finally come for the uncut Bis ans Ende der Welt. The music soundtrack is nothing less than fantastic, not to be missed.
Until the End of the World
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1007
1991 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 158, 181, 287 min. / Bis ans Ende der Welt / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neill, Rüdiger Vogler, Jeanne Moreau, Max von Sydow, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Allen Garfield, David Gulpilil, Ernie Dingo, Lois Chiles, Adelle Lutz, Chick Ortega, Eddy Mitchell,...
Until the End of the World
Blu-ray
The Criterion Collection 1007
1991 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 158, 181, 287 min. / Bis ans Ende der Welt / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date December 10, 2019 / 39.95
Starring: Solveig Dommartin, William Hurt, Sam Neill, Rüdiger Vogler, Jeanne Moreau, Max von Sydow, Chishu Ryu, Kuniko Miyake, Allen Garfield, David Gulpilil, Ernie Dingo, Lois Chiles, Adelle Lutz, Chick Ortega, Eddy Mitchell,...
- 11/30/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
I wrote the pair of articles here in 1998, after seeing the long ‘Die Trilogie’ version of Until the End of the World at the Harmony Gold Preview Theater on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood. The articles contain plenty of Spoilers, so beware. A new 2019 disc release is reviewed at CineSavant.
The Strange Case of
Until the End of the World:
Archive Essay
Two articles originally published at MGM Video Savant in 1998.
Note: these were written in 1998, after seeing the long version of the film just once, and obtaining a copy of a Japanese laserdisc of a shorter version. Most of what is said is accurate … and a big spoiler.
The Strange Case of
Until the End
of the World,
Part One
— a colossal but intimate epic: one movie or three? Or a miniseries?
I was charmed by Wim Wenders’ 1991 film, Until the End of the World from the first moment I saw it.
The Strange Case of
Until the End of the World:
Archive Essay
Two articles originally published at MGM Video Savant in 1998.
Note: these were written in 1998, after seeing the long version of the film just once, and obtaining a copy of a Japanese laserdisc of a shorter version. Most of what is said is accurate … and a big spoiler.
The Strange Case of
Until the End
of the World,
Part One
— a colossal but intimate epic: one movie or three? Or a miniseries?
I was charmed by Wim Wenders’ 1991 film, Until the End of the World from the first moment I saw it.
- 11/30/2019
- by Glenn Erickson
- Trailers from Hell
A lot of people probably don’t know it, but when the superb Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, who died Friday at 77, took on the role that brought him his greatest jolt of fame, playing Adolf Hitler in “Downfall,” it was one of the most paradoxical casting choices in modern movies. Ganz, portraying Hitler in the final days of World War II, when the Führer was trapped in his bunker, did an impersonation of Hitler at his most full-throttle fulminating. The performance was raging, antic, operatic, possessed; it was true homicidal acting. (That’s one reason why “Downfall” became the movie that launched a thousand Hitler Internet memes.)
Yet up until then, that kind of smash-mouth volatility had almost nothing to do with the persona of Bruno Ganz. He was sly, pensive, puckish yet woeful, inwardly commanding, almost always intensely becalmed, an actor with a light in his eye that could...
Yet up until then, that kind of smash-mouth volatility had almost nothing to do with the persona of Bruno Ganz. He was sly, pensive, puckish yet woeful, inwardly commanding, almost always intensely becalmed, an actor with a light in his eye that could...
- 2/16/2019
- by Owen Gleiberman
- Variety Film + TV
Bruno Ganz with Christopher Plummer in Atom Egoyan's Remember: "There was a beautiful stillness to his piercing intelligence ..."
Bruno Ganz died on February 15 at his home in Zurich at the age of 77. A star in three Wim Wenders films - Wings Of Desire; Faraway, So Close! and The American Friend' Ganz played the voice of death, Verge, in Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built.
Atom Egoyan worked with Bruno Ganz, who played Rudy Kurlander #1 in Remember, which starred Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. Atom sent the following tribute to me this morning.
