HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
By Sharon Swadis
2004.08
Wim Wenders is a filmmaker for the ages. His films transcend time and space, one minute taking you to war-torn Germany, the next to heaven. He has a recurring interest in exploring grace and redemption, not exactly market-friendly themes. Wenders admits that some of the soundtracks for his films have done better than the films themselves, although "Wings of Desire" and "Paris, Texas," are widely praised and need no soundtrack. Wenders directs with such an intricate eye for detail you can't possibly see it all in one viewing, nor should you. His films are best viewed several times?each time reveals different nuances. This is what makes Wenders an artist.
The connection between U2 and Wenders goes back almost 20 years. They have collaborated many times, U2 writing songs for his films and Wenders directing several U2 music videos. Their most recent collaboration was "The Million Dollar Hotel," a film directed by Wenders and based on a story conceived by Bono. U2 also wrote songs for the film.
Bono has described Wenders as a jazzman in Niall Stokes? ?Into the Heart: The Stories Behind Every U2 Song,? an old hand at flying blind without instruments. Music has always played an important part in Wenders' life, and an ever-increasing role in his films. Born in 1945 in D?sseldorf, Germany, a city that was leveled during World War II, Wenders was fortunate to come of age during a time of great creativity in the arts. "My life was saved by rock and roll,? he once said. ?It was this kind of music that for the very first time in my life gave me a feeling of identity, the feeling that I had a right to enjoy, to imagine, and to do something. Had it not been for rock and roll, I might be a lawyer now." On the connection between music and filmmaking he told Cinema Sounds Magazine, "I feel that our professions are getting more and more alike. I remember that during the time we were mixing 'The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty' we had one film and four soundtracks. These days we still have one film and hundreds of soundtracks with an army of sound editors. I am becoming more of a sound man than an image man."
U2 are also sound and image men, sometimes making not one, but two or three videos for the same song, not to mention countless concerts, video compilations and documentaries. But Bono and Wenders share a much deeper connection?their spirituality. Wenders is a born-again Christian who was raised Catholic and at one point considered becoming a priest. After leaving the church for 20 years because, as Wenders put it, "I thought the Catholic Church had made some tremendous mistakes and I had taken it personally," he came back to religion in 1989 when his father was dying. "My father's example, the total conviction he had, his total confidence in Christ,? he said. ?That really opened my eyes. There was no way for me to come back to the church, but I came back to praying and reading the Bible." Wenders now attends Presbyterian services with his photographer-wife Donata Schmidt, whom he met in 1994. Bono?s devout Christianity has been well known since U2?s early days.
Bono and Wenders also share a fascination with angels. Bono's lyrics are full of references to angels, both human and divine. He talks about finding angels in Harlem, speaking with the tongue of angels, an angel or devil wetting his lips. "You just have to be in my house to see that I share Wim's fascination with angels," Bono said in "U2 At the End of the World."
Wenders' films "Wings of Desire" and "Faraway, So Close!" tell the story of two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, following both as they watch over and listen to their human charges. Wenders' angels are not merely guardians with wings who fly above the humans they watch, they are, in a very real sense, human themselves. They stand next to the people they watch over, listen intently to their words, become engaged in their conversations, and show emotion when they can't help them, like Cassiel screaming in frustration when he can't stop a young man from committing suicide. The angels both eventually desire humanity, and fall to the ground purposely to make themselves human; Damiel because he falls in love with a woman at the end of "Wings of Desire,? and Cassiel because in "Faraway, So Close!" he is alone after Damiel takes the plunge.
Wenders' films aren't meant to show perfection, but part of his gift as a filmmaker is that he is able to portray grace not only in angels but also in ordinary people. Wenders' characters don't always see the grace in themselves but we do, through his eyes. He is a man in search of grace. "When you come to a place where you have never been before, and you start planning and then constructing something there,? Wenders said in a letter to a friend printed on his official Web site. ?That must be similar to be making movies in places that I've just been discovering, like I did in Havana, or Lisbon, or Australia, or Tokyo. Myself, I then sometimes think: 'I have no right to be here and film. I'm a stranger here!' but the next moment I also think: 'That's exactly why I should continue!' Being a stranger is sort of a state of grace. It allows you to see what the people who live here cannot see anymore, because it is too familiar for them.?
