Wim Wenders
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Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders (Template:IPA; born 14 August 1945) is a German filmmaker and photographer, who is a major figure in New German Cinema.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals. He has also received a BAFTA Award and been nominated for four Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.
Wenders made his feature film debut with Summer in the City (1970). He earned critical acclaim for directing the films Alice in the Cities (1974), The Wrong Move (1975), and Kings of the Road (1976), later known as the Road Movie trilogy. Wenders won the BAFTA Award for Best Direction and the Palme d'Or for Paris, Texas (1984) and the Cannes Film Festival Best Director Award for Wings of Desire (1987). His other notable films include The American Friend (1977), Faraway, So Close! (1993), and Perfect Days (2023).<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Wenders has received three nominations for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature: for Buena Vista Social Club (1999), Pina (2011), and The Salt of the Earth (2014). He received a nomination for the Grammy Award for Best Long Form Music Video for Willie Nelson at the Teatro (1998). He is also known for directing the documentaries Tokyo-Ga (1985), The Soul of a Man (2003), Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (2018), and Anselm (2023).
Wenders formerly served as the president of the European Film Academy from 1996–2020. He also earned an Honorary Golden Bear in 2015. He is an active photographer, emphasizing images of desolate landscapes.<ref name="theguardian1">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name="telegraph">Template:Cite webTemplate:Cbignore</ref> He is considered an auteur director.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Early life and education
[edit]Wenders was born in Düsseldorf into a traditionally Catholic family. His father, Heinrich Wenders, was a surgeon. The Dutch name "Wim" is a shortened version of the baptismal name "Wilhelm". As a boy, Wenders took unaccompanied trips to Amsterdam to visit the Rijksmuseum. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine at the University of Freiburg (1963–64) and philosophy at the University of Dusseldorf (1964–65), but dropped out and moved to Paris in October 1966 in order to become a painter.<ref name="Biography">Template:Cite web</ref> He failed his entry test at France's national film school, IDHEC (now La Fémis), and instead became an engraver at Johnny Friedlaender's studio in Montparnasse.<ref name="Biography" /> During this time he became fascinated with cinema, and saw up to five movies a day at the local movie theater.
Set on making his obsession his life's work, he returned to Germany in 1967 to work in the Düsseldorf office of United Artists. That fall, he entered the University of Television and Film Munich (HFF).<ref name="Biography" /> Between 1967 and 1970, while at the HFF, he also worked as a film critic for FilmKritik, the Munich daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung, Twen magazine, and Der Spiegel.<ref name="Biography" />
Wenders completed several short films before graduating from the Hochschule with a 16mm black-and-white film, Summer in the City (1970), his feature directorial debut.
Career
[edit]1970–1976: Film debut and early work
[edit]Wenders's career began in the late 1960s, the New German Cinema era.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Much of the distinctive cinematography in his movies is the result of a long-term collaboration with Dutch cinematographer Robby Müller.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Wenders made his directorial film debut with Summer in the City (1970), his graduation project at the University of Television and Film Munich, which he attended from 1967 to 1970. Shot in 16 mm black-and-white by Müller, the movie exhibited many of Wenders's later trademark themes of aimless searching, running from invisible demons, and persistent wandering toward an indeterminate goal. Protagonist Hans (Zischler) is released from prison, and after searching through seedy West German streets and bars, he visits an old friend in Berlin.Template:Citation needed
Wenders then directed The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty, titled The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick in the United States. The film was adapted from Peter Handke's 1970 short novel. He then directed the period drama The Scarlet Letter (1973), adapted from Nathaniel Hawthorne's 1850 novel of the same name. From 1974 to 1976 Wender directed the Road Movie trilogy. The first film in the trilogy was Alice in the Cities (1974), which was shot in 16mm. The last two films are The Wrong Move (1975) and Kings of the Road (1976), the latter of which won the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.Template:Citation needed
1977–1987: Breakthrough and acclaim
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In 1977 Wenders gained prominence for directing the neo-noir The American Friend, starring Dennis Hopper and Bruno Ganz. The film is adapted from the Patricia Highsmith 1974 novel Ripley's Game. J. Hoberman of The New York Times has compared the film to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver, writing, "Like Taxi Driver, The American Friend was a new sort of movie-movie—sleekly brooding, voluptuously alienated and saturated with cinephilia."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Wenders earned critical acclaim for his road drama Paris, Texas (1984), starring Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell. The film premiered at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d'Or. Critic Roger Ebert wrote of the film, "[it's] a movie with the kind of passion and willingness to experiment that was more common fifteen years ago than it is now. It has more links with films like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider and Midnight Cowboy than with the slick arcade games that are the box-office winners of the 1980s. It is true, deep, and brilliant".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Wenders then directed the romance fantasy Wings of Desire (1987), starring Bruno Ganz and Peter Falk. It premiered at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival, where Wenders won the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director. Peter Handke co-wrote the screenplay. West Germany submitted Wings of Desire for consideration for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, a bid supported by its distribution company. It was not nominated; the academy seldom recognized West German cinema.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> The film was one of the most acclaimed films of the year, with many critics adding it on their top 10 lists.