"It was such an honour to work with this legendary actor. I will never forget the time we spent together, which I treasured. We talked a lot about theatre, and I always had the sense that the stage...
Bruno Ganz died on February 15 at his home in Zurich at the age of 77. A star in three Wim Wenders films - Wings Of Desire; Faraway, So Close! and The American Friend' Ganz played the voice of death, Verge, in Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built.
Atom Egoyan worked with Bruno Ganz, who played Rudy Kurlander #1 in Remember, which starred Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. Atom sent the following tribute to me this morning.
"It was such an honour to work with this legendary actor. I will never forget the time we spent together, which I treasured. We talked a lot about theatre, and I always had the sense that the stage...
- 2/16/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (1987) is showing from February 16 - March 18, 2018 in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France.Forty minutes into Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, Cassiel (Otto Sander) sits next to an old man dubbed Homer (Curt Bois) and watches him flick through a photo book inside Berlin’s City Library. Homer, however, can’t see him: Cassiel does not belong to this world, but to the community of somber-looking, coat-wearing angels hovering above Berlin. The old man’s eyes glued to the book, the camera suddenly shifts to World War II newsreel footage of the war-torn capital, and Homer’s voiceover accompanies the photos of dead infants and corpses piled along the sidewalks: “No one has so far succeeded in singing an epic of peace… what is it about peace that makes its story so hard to tell?...
- 2/21/2018
- MUBI
Until The End Of The World director Wim Wenders with Paul Auster and Sam Shepard at Balthazar in 2005: "Actually, he [Sam] is the guy I offered the film first." Photo: Tom Farrell
In the second instalment of my conversation with Wim Wenders on the 25th anniversary of his masterwork from 1991, he discussed the influence that Sam Shepard had on Until The End Of The World (Bis Ans Ende Der Welt) and how it was his "dream come true" that Jeanne Moreau "accepted to travel all the way to Australia with us and spend months and months in the Outback."
Wim spoke about the relationship between Max von Sydow and William Hurt, the contributions from Peter Carey and Michael Almereyda on the script, the scenes of Tom Farrell (Paris, Texas, and Lightning Over Water), and that in the end the film is Solveig Dommartin's and his story.
Jeanne Moreau (Edith...
In the second instalment of my conversation with Wim Wenders on the 25th anniversary of his masterwork from 1991, he discussed the influence that Sam Shepard had on Until The End Of The World (Bis Ans Ende Der Welt) and how it was his "dream come true" that Jeanne Moreau "accepted to travel all the way to Australia with us and spend months and months in the Outback."
Wim spoke about the relationship between Max von Sydow and William Hurt, the contributions from Peter Carey and Michael Almereyda on the script, the scenes of Tom Farrell (Paris, Texas, and Lightning Over Water), and that in the end the film is Solveig Dommartin's and his story.
Jeanne Moreau (Edith...
- 8/4/2017
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
“When a child was a child…”A man’s voice is heard, reading out words as they are written in thick ink on paper.…it didn’t know it was a child”He continues, some of the words delivered in sing-song, joyfully, as if they were a children’s nursery song:“Everything was full of life/And all life was one...”His voice is friendly voice; a comforting voice; a voice that we will soon learn belongs to Damiel (Bruno Ganz), an angel who watches over the city of Berlin and its inhabitants with the curiosity and reverence of a child. Damiel has such deep affection for human life that he is willing to eschew immortality for earthly pleasures and the most intoxicating human experience of all: love. Both Damiel’s voice and those of the humans he consoles and studies feature prominently on the film’s soundtrack, sometimes in isolation,...
- 7/31/2017
- MUBI
2016 marks the 25th anniversary of Wim Wenders' masterwork Until the End of the World. Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
Sam Shepard's influence before he worked with Volker Schlöndorff on Max Frisch's Homo Faber (Voyager), Peter Carey and the script, Yasujiro Ozu actors Chishû Ryû and Kuniko Miyake, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much, Chen Kaige, Robby Müller and Vermeer, Yohji Yamamoto, Notebook on Cities and Clothes, Lord Byron and much more are inspected here.
