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Posted: **Fri Jun 27, 2008 4:15 am**

I have that CD and it's really good, for what it's worth.

Posted: **Fri Jul 18, 2008 7:50 am**

For those upset about the R1 Wings of Desire and Paris, Texas going OOP, the films will be released in R2 at the end of the month, and with what appears to be the same extras and then some:

Wings of Desire wrote: * 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
* German DD2.0 Stereo and DD5.1 Surround with optional English subtitles
* Feature-length commentary with Wim Wenders and Peter Falk
* â€˜Conversations on Wings of Desireâ€™ featurette
* Deleted scenes with optional commentary
* The original theatrical trailer
* Exclusive 20 page limited edition collectorsâ€™ booklet

Paris Texas wrote: * 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
* English DD2.0 Stereo and DD5.1 Surround
* English HOH subtitles
* Feature-length commentary with Wim Wenders
* Deleted scenes
* Home movies
* Cannes Film Festival footage
* The original theatrical trailer
* Exclusive 24 page limited edition collectorâ€™s booklet (includes Sam Shepard short story and L.M. Kit Carson film diaries)

Posted: **Wed Aug 13, 2008 6:09 pm**

Pitchfork wrote:This fall, titans of stage and screen will collide in a motion picture theater near...Germany. Yes! Acclaimed director Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire, Buena Vista Social Club, Paris, Texas) has a new film, and it is stuffed to the brim with things that should make music nerds giddy.

What sort of things, you ask? Why, how about a cameo from Lou Reed, a score composed by Can's Irmin Schmidt, and brand new music from Will Oldham and Nick Cave's Grinderman! Really, pull up a chair.

Having shown at Cannes earlier this year, Wenders' Palermo Shooting is due to hit theaters in Germany on November 20, according to IMDb. The film stars Andreas "Campino" Frege, frontman for German punk mainstays Die Toten Hosen (each of Campino's bandmates also makes a brief appearance in the film). He plays a restless photographer who embraces the open road. There he meets Death (who goes by the name "Frank" in this film, how cute), as portrayed by Dennis Hopper. How I love the cinema.

The journey of Campino's photographer is set to familiar tunes from Iron & Wine, Calexico, Beirut, Jason Collett, and the Long Winters, plus a few offerings composed specifically for the film.

Will Oldham and Matt Sweeney bring us new song "Torn and Brayed" (plus "Death to Everyone" from Oldham's Bonnie "Prince" Billy classic I See a Darkness makes an appearance). Meanwhile, Wenders' old pal Nick Cave and his Grinderman serve up "Dream (Song for Finn)" and "Song for Frank".

Palermo Shooting also includes Portishead's "The Rip", from this year's comeback LP Third, and "Mysteries", the opening track from Beth Gibbons' 2002 record with Talk Talk bassist Paul Webb (aka Rustin Man), Out of Season. Wenders calls Gibbons "simply my favorite singer in all of contemporary music" in the film's press materials.

Last but not least, you'll hear Velvet Underground classic "Some Kinda Love"...during a scene featuring Lou Reed himself! Reed and Wenders go way back, as Reed appeared the director's 1993 feature Faraway, So Close! and 2003 blues documentary The Soul of a Man as well.

As if all that weren't enough, Palermo Shooting also features, as mentioned, a score composed by Irmin Schmidt of krautrock legends Can. Hey, Can! They're pretty good!

No word yet on a soundtrack or U.S. release for Palermo Shooting, but given the top tier talent involved, I reckon we'll get both soon enough.

Posted: **Wed Aug 27, 2008 1:06 am**

I'm still eagerly awaiting a DVD-release of Wenders' first two features, Summer in the City (1970) and Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter/ The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972).

To my knowledge, they've not been given any kind of DVD-release, not even in Germany. Unless of course, I've missed out on some totally obscure release of these two films.

Summer in the City though has been released on VHS in Germany, but - understandably - copies are hard to come by.

Arthaus, Criterion, Anchor Bay? What's keeping them?

Posted: **Wed Aug 27, 2008 3:30 am**

Camera Obscura wrote:I'm still eagerly awaiting a DVD-release of Wenders' first two features, Summer in the City (1970) and Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter/ The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972).

[. . .] What's keeping them?

I don't remember too much about the soundtrack for The Goalie's Fear, but I wouldn't be surprised if the cost of music rights has nixed a DVD release of Summer in the City.