1991–2010: Career fluctuations
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In 1991 Wenders directed the science fiction adventure drama Until the End of the World, starring William Hurt, Solveig Dommartin, Max Von Sydow and Jeanne Moreau. The film has been released in several editions, ranging in length from 158 to 287 minutes, with the longer versions receiving mixed reviews. In 1993 he directed Faraway, So Close!, a sequel to Wings of Desire. Actors Otto Sander, Bruno Ganz and Peter Falk reprised their roles as angels who have become human. The film also stars Nastassja Kinski, Willem Dafoe and Heinz Rühmann, in his last film role. It received critical acclaim, premiering at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival, where it earned the Grand Prix. The next year, he directed Lisbon Story, which screened at Un Certain Regard at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. In 1995 he directed both A Trick of Light and the anthology film Lumière and Company.
In 1997, Wenders directed the American drama film The End of Violence, starring Bill Pullman, Andie MacDowell, and Gabriel Byrne. The film received negative reviews and performed poorly at the box office after its debut at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival. Like many other of Wenders's American movies, it was shot in multiple locations, including the Griffith Observatory and the Santa Monica Pier. Wenders has directed several highly acclaimed documentaries, including Willie Nelson at the Teatro, a documentary about the recording sessions of Teatro (1998). The next year he directed Buena Vista Social Club, about the music of Cuba. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In 2002, he directed a documentary about the German rock group BAP called Template:Lang (A lot has happened).
2011–present: Resurgence with documentaries
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Wenders has directed music videos for groups such as U2 and Talking Heads, including "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" and "Sax and Violins".Template:Citation needed His television commercials include a UK advertisement for Carling Premier Canadian beer.Template:Citation needed Wenders's book Emotion Pictures, a collection of diary essays written as a film student, was adapted and broadcast as a series of plays on BBC Radio 3, featuring Peter Capaldi as Wenders, with Gina McKee, Saskia Reeves, Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton and Ricky Tomlinson, dramatized by Neil Cargill.
Wenders also directed a documentary-style film on the Skladanowsky brothers, known in English as A Trick of the Light.<ref>Template:IMDb title</ref> The Skladanowsky brothers were inventing "moving pictures" when several others like the Lumière brothers and William Friese-Greene were doing the same. In 2011, Wenders was selected to stage the 2013 cycle of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen at the Bayreuth Festival.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>[1] Template:Webarchive</ref> The project fell through when he insisted on filming in 3-D, which the Wagner family found too costly and disruptive.<ref>[2] Template:Webarchive</ref> In 2012, while promoting his 3-D dance film Pina, Wenders told the Documentary channel blog that he had begun work on a new 3-D documentary about architecture.<ref name="Documentary Channel Blog">[3] Template:Webarchive</ref> He also said he would only work in 3-D from then on.<ref name="WSJ Speakeasy">Template:Cite web</ref> Wenders had admired the dance choreographer Pina Bausch since 1985, but only with the advent of digital 3-D cinema did he decide that he could sufficiently capture her work on screen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
In 2015, Wenders collaborated with artist/journalist and longtime friend Melinda Camber Porter on a documentary feature about his body of work, Wim Wenders – Visions on Film. Porter died before it was finished, and the film remains incomplete.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Wenders is a member of the advisory board of World Cinema Foundation. The project was founded by Martin Scorsese and aims to find and reconstruct world cinema films that have been neglected. As of 2015 he served as a Jury Member for the digital studio Filmaka, a platform for undiscovered filmmakers to show their work to industry professionals.<ref name="Filmaka">Template:Cite web</ref>
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In June 2017, Wenders stage-directed Georges Bizet's opera Les Pêcheurs de perles, starring Olga Peretyatko and Francesco Demuro and conducted by Daniel Barenboim at the Berlin State Opera (Staatsoper). In a 2018 interview, he said his favorite movie of all time was his film about Pope Francis, and that his entire career had been building up to it. His admiration for Francis is profound; he said he felt Francis is doing his best in a world full of calamities. He also said that, though raised Catholic, he had converted to Protestantism years earlier.<ref>Template:Cite episode</ref>
In 2019 Wenders acted as executive producer for his former assistant director Luca Lucchesi's documentary A Black Jesus, which has similar themes to Pope Francis: A Man of His Word. The film explores the role of religion in communal identity and how this can create or dissolve differences in a small Sicilian town during the height of the refugee crisis.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Lucchesi noted that Wenders pushed the film to be more symbolic and philosophical, saying that Wenders wanted the film to have a "universal fairy-tale aspect" and to represent "Europe in a nutshell".<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2025, Wenders made a short film called "The Keys to Freedom" in Reims, France. In the film, Wenders tours the Museum of the Surrender, where General Eisenhower gave the liberated city's keys to the mayor in 1945, and comments "These are the keys to the freedom of the world". Wenders told the New York Times that Europeans can no longer assume American protection, adding that young people take freedom for granted, not realizing they may soon need to defend it.<ref name="j442">Template:Cite web</ref>