Until The End Of The World stars Solveig Dommartin, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Jeanne Moreau, Rüdiger Vogler and Sam Neill and an extraordinary soundtrack featuring Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, U2, Julee Cruise, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Crime and the City Solution, Neneh Cherry, R.E.M., Patti Smith, Daniel Lanois, T-Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Jane Siberry, k.d. lang with uncredited performances by David Byrne with Talking Heads, Tom Waits...
Sam Shepard's influence before he worked with Volker Schlöndorff on Max Frisch's Homo Faber (Voyager), Peter Carey and the script, Yasujiro Ozu actors Chishû Ryû and Kuniko Miyake, Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo and The Man Who Knew Too Much, Chen Kaige, Robby Müller and Vermeer, Yohji Yamamoto, Notebook on Cities and Clothes, Lord Byron and much more are inspected here.
Until The End Of The World stars Solveig Dommartin, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Jeanne Moreau, Rüdiger Vogler and Sam Neill and an extraordinary soundtrack featuring Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, U2, Julee Cruise, Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed, Crime and the City Solution, Neneh Cherry, R.E.M., Patti Smith, Daniel Lanois, T-Bone Burnett, Elvis Costello, Jane Siberry, k.d. lang with uncredited performances by David Byrne with Talking Heads, Tom Waits...
- 1/2/2016
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Anne-Katrin Titze presents The Salt Of The Earth - IFC Center Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
On September 18, at 3:05pm, as part of the Wim Wenders: Portraits Along The Road in New York, film journalist Anne-Katrin Titze will present Wenders' and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt Of The Earth on the life and work of master photographer Sebastião Salgado.
Sebastião Salgado could be John Ford looking out over the plains
In an upcoming conversation on Until The End Of The World, Wim and I discuss Sam Shepard's influence before he worked with Volker Schlöndorff on Max Frisch's Homo Faber. We also talk about Yasujiro Ozu actors Chishû Ryû and Kuniko Miyake, Alfred Hitchcock and San Francisco, Chen Kaige and China, Robby Müller and Vermeer, and look forward to Michael Almereyda's Experimenter.
Starring Solveig Dommartin, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Jeanne Moreau, Rüdiger Vogler and Sam Neill,...
On September 18, at 3:05pm, as part of the Wim Wenders: Portraits Along The Road in New York, film journalist Anne-Katrin Titze will present Wenders' and Juliano Ribeiro Salgado's The Salt Of The Earth on the life and work of master photographer Sebastião Salgado.
Sebastião Salgado could be John Ford looking out over the plains
In an upcoming conversation on Until The End Of The World, Wim and I discuss Sam Shepard's influence before he worked with Volker Schlöndorff on Max Frisch's Homo Faber. We also talk about Yasujiro Ozu actors Chishû Ryû and Kuniko Miyake, Alfred Hitchcock and San Francisco, Chen Kaige and China, Robby Müller and Vermeer, and look forward to Michael Almereyda's Experimenter.
Starring Solveig Dommartin, Max von Sydow, William Hurt, Jeanne Moreau, Rüdiger Vogler and Sam Neill,...
- 9/16/2015
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Whether from those who defended it upon a truncated 1991 release, the lucky few present for a rare screening of the mythologized directors cut, or even the frustrated auteur himself, Janus Films’ restoration of the five-hour version of Wim Wenders’ Until The End of the World would seem to provide ample opportunity for an I Told You So emerging from the cinematic choir. An I Told You this needed 295 minutes to really work. I Told You contemporary geopolitical anxieties are directly tied to a culture of oversaturated images. I Told You we’d have Gps in our car and that U2 would still be making music at the turn of the century.
None of which says really anything about the film, of course. As with any other ‘lost’ film circulating in cinephilic chatter, Wenders’ masterpiece has spent the better part of the last two decades as more myth than movie, its...