Bono is also a man in search of grace, and seeks it in song and words. In the song "Grace," Bono could be talking about Wenders and his films when he says "Grace finds beauty in everything," and "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things." "It's a powerful idea, grace,? Bono said in a 2001 interview. ?It really is. Christianity, which is supposed to be about grace, has turned, you know, redemption into good manners, or the right accent, or, you know, good works or whatever it is. I just can't get over grace?so hard to find."
Bono and Wenders didn't meet until the Red, Hot and Blue AIDS benefit concert in 1990, which U2 played, but the filmmaker's influence was felt years before on "The Joshua Tree." In "U2 At the End of the World" Bono says that in the 1980s Wenders and U2 were the two European artists devoted to getting a handle on America. "I'm still interested in America as a subject, but in the '80s it was an obsession,? he said. ?Wim had made this movie, 'Paris, Texas,' which very much influenced our album 'The Joshua Tree.'"
"Paris, Texas," centers on Travis, a lost soul who doesn't start speaking in complete sentences until well into the film. Paris, Texas, refers to Travis' idea of heaven, the place where he believes he was conceived, and where he has bought land to live with his wife and son. It is, literally, in the middle of nowhere?the desert. His beautiful much-younger wife has long since left him and their son, who is living with Travis' brother. The film follows Travis' journey towards faith and redemption as he is reunited with his son, and eventually his former wife. Bono says Wenders told him when he was making the movie Wenders was listening to "Boy," which was, according to Bono, "a sweet thing for him to say because I'm sure it had less impact on his work than his did on ours."
On ?The Joshua Tree,? one song in particular owes much to Wenders? film. "The monologue in 'Paris, Texas,' was a big influence on 'Running to Stand Still,'" Bono said in "U2 At the End of the World." It really doesn't matter that the film takes place in the American Southwest and the song takes place in Dublin. From the Ry Cooder-inspired guitar introduction throughout (bluesman Cooder's haunting steel guitar can be heard throughout "Paris, Texas,"), it's the same story: an unhappy girl, running, trying to escape her unhappiness with self-destructive behavior. Bono talks about her in the song just as Travis does in the film.
"The Joshua Tree" tour documentary, "Rattle and Hum," follows U2 across America and back home to Ireland, but another documentary about the tour, "Outside, It's America," takes place entirely in the American Southwest and is, to some extent, an ode to "Paris, Texas." There are scenes from in bars where country music keeps time for the patrons. There is U2 playing country music on stage in one of these bars, and a man who could have been Travis' brother telling us Arizona is a "lonesome state." In a continuum on the theme of trains as metaphor for escape that runs through "Paris, Texas," there are several scenes with trains and train tracks in the background, and Bono is seen running, then walking down train tracks in the "Spanish Eyes" video. He could have been walking next to Travis, who does the same in "Paris, Texas."
By the time U2 and Wenders met, there's no doubt the band had great admiration for the director. It would seem, also, that Wenders was a U2 fan. A friendship and professional relationship soon developed. Wenders directed U2 videos, and U2 wrote songs for his films. U2 wrote the title songs for "Until the End of the World," which follows two lovers across four continents, and "Faraway, So Close!" Wenders, in turn, directed U2's "Night and Day" video (the song U2 played at the Red, Hot and Blue benefit concert) and their video for the song "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)."
In "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)," the realms of U2 music and Wenders filmmaking do a double take, and Bono and Wenders again get to elaborate on their fascination with angels. On "The Best of U2: 1990-2000" DVD, Wenders explains that the video is based on "Wings of Desire," and that some of the scenes in the video are taken directly from the film. The video is shot in Berlin, in black and white and color, as is the film. The toy Edge plays with in the video is from the film. The U2's angels look down from above but also stand next to the humans they watch over, and become engaged in the lives of their human charges, in this case a German rock band, just as the angels in both films do. Bono transforms himself into a physical likeness of Damiel, the angel who falls in love in "Wings of Desire." Bono also falls in love, in this case with the female singer of the rock band. At the end of the video he falls to the ground, complete with armor in hand, just as Damiel did, eager to begin his human journey.