Posted: **Wed Aug 27, 2008 11:54 pm**

Of course, music rights! Could have guessed, apparently, that's exactly it.

For Summer in the City, music rights seems to be hinder any kind of release. I could have guessed with music from The Loving Spoonful, Chuck Berry, The Trogs, Gene Vincent. Nevertheless, I always thought it was cleared.

Wenders about Summer in the City in an interview in 2001:

The title, from a Loving Spoonful record (and a painting by Edward Hopper), indicates how heavily I was influenced by rock 'n' roll; the film itself was dedicated to the Kinks, and again, none it was cleared. So it was only shown in film school, and once or twice in some retrospectives. Other than that, the film could never be shown, because I never had the music rights.

I've never seen The Goalie's Fear (nor Summer in the City for that matter), but I don't think music rights are a major issue with that film. In due time, that one will probably get a release, with a little patience...

Posted: **Thu Aug 28, 2008 2:42 am**

That's a shame. I really like Summer in the City, even though it's clearly a novice film. It's got great energy, a lot of it derived from the way Wenders engages with the music.

I didn't realise the film was quite that elusive. I saw it (like most prime Wenders) via the Goethe Institut, so presumably Inter Nationes have a print. They also had Alabama - 2000 Light Years from Home, which has similar issues (there are two big knotty ones staring out from that title) and is presumably in a related limbo. If you've got a local Goethe Institut it might be worth inquiring about the possibility of a modest Wenders retro. I've known them to be incredibly responsive to specific suggestions in some instances (and completely un- in others).

Posted: **Thu Aug 28, 2008 10:09 pm**

Contacting the Goethe-Intitute might be a good idea, although I think they only do film once a month, almost exclusively recent stuff, like Goodbye Lenin. Naturally, one of their main goals is to encourage young people to take an interest in German language and culture. Perhaps I can convince them that early Wenders is gonna do the trick.

I think Summer in the City was screened a couple of times during the late eighties/ early nineties, when Wenders' reputation was at an all-time high after Wings of Desire. In the Netherlands at least, there seemed to be one Wenders-retrospective after another.

But that's something else completely. Nowadays, it seems Wenders has been banned from most cinemas alltogether. I should contact the folks at the Goethe-Institute and submit a hefty list of demands for future screenings. I might as well throw in some other rare stuff. They might just do it.

Posted: **Sun Aug 09, 2009 1:39 am**

Finally got to see the third of the 70's road movies, "Alice In The Cities": I had actually bought it before the other two but I was still somewhat wary of it, given that a young child actor was one of the two leads.
In the DVD's accompanying notes, it quotes Wenders as mentioning that he was wary to proceed, given Peter Bogdanovich had started 'Paper Moon' around the same tme, but I'm glad he went ahead and made it.
I'm inclined to say its the best of the three but they're three different films in style and tone, and it may be only because its freshest in the memory.
Perhaps its better to say that this ranks high among the great cinematic trilogies, that Yella Rottlander,as Alice, gives a marvellous natural performance, that Robby Muller's b&w cinematography is stunning and that its a masterpiece
(and my opinion isn't at all influenced by the fact that he displays his great love of John Ford with the two prominent nods he gives to 'The Old Masters' during the film)

Posted: **Mon Feb 02, 2015 10:35 pm**

Wim Wenders retrospective coming to MoMA in March. New prints but no schedule yet - definitely looking forward to this, a lot of his stuff is out-of-print in the U.S. or only available on Hulu Plus. (I'm not a VOD fan.)

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2015 5:34 am**

Highly recommend catching this retrospective, Wenders' post-screening discussions (this week only) have been amazing. Even if you can't make them, it's worth catching some of the new restorations at later screenings. It's part of an on-going initiative, and while some films don't benefit greatly, simply because existing prints already looked amazing, I can vouch for Alice in the Cities looking better than ever, and The American Friend looks drop-dead beautiful, with a new stereo mix to boot. All the restorations will be indicated at the beginning of the screening, with notes attached before the credits. Here's a sample of two:

Alice in the Cities

ALICE IN THE CITIES was shot on 16 mm black and white negative in the summer of 1973. For 15 years all copies in circulation worldwide were made from the original negative. When a 35 mm dupe negative was finally made in 1988, the original material was already damaged by countless scratches, vertical lines and cracks.