Photography
[edit]Wenders has worked with photographic images of desolate landscapes and themes of memory, time, loss, nostalgia and movement.<ref name="theguardian1" /><ref name="telegraph" /> He began his long-running project "Pictures from the Surface of the Earth" in the early 1980s and pursued it for 20 years. The initial photographic series was titled "Written in the West" and was produced while Wenders criss-crossed the American West in preparation for his film Paris, Texas (1984).<ref name="Biography" /> It became the starting point for a nomadic journey across the globe, including Germany, Australia, Cuba, Israel and Japan, to take photographs capturing the essence of a moment, place or space.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Personal life
[edit]Wenders lives and works in Berlin with his wife, Donata.<ref name="Biography" /> He has lived in Berlin since the mid-1970s.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He is an ecumenical Christian; as a teenager he wished to become a Catholic priest.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> He supports German football club Borussia Dortmund.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
In 2009, Wenders signed a petition in support of director Roman Polanski, who had been detained while traveling to a film festival in relation to his 1977 sexual abuse charges, which the petition argued would undermine the tradition of film festivals as a place for works to be shown "freely and safely" and argued that arresting filmmakers traveling to neutral countries could open the door to "actions of which no-one can know the effects."<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
From 1979 to 1981, Wenders was married to the American actress and singer-songwriter Ronee Blakley.
Filmography
[edit]Film
[edit]Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Scenary' | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Also cinematographer and editor |
| 1968 | Same Player Shoots Again | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | |
| Blurb Film | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No | Co-directed with Gerhard Theuring | |
| Victor I. | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No | ||
| 1969 | Alabama (2000 Light Years) | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Also editor and sound |
| 1992 | Arisha, the Bear, and the Stone Ring | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | |
| 1995 | Segment 38 | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No | Segment of Lumière et compagnie |
| 2002 | Twelve Miles to Trona | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment from Ten Minutes Older: The Trumpet |
| 2003 | Other Side of the Road | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No | |
| 2007 | War in Peace | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment of To Each His Own Cinema |
| 2008 | Person to Person | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment of 8 |
| 2012 | Ver ou Não Ver | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment of Mundo Invisível |
| 2010 | If Buildings Could Talk | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | |
| 2015 | Two or Three Thoughts on Edward Hopper | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Also executive producer |
| 2019 | (E)motion | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes |
Feature film
|
Producer only
|
Executive producer only
|
Documentary works
[edit]Short film
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Silver City Revisited | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Also cinematographer and editor |
| 1982 | Reverse Angle | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | |
| 2007 | Invisible Crimes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment of Invisibles |
| 2010 | If Buildings Could Talk | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | |
| Il volo | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | <ref>Template:Cite news</ref> | |
| 2014 | The Berlin Philharmonic | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No | Segment of Cathedrals of Culture<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 2022 | Présence | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Partial | |
| 2023 | Somebody Comes Into the Light | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:Yes | |
| 2025 | The Keys to Freedom | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:No |
Film
TV movies
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Kaspar Hauser | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No |
| 1982 | Room 666 | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes |
TV series
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | A House for Us | Template:Yes | Template:No | 2 episodes |
| 2020 | 4 Walls Berlin | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Episode "Change" |
Television
[edit]TV shorts
| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Producer | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1969 | Police Film | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Also cinematographer and editor |
| 3 Americans LPS | Template:Yes | Template:No | Template:No | Also editor |
Music video
[edit]| Year | Title | Artist |
|---|---|---|
| 1990 | "Night and Day" | U2 |
| 1992 | "Sax and Violins" | Talking Heads |
| 1993 | "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)" | U2 |
| 1997 | "Every Time I Try" | SpainTemplate:Citation needed |
