Plot details?
I wouldn't like to guess.
So anyone have any idea?
I was saying get me out of here before I was even born
I got this off the intranet:
"A disgruntled Sicilian attemps to kill Wim Wenders for wasting so much of his time with DON'T COME KNOCKING, MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL, and pretty much everything else except PARIS,TEXAS and WINGS OF DESIRE."
I wish that was funny. Or perceptive.
I was saying get me out of here before I was even born
I wish that were written correctly. And without a fragment.
How am I wrong? Defend your filmmaker.
Fragments are literary techniques used for startling contrast.
Wenders takes his time establishing characters and plot: but how does this make him wasteful? Don't Come Knocking isn't his best, but have you seen Land of Plenty? Or the Buena Vista Social Club? Or Lightning Over Water? Or Alice in the Cities? All of which may have a slower pace, but nevertheless expose essential, pure truths. Wender's style is not an 'in your face coolness'.
His is one that slowly but surely gets under you skin. The beginning of Wings of Desire is a brilliant example of this: the slow tracking shots into the differing strangers that slowly reveals the 'point.' The same subtle style appears in 'The American Friend', a thriller that's more about social mores and taboos.
I was saying get me out of here before I was even born
Million Dollar Hotel is one of his worst films- and sadly this title is his most mainstream and recognized work with today's generation, as for some reason this generation likes to ignore a very long career in filmmaking to focus on the box office bombs Mel Gibson acted in. I'm convinced Wenders is a genius type and sometimes something simply gets lost in the translation from his head to the film- but he's still trying to bring you into to his thoughts and stories. Lightning Over Water is a great film but I give that one to Nicholas Ray- that man was a marvel behind the camera.
Land of Plenty was amazing. Paris, Texas is a flat out masterpiece and Don't come Knocking despite its negative reviews is still a great movie- and once again you have to give Sam Shepard credit for being the man with the pen.
Anyways, any word on the plot or are we left waiting until the release at Cannes? Than again, with Wim Wenders you can't really describe a plot in a line or two. "Little girl goes to see her Grandma" is not what this man does.
RF
"This is me...ya anonymous bitches"
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PREVALENTMIND
Actually, this is a good discussion of Wenders.
I wish "Until the End of the World" got a little more love. Especially the longer cut. It's ponderous and often self-indulgent, but utterly fascinating and never compromising his flawed vision. "Don't Come Knocking" was a damn fine film too - a character-driven meditation on the Hollywood archetypes that seem to obsess Wenders. I'm happy that this film is premeiring in Cannes; hopefully it will generate some great buzz.
You know for so called "self indulgent" filmmakers like Wenders, Hanaeke, or say an overrated but still talented David Kelly- they just so happen to be the few filmmakers who get my mind thinking the most...
...so as far as I'm concerned a filmmaker should be allowed to be 'self indulgent' all he/she wants- because that's usually when I get the most substance from a film viewing.
and dude...I didnt even know there was a longer cut of 'Until the End of the World'. Is it worth the time to watch the longer cut? I mean, would I have missed something profoundly great by watching only the shorter version?
RF
"This is me...ya anonymous bitches"
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PREVALENTMIND
Self-indulgence emits ego that has created some of the best and worst movies of all time. There's nothing wrong with it per se; the question is how you channel it. Without extreme self-indulgence, we wouldn't have masterpieces like "Apocalypse Now" or "Fitzcarraldo." We also wouldn't have stinkers like "Zardoz" and "1941." So it's a double-edged sword.
Re: Until the End of the World. Wenders turned that movie into three 90-minute films, and the trilogy is available in a boxed set on region 2 DVD, but it has never been released in the U.S. I have a multi-regional player and procured a copy from ebay. The first film is an uneven mess, but they other two flesh out a lot of the philosophical themes and make for superb viewing. Definitely worth checking out.
Agreed- it is all about how and who channels their ego...but some shouldn't have been given filmmaking oppotunities in the first place- so chock one up to naive producers. Apocalypse Now, although I love it, still pisses me off to know it took the man 4 re-edits and 4 re-releases to finally create his 'masterpiece'...when it was already one to begin with...though the book and documentary about the making of the film is so incredibly interesting to me. I mean he could cry studio interference all he wanted- when one of your many complaints happens to be 'wine not served at room temperature', you're ultimately standing in your own way. So he screwed himself and saved himself a bunch of times until he was finally satisfied. Erractic, crazy, and we'd like to have the man no other way.
And WOW...I'm positive I caught a 2 hour 30 minute version of 'Until the End...' on VCD way back when, and now I notice a cut that's 280 minutes!!!! Christ...that is an incredible director's cut. I don't understand how that much footage could have been left on the floor- did Wenders film additional scenes after the original released film? Or was it all shot at the same time?
Sorry I am asking so many questions. You are schooling me haha.
RF
"This is me...ya anonymous bitches"
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PREVALENTMIND
No, I don't mind schooling. Haha.
Check out the "alternate versions" section of Until the End of the World. I believe the original cut ran 6 hours, but Wenders vows that version will never be seen. And of course, American distributors were wary of a four-hour film, so that had him whittle it down to 160 minutes. The 280-minute cut came out a few years later, when Wenders began to show it at film festivals. At one point, Anchor Bay was going to release the trilogy-cut on region 1 DVD, but that fell through due to copyright reasons that remain unclear to me and, evidently, to Wenders too. But it's easy to find a region 2.
In regards to Coppola, I thought the Redux version of Apocalypse Now was mostly superfluous. The additional scenes didn't do anything to add to what was already a fully-realized vision. Unlike Wender's film, which I think benefited from the additional scenes because they strengthened what was fairly muddled (but still fascinating) storytelling. So epic-length directors cuts can go both ways.
"So epic-length directors cuts can go both ways."
After the Sword and the Sorcerer haha that's certainly for sure- thanks for the info Tin Man- much appreciated.
RF
"This is me...ya anonymous bitches"
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=PREVALENTMIND
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