The digital restoration of the film was done in 2014. For this purpose, the original negative was scanned in a resolution of 4K using the wetgate method and retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 2K. Individual sequences that were too heavily damaged in the original 16 mm negative were replaced with sections from the 35 mm dupe negative.Although shot in the 1:1.37 format commissioned by WDR, Wim Wenders and his cameraman Robby Müller composed the shots for the widescreen format 1:1.66 during the shooting. At the director’s request, the film was also screened in cinemas as such. In the course of its digital restoration, ALICE IN THE CITIES was now finally framed in this preferred format.

Wim Wenders on Reframing Alice:

“As Robby Müller and I were preparing to film ‘Alice in the Cities’ in 1972, we were hoping to be able to shoot in 35 mm with the Arri BL, which had just come out at the time.But then it turned out that the camera was still too hard to come by and our budget was too small anyways. But since we still wanted to shoot with the original sound on location, we were left with no other option than to switch to 16 mm, which we then did, grudgingly. We did stick with the 1:1.66 wide-screen format which was common at the time though and drew it on the viewfinder. That was the format we preferred. But back in those days the TV folks absolutely had to have the 3:4 full frame format, even though I never really knew how you were supposed to frame it. My desire to see it on the big screen was simply only satisfied by the 1:1.66 cinema format… For the restoration – in which the black and white image finally no longer looks like it’s been run through a meat grinder (unbelievably over 100 copies were printed from the original film negative!), although it has of course preserved its 16 mm film grain – I decided to honor my original wish. The film can now be seen in the 1:1.66 format, just as we dreamt it and also framed it at the time. And since television has also become willing to show films in wide-screen in the meantime, and since most devices offer the 16:9 format anyways, we even decided to completely forego providing the old unpopular 3:4 format. I’ve taken the time to describe this in such detail so that no one will think that we messed with the film arbitrarily during the restoration process. We didn’t. The only arbitrary thing was the 3:4 format back then.”

The American Friend

The American Friend was filmed in the fall and winter of 1976/77. The digital restoration of the film was done in 2014. For this purpose, the original 35 mm negative was scanned, retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 4k. The original cut of the film was not altered in any way. The sound was originally mixed in mono and was remixed in Dolby Stereo from the original tapes. All work was carried out at ARRI Film & TV Services Berlin and supported by funding from FFA German Federal Film Board for the Digitization of Content.

Posted: **Wed Mar 04, 2015 10:38 am**

Thanks, that's very insightful.

Posted: **Sun Mar 08, 2015 11:11 pm**

Saw Kings of the Road, which is actually a poor American title for the film. Distributors thought the English translation of the actual German title - In the Course of Time - wasn't marketable, so Wenders went along with their suggestion of Kings of the Road, much to his regret.

The film looked superb, and along with Alice in the Cities, it was apparently one of the toughest restoration jobs they had done on Wenders' catalog. The notes:

Kings of the Road was shot on 35mm Orwo b/w negative film in 1975. The digital restoration of the film was done in 2014. For this purpose, the original negative was scanned, retouched and color-corrected in a resolution of 4k. The film material exhibited serious damage from wear and tear in individual shots and the film base had shrunk considerably over the years. This required intensive retouching and stabilization, which proved to be particularly challenging due to the length of the film. All work was carried out at ARRI Film & TV Services Berlin and supported by funding from FFA German Federal Film Board for the Digitization of Content.

That shrinkage was a huge issue with that film stock, and somewhere down the line, they had to make a dupe and use that to strike prints, so this may have been the first time in a long time that anything was made directly from the negative. Again, looked amazing - despite the major issue of shrinkage, it was apparently an excellent looking film stock.

Posted: **Tue Mar 10, 2015 3:20 pm**

Wenders' Until the End of the World is a film I've been waiting to hit DVD ever since I got my first player in 2003 - truly superb flick that combined the genres of sci-fi & road trip, while being completely unique - the device that allowed you to "see" others' dreams was quite interesting. Also liked the fact that this took place in the then-futuristic late '90's, on the eve of the 21st century (since the film came out in '91).

The soundtrack was amazing as well: Lou Reed, R.E.M., Julee Cruise, Elvis Costello, U2, etc. This is definitely one of my all-time favorite pop/rock film soundtracks.