| 2000 | "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" | U2 |
| "Warum werde ich nicht satt?" | Die Toten Hosen | |
| 2001 | "Souljacker Part I" | Eels |
| 2002 | "Live in a Hiding Place" | Idlewild<ref>Template:Citation</ref> |
| 2009 | "Auflösen" | Die Toten Hosen |
| 2020 | "Anagnorisis" | Asaf Avidan |
Commercials
[edit]| Year | Title | Director | Writer | Subject |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2000 | "Un matin partout dans le monde" | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | JCDecaux |
| 2009 | "My Point of View" | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Leica<ref>Template:Citation</ref> |
| 2017–2018 | Jil Sander: Spring/Summer 2018 | Template:Yes | Template:Yes | Jil Sander<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> |
| 2021 | A Future Together | Template:Yes | Template:No | Salvatore Frengasso |
Legacy and honors
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Wenders has been awarded honorary doctorates by the Sorbonne in Paris in 1989, the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1995, and the Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, in 2005. The Wim Wenders Foundation was established in Düsseldorf in 2012. It provides a framework to bring together his cinematic, photographic, artistic and literary works in his native country and make them permanently accessible to the public.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 2016, he received the Großer Kulturpreis of the Sparkassen Culture-Foundation Rhineland.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Exhibitions
[edit]1986–1992
- Written in the West, in conjunction with the publication, Written in the West, Munich: Schirmer/Mosel (1987)<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref>
1993–1995
- Wim Wenders Photo Exhibition, in conjunction with the publication, Once, Munich: Schirmer/ Mosel (2001)<ref name=":1" />
2004
- Pictures from the Surface of the Earth, Australia and Japan, James Cohan Gallery, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Between The Lines, group exhibition, James Cohan Gallery, New York<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2006
- Wim Wenders: Immagini dal pianeta terra, Scuderie del Quirinale, Rome, Italy<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Journey to Onomichi – Photos by Wim and Donata Wenders,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Omotesando Hills, Tokyo, Japan<ref>Template:Citation</ref>
2011
- Places, strange and quiet, Haunch of Venison, London, UK<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2012
- Places Strange and Quiet, Ostlicht. Galerie Für Fotografie, Vienna, AT<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Places, strange and quiet, Harald Falckenberg Exhibition Space, Deichtorhallen, Hamburg, DE<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- Wim Wenders: Pictures from the Surface of the Earth,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Multimedia Art Museum, Moscow, RU
2014
- Wim Wenders: Places Strange & Quiet, GL Strand, Copenhagen, DK
- Wim Wenders: Urban Solitude, Palazzo Incontro, Rome, IT<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2015
- Wim Wenders: America, Villa e collezione la Panza, Varese, IT<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
- "In broad daylight even the sounds shine. Wim Wenders scouting in Portugal", curated by Anna Duque y González and Laura Schmidt Reservatório da Mãe d'Água das Amoreiras, Lisbon<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2016
- "The Space Between the Characters Can Carry the Load", Collection Ivo Wessel, Weserburg Museum for modern Art, Bremen, DE
2017/2018
- "Instant Stories/Wim Wenders' Polaroids", The Photographers' Gallery, London, from 20 October 2017 to 11 February 2018.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite web</ref>
Installation art
[edit]2019
- (E)motion<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":2" />
2020
- Two or Three Things I Know About Edward Hopper<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
2022
- Presence,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> with Claudine Drai
Bibliography
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See also
[edit]Notes
[edit]References
[edit]Further reading
[edit]External links
[edit]- Template:Official website
- Template:IMDb name
- Senses of Cinema: Great Directors Critical Database
- filmportal.de including biography, filmography and photos
- Wim Wenders at The Guardian
Template:Wim Wenders Template:New German Cinema Template:Navboxes
Template:Cannes Film Festival jury presidents Template:Venice Film Festival jury presidents
- Pages with broken file links
- Wim Wenders
- 1945 births
- Best Director BAFTA Award winners
- Best Director German Film Award winners
- Buena Vista Social Club
- Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Director winners
- Commandeurs of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
- Directors of Palme d'Or winners
- Directors of Golden Lion winners
- English-language film directors
- European Film Award for Best Director winners
- German Christians
- German expatriates in the United States
- Film people from Düsseldorf
- German film directors
- German music video directors
- Photographers from North Rhine-Westphalia
- German theatre directors
- 20th-century German photographers
- 21st-century German photographers
- 20th-century German male writers
- 21st-century German male writers
- Honorary Golden Bear recipients
- Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- Kristián Award winners
- Living people
- Members of the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia
- Recipients of the Order of Merit of Berlin
- Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (civil class)
- University of Television and Film Munich alumni
- Postmodernist filmmakers
- Recipients of the Order of the Rising Sun, 4th class