Wim Wenders: King of the Road , Tribute from London BFI

BFI Southbank Programme Highlights
Wim Wenders: King of the Road, Part One
In at the start of the ‘New German Cinema’ and reinventing himself constantly ever since, Wim Wenders is the quintessential post-modern auteur, seduced by Hollywood, but remaining European to his very core. Throughout January and February we will celebrate his career with a season that includes new prints of many titles, including The American Friend (1977) and The State of Things (1982).

In Wim Wenders’ masterpiece In the Course of Time (aka Kings of the Road, 1976, screening in a new print), a film set on the old East-West border, Rüdiger Vogler and Hanns Zischler follow a track and end up in an abandoned hut covered in graffiti by former GI border guards. There is a telephone which appears to have a direct line to the US army. “The Americans,” says Zischler, “have colonised our sub-conscious.” And yet, for all the Hollywood references – ranging from homages to Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller, to his reinvention of the road movie - no director is more profoundly European than Wenders, and few films more profoundly Eurocentric than Wrong Move (1975) even, in the end, Alice in the Cities (1974).

Wenders’ first dozen or so films are a reversal of the history of cinema. In the 1920s and 1930s, Hollywood lured away most of Europe’s best film-makers. In the 1970s, Wenders took all Hollywood’s achievements and brought them home, helped by the iconic actor of the first part of his career, Rüdiger Vogler (usually playing a character surnamed Winter), and the always perfect cinematography of Robby Müller. Then, with Hammett (1982) and Paris, Texas (1984) screening in a new print), he turned things inside out again. In the process, he helped us see the world – on both sides of the Atlantic – through new eyes.
Presented in collaboration with Axiom Films

Wim Wenders in Conversation
Thu 10 Jan 20:40 NFT1
With his photographer’s eye for landscape and architecture, a fine ear for music, and a rare ability to express subtle emotions through movement, gestures and glances, Wim Wenders was a leading light of the New German Cinema. Especially successful with road movies featuring rootless, haunted loners, he established himself as one of the most distinctive European auteurs of the last 40 years. As we embark upon a major retrospective of his work we are delighted to welcome him back to discuss his career.
Joint ticket available with Alice in the Cities (Thu 10 Jan only) £14.75, concs £10.75 (Members pay £1 less)

Extended Run: Alice in the Cities [NEW PRINT]
PREVIEW: Tue 1 Jan
Fri 4 Jan – Thu 17 Jan and continues Fri 1 Feb - Wed 13 Feb in the Studio
A blocked writer ends up on the road with a nine-year-old girl in search of her mother – from New York to Amsterdam to Wuppertal and its curious 100-year-old monorail.

The first authentic ‘Wenders film’, Alice has all the familiar themes: constant movement (as in ‘road movie’), a fascination with American landscapes, a rootless central character called Winter (as usual Rüdiger Vogler), a cute kid, rock 'n' roll records and the eternal mystery of women.
It’s basically a film about people trying to connect, but having to do so in public spaces – airports, hotel rooms, cafes, planes, trains. And there’s even a tentative happy ending celebrated by a breathtaking aerial shot.
W Ger 1974 Dir Wim Wenders With Rüdiger Vogler, Yella Rottlander 110min U EST
Exclusive run courtesy of Axiom Films
Joint ticket available with Alice in the Cities (Thu 10 Jan only) £14.75, concs £10.75 (Members pay £1 less)

A number of the films from the Wenders retrospective will be screening throughout the UK following the retrospective courtesy of BFI and Axiom Films
www.bfi.org.uk/wenders