Unfortunately, the last time I saw this film was on VHS tape circa 1993 - never gotten ahold of any of the non-Region 1 DVD releases. IMHO a perfect R1 Blu/DVD release would include all of the different versions - I think there are 3-4?! floating around.

Like a lot of films that have not been released to R1 DVD/Blu, I'm almost certain one of reasons (and possibly the main reason) for the delay are music rights. IMHO straightening out/coming to an agreement re: rock/pop music has been one of the reasons many films/TV shows haven't come out on DVD, or have been delayed...

So, hopefully this film will be released soon on R1.

Note that the underrated sci-fi film Strange Days (1995) reminds me somewhat of UTEOTW, re: the late 1999 setting (also on the verge of the 21st century), and the "virtual reality" aspect....though, both films are completely different otherwise...

Posted: **Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:22 pm**

Reports from the latest screening of the 5 hour cut say the Janus Films logo opened the film

Posted: **Tue Mar 10, 2015 5:34 pm**

Superswede11 wrote:Reports from the latest screening of the 5 hour cut say the Janus Films logo opened the film

That's what I heard - hopefully this means we're closer to an official R1 Blu/DVD release of UTEOTW.

Posted: **Thu Aug 20, 2015 11:04 pm**

So as mentioned in my posts from earlier this year, Wenders has been going through his back catalog, restoring and re-transferring his films. That MoMA retrospective in March featured everything that had been done at that time, and now it looks like Wenders is doing a traveling retrospective with the first stop at IFC Center in New York. (So far, it's reported to be a 15+ city tour of the nation's top art houses, with stops in Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Columbus, Houston, Austin and Vancouver.)

I highly recommend checking out Alice in the Cities and Kings of the Road, they're two of his best and given the problem with the original film elements, they did an amazing, herculean job restoring them.

Even more interesting is two new 4k restorations that weren't finished/shown at the MoMA retrospective: Paris, Texas (possibly his best looking film) and The Shape of Things. Both were shown in 35mm prints, and while the former looked great, the latter didn't look so hot, even though the print was in good shape - it'll be interesting to see how the new restoration looks. (The IFC screening will be its world premiere.)

Posted: **Fri Aug 21, 2015 1:55 pm**

hearthesilence wrote: Even more interesting is two new 4k restorations that weren't finished/shown at the MoMA retrospective: Paris, Texas (possibly his best looking film) and The Shape of Things. Both were shown in 35mm prints, and while the former looked great, the latter didn't look so hot, even though the print was in good shape

That's not how I remember things. Paris, Texas was shown restored, but The Shape of Things and Wrong Move were not. Well, we agree on The Shape of Things. I'm glad that that's now restored, and hope Wrong Move is now too.

Posted: **Fri Aug 21, 2015 2:39 pm**

I think there's been a partial misunderstanding, I meant that new 4k restorations of those films were not shown and were not ready for the MoMA retrospective back in March. I made no mention of Wrong Move, but that and The Shape of Things were not restored when they were shown at MoMA.

Re: Paris, Texas, are you sure it was restored? Wenders' website at the time said the 4k restoration was not yet done. Was there a card at the beginning that mentioned a 4k restoration? Also I just realized it was actually a DCP shown at MoMA, which is why I skipped it because Lincoln Center screened a 35mm print around the same time.

Posted: **Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:33 pm**

hearthesilence wrote:I think there's been a partial misunderstanding, I meant that new 4k restorations of those films were not shown and were not ready for the MoMA retrospective back in March. I made no mention of Wrong Move, but that and The Shape of Things were not restored when they were shown at MoMA.

We agree.

Re: Paris, Texas, are you sure it was restored? Wenders' website at the time said the 4k restoration was not yet done. Was there a card at the beginning that mentioned a 4k restoration? Also I just realized it was actually a DCP shown at MoMA, which is why I skipped it because Lincoln Center screened a 35mm print around the same time.

I went to hear Wenders' intro and didn't stay for the film, so I'm not 100% sure. I thought I saw a card before I left, but maybe my memory is playing tricks.

Posted: **Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:42 pm**

FWIW, I noticed that they were showing a new DCP of Wings of Desire but I skipped it because they were reportedly working on a new 4k scan for a 2016 release. I wonder if it was a similar case with Paris, Texas?