None of which says really anything about the film, of course. As with any other ‘lost’ film circulating in cinephilic chatter, Wenders’ masterpiece has spent the better part of the last two decades as more myth than movie, its...
- 9/7/2015
- by Matthias Ellis
- CriterionCast
Pray for the Wounded Planet: Wenders’ Belabored Road Trip to the Apocalypse
The troubled production and following critical ambivalence towards Wim Wenders’ 1991 film Until the End of the World launched it into a sort of oblivion. Nearly twenty five years after its ill-fated reception, initially released as a three hour film which the director bitterly deigned the Reader’s Digest version of his epic, the near four hour and forty minute director’s cut premiered at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival to coincide with the premiere of his first narrative feature in seven years, Every Thing Will Be Fine. Now, this complete version is finally seeing a Us theatrical release courtesy of a fifteen city national touring retrospective of Wenders’ films kicking off in New York at the IFC Center. In retrospect, time has been much kinder to the mishandled title than anticipated. Restored as Wenders’ complete vision, it’s...
The troubled production and following critical ambivalence towards Wim Wenders’ 1991 film Until the End of the World launched it into a sort of oblivion. Nearly twenty five years after its ill-fated reception, initially released as a three hour film which the director bitterly deigned the Reader’s Digest version of his epic, the near four hour and forty minute director’s cut premiered at the 2015 Berlin International Film Festival to coincide with the premiere of his first narrative feature in seven years, Every Thing Will Be Fine. Now, this complete version is finally seeing a Us theatrical release courtesy of a fifteen city national touring retrospective of Wenders’ films kicking off in New York at the IFC Center. In retrospect, time has been much kinder to the mishandled title than anticipated. Restored as Wenders’ complete vision, it’s...
- 8/30/2015
- by Nicholas Bell
- IONCINEMA.com
Starring William Hurt, the five-hour director’s cut of Wim Wenders’s 1991 global road-trip movie seems even more miraculous than the leaner original
The end of the world won’t come from a nuclear blast, but from an abundance of selfies. That’s part of the message gleaned from Wim Wenders’s Until the End of the World, the 1991 film that is only now getting a Us theatrical release for its full, almost-five-hour version. Back when smartphones, Gps devices and open European borders were considered sci-fi, the two-and-a-half-hour version of this futurist’s detective story was impressive. But this movie has always had its eye on the future’s potential.
The multinational co-production was enormous in its scope, especially considering the director’s roots as an arthouse film-maker. Budgeted at more than $20m (£13m) and shot all over the world, it was conceived as the “ultimate road picture”. It was...
The end of the world won’t come from a nuclear blast, but from an abundance of selfies. That’s part of the message gleaned from Wim Wenders’s Until the End of the World, the 1991 film that is only now getting a Us theatrical release for its full, almost-five-hour version. Back when smartphones, Gps devices and open European borders were considered sci-fi, the two-and-a-half-hour version of this futurist’s detective story was impressive. But this movie has always had its eye on the future’s potential.
The multinational co-production was enormous in its scope, especially considering the director’s roots as an arthouse film-maker. Budgeted at more than $20m (£13m) and shot all over the world, it was conceived as the “ultimate road picture”. It was...
- 8/27/2015
- by Jordan Hoffman
- The Guardian - Film News
We move into the top 20 now, where the films become incredibly spiritual. One major component seen in many of these religious films: the overtones meant to instill a sense of mystery and wonder. You see it in films set in both sweeping landscapes and intimate settings. Whether or not any of the films on this list are condoning the acceptance or rejection of faith and religion is almost beside the point. The real point is that it is so influential on our culture that movies will always be made about it.
courtesy of lassothemovies.com
20. Babette’s Feast (1987)
Directed by Gabriel Axel
The 1987 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner (beating Au Revoir Les Enfants), Babette’s Feast is the story of two devout Christian sisters whose father – the leader of a small Christian sect in Denmark – has died. Unfortunately, Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodjil Kjer) find they have no way to gain new members,...
courtesy of lassothemovies.com
20. Babette’s Feast (1987)
Directed by Gabriel Axel
The 1987 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar winner (beating Au Revoir Les Enfants), Babette’s Feast is the story of two devout Christian sisters whose father – the leader of a small Christian sect in Denmark – has died. Unfortunately, Martine (Birgitte Federspiel) and Philippa (Bodjil Kjer) find they have no way to gain new members,...
