At The Library

From Wim Wenders' masterpiece "Wings of Desire" previously here.

Wim Wenders at the Grand Palais

I wish I could have been in Paris a few weeks ago to see this amazing installation at the Grand Palais by the filmmaker Wim Wenders. The Palais website says:

"Every evening from the 18th to the 22nd April 2019, Wim Wenders will present an «Unidentified Plastic Object», a monumental cinematographic installation based on his entire film work, projected on the interior structure of the Nave of the Grand Palais.
Neither a work of video art nor an artist’s film, this cinematographic visual creation is an original and spectacular proposal to « exhibit » Wim Wenders’ cinema as first and foremost an artistic object – in the sense that Henri Langlois spoke of cinema « as a plastic art and not a dramatic art ». The plastic aspect of cinema is in the editing. The unique work that Wim Wenders has created for this event is thus an unprecedented montage based on images from his own films, free from any narrative framework and focused on his aesthetics. The white screen of the cinema will be replaced by the grand architecture of the Nave of the Grand Palais: watching a film becomes an immersive experience rather than a two-dimensional one.

During these exceptional evenings spectators will wander through the Nave during these exceptional evenings and contemplate Wim Wenders’ images as they are projected to monumental scale using size by a « mapping» projection system, which consists of twelve 4K (ultra-high definition) projectors covering a large part of the Nave’s structure (along its entire width and to 270°). A unique device in Europe, designed and patented by ATHEM studio, scenographer of this event. A cinematographic kaleidoscope acts as an immersive experience and permits the viewer to contemplate in a new way the visual universe of one of the greatest contemporary filmmaker and his poetic yet universal language.

The themes of this cinematographic installation, projected in several loops to music chosen by the artist, are « in movement » and « the search for lost meaning ». All of Wim Wenders’ cinema is stylistically based around movement. Characters and camera are always and essentially on the road, travelling, rambling, roaming, crossing landscapes and destinies, sometimes roaming. Deeply European, Wim Wenders includes in this artistic experience a reflection on borders and freedom of movement, topics of concern to Europeans at the moment.

The projected film is both a brand new work, because it is based on an original montage, and also an opportunity to rediscover, like in flashes of memory, images from key works in Wim Wenders’ oeuvre, from Alice in the Cities to Wings of Desire. Dreamlike and aesthetic, this poetic and artistic experience is a way for the visitor to come and « live » in Wim Wenders’ cinema by taking a walk through the 13,500 sq.m Nave of the Grand Palais."

Wenders directed one of my all-time favorite films, the spiritually transcendent "Wings of Desire"--it must have been a very special, goose-bump moment to see images from that film projected, so large, on the walls of the Grand Palais.

http://www.wim-wenders.com/
https://www.grandpalais.fr/en/event/emotion

Happy Birthday, "Wings of Desire"

On September 23rd, 1987, Wim Wenders released an extraordinary film called "Wings of Desire," about the city of Berlin and the angels who watch over its human inhabitants. (The original German title is “Der Himmel Über Berlin” or “The Skies Over Berlin.”) Partly inspired by the angels in Rainer Maria Rilke's DUINO ELEGIES, Wenders wrote the film along with poet Peter Handke, who is responsible for some of the most gorgeous prose ever to grace the cinema.

These angels, visible only to children or other angels, can hear the thoughts of humans in close proximity but cannot touch or control them. Far from being a "religious" film, these immortal angels who are clad in drab trench coats live in a world that is seen in black and white, without emotion or sensation, while the human world of love and hate, and the taste of food and the feeling of warmth or cold is seen in vivid color. (The glorious cinematography is by the legendary Henri Alekan, Cocteau’s cinematographer for “La Belle et la Bête.” He was 77 when Wenders convinced him to work on the film.) It is no accident that the film takes place in Berlin, which at the time was a divided city, one half free and the other half enslaved. The wall did not fall until two years after the release of this film.

The duty of the angels is to record and chronicle the human experience: in little spiral ring pocket notebooks they jot down behavioral oddities, inner thoughts, and peculiar things people have said and done. After millions of years (we discover that the angels have been here even before humans), it is natural that some angels might long to feel what humans feel. And indeed, we witness an angel fall in love and wrestle with his desire to renounce his divinity and become mortal in order to be with the one he loves in a fragile, finite existence.

When I first saw this film in 1987, I was literally awestruck and truly emotionally devastated by its scope of humanity and the clear presence of the "animus mundi" in the story. For the first nearly ten or fifteen minutes, we follow a pair of angels as they listen in on the voice of humanity itself, going from person to person, hearing thoughts of love, pettiness, despair, hope, regret, and forgiveness from men, women, young and old. I wept openly through that stunning and powerful opening sequence, overwhelmed by the force of so much existence, so much life, so much sorrow and so much joy (listening in, through an angel, to the thoughts of a dying motorcyclist who has just been in an auto accident is heart-rending). And by extension, not just now, but in the past and the time humanity has left.

In this way, the entire film is transcendent—we are given a glimpse into and a sense of the collective human experience. "Wings of Desire" is magical, emotional, mystical, and profoundly moving. It is not part of our daily lives to feel this much, to be this open, to take in this much at once, to be this aware of the real, sentient, valued lives of all living beings-- to see the one as well as the many simultaneously--and for this reason, I think everyone should see this film. It is a supremely enchanting and enriching experience which will stay with you forever.

http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/wingsofdesire/wingsofdesire.htm