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2015 3:01 pm**

This Janus trailer for the Wenders retrospective includes Pina and The Million Dollar Hotel, which are not part of the current Janus retrospective tour.

Posted: **Sat Aug 29, 2015 4:24 pm**

criterionsnob wrote:This Janus trailer for the Wenders retrospective includes Pina and The Million Dollar Hotel, which are not part of the current Janus retrospective tour.

It also doesn't showcase Buena Vista Social Club at all, event though it's mentioned on the Janus poster.

Posted: **Thu Oct 29, 2015 1:22 am**

For those in the SF Bay Area, The Castro Theatre is presenting the new 4K DCPs as double features each Monday in November. From their calendar:

EVERY MONDAY IN NOVEMBER
WIM WENDERS — PORTRAITS ALONG THE ROAD
Wim Wenders is cinema’s preeminent poet of the open road, soulfully following the journeys of people as they search for themselves. During his over-forty-year career, Wenders has directed films in his native Germany and around the globe, making dramas both intense and whimsical, mysteries, fantasies, and documentaries. With this retrospective of nine of his films—from early works of the New German Cinema (Alice in the Cities, Kings of the Road) to the art-house 1980s blockbusters that made him a household name (Paris, Texas; Wings of Desire)—audiences can rediscover Wenders’s vast cinematic world. Presented by Janus Films and the Wim Wenders Stiftung.

Nov. 2:

THE GOALIE’S ANXIETY AT THE PENALTY KICK 7:00
Minutely rendered from Peter Handke's novel, goalkeeper Josef Bloch (Arthur Brauss) kills a young woman for no good reason and wanders off into the German provinces, less to escape the police than to find himself. As Wenders himself has stated, the visual idiom of Alfred Hitchcock’s films provided the model for his debut film. With cameraman Robby Müller and editor Peter Przygodda, he set forth a collaboration that would weld this team together for years. (1971, 100 min, in German with English subtitles, 4K DCP)

+ ALICE IN THE CITIES 8:50
After failing to find the Real America, German photojournalist Philip Winter (Rüdiger Vogler, in his first WW film) reluctantly agrees to shepherd abandoned 9-year-old Alice (Yella Rottländer) from New York City to Europe to find her grandmother, located in a remote village. During their search together, their initial mutual dislike gradually transforms into a heartfelt affection. Often compared with Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, Wenders refers to this as his first film, because it was here that he discovered the genre of the road movie. (1974, 112 min, in German with English subtitles, DCP)

Nov. 9

KINGS OF THE ROAD 6:00
Bruno (Rüdiger Vogler) repairs film projectors and travels along the inner German border in his truck, child psychologist Robert (Hanns Zischler) is fleeing from his own past. Together, they take an existential journey through a German no-man’s-land, from the Lüneburg Heath to the Bavarian Forest. Wenders began the film without a script and instead scouted a route out beforehand: through all of the little towns along the Wall that still contained a movie theater in this era of cinematic mass extinction. (1976, 175 min, in German with English subtitles, 4K DCP)

+ THE AMERICAN FRIEND 9:05
In this gripping adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game, and unlikely friendship develops between terminally ill frame maker Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) and unscrupulous art smuggler Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper), who learns of Zimmermann’s illness and exploits it for his own murderous purposes. The cast includes not only fellow directors Hopper and Gérard Blain but also filmmakers in many of the supporting roles of gangsters, such as Hollywood legends Samuel Fuller and Nicholas Ray. (1977, 126 min, in German, English, and French, with English subtitles, 4K DCP)

The detailed calendar ends on the 15th, but the calendar listing for Nov. mentions:

Nov. 16: Paris, Texas & The State Of Things
Nov. 23: Wings Of Desire & Faraway, So Close
Nov. 30: Until The End Of The World (Director's Cut)

Posted: **Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:52 am**

The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge is showing the retrospective, and one of the screenings is a Wim Wenders Shorts Program that doesn't seem to be listed on the Janus page.

(1968/69) dir Wim Wenders [82 min; DCP]
Includes Wim Wenders’ early short films: SAME PLAYER SHOOTS AGAIN (1968), SILVER CITY REVISITED (1969), POLICE FILM (1969), ALABAMA (2000 LIGHT YEARS) (1969), 3 AMERICAN LPs (1969).

Perhaps if a box set comes out these would be included.

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