- 4/14/2014
- by Joshua Gaul
- SoundOnSight
Big one today. Let's begin with Movieline's St VanAirsdale introducing his interview with Wim Wenders: "Until the End of the World was conceived over most of the 80s, filmed on four continents (including video smuggled out of China), and foresaw a future abetted by such diversions as mobile viewing devices, proto-gps and a highly sought-after contraption that records images for the blind. Starring William Hurt, Sam Neill, Solveig Dommartin, Jeanne Moreau and Max von Sydow among an international ensemble of actors, the film also skyrocketed to a $23 million budget and found its distributors — including Warner Bros in the United States — requiring cuts that reduced it to barely a quarter of Wenders's original vision. Later locked in at just under five hours, it's the type of material that today would be a shoo-in for a cable miniseries that could probably win Emmys for everyone involved. Twenty years on, however, it's relatively lost to the mainstream,...
- 11/16/2011
- MUBI
“I can’t see you, but I know you’re there.” For me, the great Peter Falk, who passed away a week ago at the age of 83, earned his angel wings for three pictures: Wings of Desire, A Woman Under the Influence, and this terrific gritty sports comedy/road movie by Robert Aldrich. Made in 1981 (it was Aldrich’s final film) and released abroad as The California Dolls, …All the Marbles stars Falk as the go-for-broke manager of a pair of female tag-team wrestlers. As cheesy as the poster looks at first glance it has a zingy energy (with all that type on the diagonal) that is actually quite unlike the downbeat feel of much of the film.
Unfortunately there are not many other great Falk posters: most of his later ones are pretty awful. I already wrote about one of the best posters for Husbands (and my ambivalence about that film) a while ago.
Unfortunately there are not many other great Falk posters: most of his later ones are pretty awful. I already wrote about one of the best posters for Husbands (and my ambivalence about that film) a while ago.
- 7/2/2011
- MUBI
Wings Of Desire is a lot like Where The Wild Things Are. Ok, I know that sounds extremely far-fetched, but stick with me here. I know one film involves invisible angels watching humans, their struggles and suffering and the other involves large hirsute monsters with big heads and even bigger tempers making friends with a runaway boy with anger issues, but there are two major common denominators to both films: 1) They’re rooted and invested in human emotions, and 2) Neither adheres to the standard three-act narrative format, forgoing customary cinematic structure and instead drifting and meandering along an (apparently) uncharted course.
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
- 11/27/2009
- by no-reply@starlog.com (Allan Dart)
- Starlog
DVD Release Date: Nov. 3 Director: Wim Wenders Writers: Wenders, Peter Handke Cinematographer: Henri Alekan Starring: Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Solveig Dommartin Studio/Run Time: Criterion, 127 mins. Wim Wenders’ masterpiece illuminates the sublime in everyday existence In this 1987 Wim Wenders classic (finally getting the Criterion treatment this month), two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, watch over a divided Berlin. Sometimes they observe from lofty perches, but mostly they move freely through the ordinary lives of the city’s inhabitants, observing and documenting what they see. Occasionally, an angel will put an intangible arm around someone to offer subtle comfort....
- 11/10/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
In celebration of Criterion's deluxe double-dvd and Blu-ray treatment of Wings of Desire, my Benten Films partner-in-crime Andrew Grant and I rewatched Wim Wenders' 1987 masterpiece (and pored over the bonus features) to discuss the film's elusive magic and why a work so specific to East-West German tensions has aged so gracefully. Andrew reminisces about spending time in Berlin around the era of the production, with other topics of conversation including They Might Be Giants, Nick Cave's inner thoughts, Peter Falk's unconscious plot hole, a rather unfortunate sequel, and how Wings of Desire almost ended with an pie fight. If you haven't already absorbed its pleasures (or, god forbid, you only know its atrocious H'wood remake, City of Angels), here's the Criterion synopsis: Wings of Desire is one of cinema's loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears,...
- 11/7/2009
- GreenCine Daily
Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.
Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, North by Northwest, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Rockford Files. Plus, there’s some classic Dr. Who coming out this week as well.
Check them out.
Movies
A Christmas Carol ~ Alastair Sim, Jack Warner (Blu-ray)
Aliens in the Attic ~ Kevin Nealon, Doris Roberts (DVD and Blu-ray)
Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 (The Big Heat / 5 Against the House / The Lineup / Murder by Contract / The Sniper) ~ (DVD)
The Claudette Colbert Collection (Three-Cornered Moon / Maid of Salem / I Met Him in Paris (1937)I Met...
Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, North by Northwest, It’s a Wonderful Life and The Rockford Files. Plus, there’s some classic Dr. Who coming out this week as well.
Check them out.
Movies
A Christmas Carol ~ Alastair Sim, Jack Warner (Blu-ray)
Aliens in the Attic ~ Kevin Nealon, Doris Roberts (DVD and Blu-ray)
Columbia Pictures Film Noir Classics, Vol. 1 (The Big Heat / 5 Against the House / The Lineup / Murder by Contract / The Sniper) ~ (DVD)
The Claudette Colbert Collection (Three-Cornered Moon / Maid of Salem / I Met Him in Paris (1937)I Met...
- 11/3/2009
- by Joe Gillis
- The Flickcast
The Girl on the Train: a title like a "missed connections" posting. And the girl (Émilie Dequenne) really is lovely. She's got hair like Solveig Dommartin and a tiny tattoo on her left shoulder blade. She looks determined and goofy with her roller blades. You see her on the opposite end of a train car, or maybe holding on to the handrail, and you'd try to hide your glances, maybe making eye contact in a turn of the head. From a few rows away (a train's or a movie theater's), she inspires ordinary domestic fantasy: how the curls in her hair would turn gray one at a time over the years, how you'd tease her about her nose. She's got a boyfriend, though, with tattoos up his left arm and you know she runs her fingers over them when they lie together in bed. She's beautiful to glimpse, but people aren't glimpses.
- 10/12/2009
- MUBI
At its current length, it shapes up as a major must-see for specialty film lovers while the presence of William Hurt, giving one of his best performances at the head of a talented, and often distinguished, international cast, should lure in more mainstream types. And the film's first half is so visually dazzling and moodily hip, that the picture could easily leap to the level of pop phenomenon.
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-
Essentially the story of two sets of journeys, one nearly circumnaviga-ting the globe, the other plunging deep into psychic recesses, the film takes place during 1999 when an out-of-control nuclear-armed satellite threatens to explode into the earth, a situation that has provoked general social disorder and economic chaos. The action is narrated by novelist Eugene Fitzpatrick (Sam Neill) whose bored hipster girlfriend, Claire Tourneur (Solveig Dommartin), has agreed to drive some stolen loot to Paris.
Farther on, she rescues a mysterious stranger, Trevor McPhee (Hurt), from a pursuing Australian gunman (Ernie Diongo), only to have the man return the favor by stealing part of her loot. Back in Paris, she accidently runs into the Australian again and, by redialing a video phone he has just used, hooks up with a Berlin detective, Philip Winter (Rudiger Vogler), who has a line on McPhee's whereabouts.
With the cast largely introduced, the complications still continue piling up, as Claire first discovers that McPhee is a fugitive from an Australian opal robbery, and then that he is wanted even more desperately by the U.S. government for industrial espionage. Catching up with and losing McPhee several times with the aid of Eugene and Philip, Claire travels from Paris to Lisbon, Moscow, China, Tokyo, rural Japan, and San Francisco (where they run into a comically despicable car dealer played by Alan Garfield) before finally ending up in a remote section of Australia.
During their travels, McPhee, whose real name is Sam Farber, reveals that he is the son of a missing scientist, Henry Farber (Max von Sydow), who has invented a camera that can take pictures that blind people can see, once they and the picture-taker have been hooked up to the same computer apparatus. Sam has been traveling the world, surreptitiously taking pictures of his family for his blind mother Edith (Jeanne Moreau) to see. He has had to use an alias since the U.S. government, for whom Henry worked, wants both the scientist and his invention back.
On the way to the Farber research installation -- a high-tech warren buried beneath an aboriginal community -- a nuclear detonation wipes out all electrical circuits, cutting everyone off from the outside world. In isolation and tremendous familial conflict, the Farbers, with Claire's crucial help, first develop the pictures that Edith will see and then, following her death, embark on a series of experiments that allow them to ''videotape'' their own dreams and play them back on screens.
In an unforseen development, however, Henry, Sam and Claire develop an addiction to viewing their own dreams, and ultimately require desperate measures before they can reintegrate themselves into so-called normal life.
The film's designs of the urban future are stunning. Video screens with their own distracting images abound everywhere: in display units, telecommunications devices, spying devices and portable playback machines. Both Winter and a Russian counterpart use amusing video-game-like displays for their computerized missing person searches. During the first half, frames encompassing cityscapes are crowded with elements, often utilize optical mattes, and cinematographer Robby Muller's palette looks like it has electrical current flowing through it. The action is -- thanks in part to a soundtrack jammed with rock and pop tunes -- suffused with a doomed freneticism.
During the 90 minutes that take place at the Farber outpost, the pace is gentler and the cinematography more naturalistic, except for the ''recorded'' dream sequences. Wenders and HDTV designer Sean Naughton have produced a parade of dense video imagery that manages to be both sharp and precise, and symbolic and opaque, at the same time.
Wenders is clearly well-read in social thought, and, among other things, the film provides a valuable meditation on the conflict between atomizing, high-tech media and more traditional forms of human contact. In fact, the entire work can be very easily read as a study of the nature of film and television watching, and the enlightening and debilitating consequences. However, just as the film appears to take its most austere and forbidding tone, it hits you with a huge emotional wallop.
with a scene in which Edith sees the recorded sight and sound of her grown-up daughter (Lois Chiles) and a granddaughter she didn't know she had. It's a devastating effect.
Although the ending is not a conventionally happy one, philosophically speaking, it is optimistic, though in a particularly tough-minded way.
During the film's three hours and particularly during the second half, Wenders occasionally resorts to platitudes to make his points, but the overall development of the film is extremely sophisticated and deeply felt.
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Trans Pacific Films
A Road Movies Film Production, Argos Films, Village Roadshow production
Director Wim Wenders
Producer Jonathan Taplin
Exec. producer (U.S. and Japan)Anatole Dauman
Producers Anatole Dauman, Jonathan Taplin
Screenplay Peter Carey, Wim Wenders
Based on an original idea by Wim Wenders,
Solveig Dommartin
Director of photography Robby Muller
Picture and music editor Peter Przygodda
Production design, futuristic objectsThierry
Flamand
Production designer for Australia Sally Campbell
High Definition Video designer Sean Naughton
Musical score Graeme Revell
Color/Dolby
Cast:
Claire Tourneur Solveig Dommartin
Trevor McPhee/Sam Farber William Hurt
Eugene Fitzpatrick Sam Neill
Henry Farber Max von Sydow
Edith Farber Jeanne Moreau
Philip Winter Rudiger Vogler
Running time -- 179 minutes
No MPAA rating
(c) The Hollywood Reporter...
- 9/11/1991
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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