The most recent project collaboration between U2 and Wenders is "The Million Dollar Hotel," released in 2000. While filming the video for "Where the Streets Have No Name" in Los Angeles in 1987, Bono became fascinated with the decaying hotel marquee seen in the background that read ?The Million Dollar Hotel,? and soon after, the hotel itself. So began the process that evolved into the fictional story of Tom-Tom, Eloise, and myriad other characters living at the hotel. "Wim has a great eye,? Bono told the Irish Times. ?His father was a surgeon and Wim has the eye of a surgeon. He never puts a foot wrong visually. And he makes this film look so beautiful, even though it was shot in 36 days, which is about the speed of television in America. He is able to produce these rare feelings when you leave the cinema at a deeper level than you had when the Titanic went down. You don't know what it is, or why. That, I suppose, is what he does.?
The film, which starts with a death and works its way backwards through the voice of Tom-Tom, is, according to Bono, a fable. "It's a fable about unconditional love and I think it's a theme in Wim's movies about how hard it is to love and what it is to love truly,? he said. ?It's a very simple fable. The only tricky thing about the film is the weave. We had three stories, a murder, an art scandal, a love story?and Wim was interested in the love story above everything. It takes awhile, but by the end of the movie you kind of care about these people. They've moved in, in a way you can't quite explain. Even people who don't like the movie have said that a few days after seeing it they're still walking around with these people in their heads.?
?The Million Dollar Hotel? allowed Wenders and U2 to once again collaborate musically with U2 and Bono contributing to the film's soundtrack and Wenders directing the video for "The Ground Beneath Her Fee," the U2 song plays during the end credits of "The Million Dollar Hotel." "Salman [Rushdie] was writing a book about a rock band from India and he'd written lyrics for this imaginary rock band and he asked me to put music to them so I did,? Bono said. ?And U2 recorded the song, called 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet,' which is this kind of eternal love song, and it was a perfect fit for the end of the film according to Wim.? (11) The video mixes scenes from the film with scenes of U2 and Salman Rushdie, who appear in the windows of The Million Dollar Hotel?s rooms.
Wenders has directed 20 feature films and several short films and documentaries, and is also a painter and photographer. He recently directed "The Soul of a Man" for PBS, which was part of Martin Scorsese's mini-series on blues music, and is currently working on a screenplay with Sam Sheppard ("Paris, Texas,"). U2 and Wenders' last collaboration may have ended a film, but hopefully they will begin a new collaboration soon, maybe even a video for U2's upcoming album.
For more information on Wim Wenders, visit: http:// www.wim-wenders.com
2004.08
Wim Wenders is a filmmaker for the ages. His films transcend time and space, one minute taking you to war-torn Germany, the next to heaven. He has a recurring interest in exploring grace and redemption, not exactly market-friendly themes. Wenders admits that some of the soundtracks for his films have done better than the films themselves, although "Wings of Desire" and "Paris, Texas," are widely praised and need no soundtrack. Wenders directs with such an intricate eye for detail you can't possibly see it all in one viewing, nor should you. His films are best viewed several times?each time reveals different nuances. This is what makes Wenders an artist.
The connection between U2 and Wenders goes back almost 20 years. They have collaborated many times, U2 writing songs for his films and Wenders directing several U2 music videos. Their most recent collaboration was "The Million Dollar Hotel," a film directed by Wenders and based on a story conceived by Bono. U2 also wrote songs for the film.
Bono has described Wenders as a jazzman in Niall Stokes? ?Into the Heart: The Stories Behind Every U2 Song,? an old hand at flying blind without instruments. Music has always played an important part in Wenders' life, and an ever-increasing role in his films. Born in 1945 in D?sseldorf, Germany, a city that was leveled during World War II, Wenders was fortunate to come of age during a time of great creativity in the arts. "My life was saved by rock and roll,? he once said. ?It was this kind of music that for the very first time in my life gave me a feeling of identity, the feeling that I had a right to enjoy, to imagine, and to do something. Had it not been for rock and roll, I might be a lawyer now." On the connection between music and filmmaking he told Cinema Sounds Magazine, "I feel that our professions are getting more and more alike. I remember that during the time we were mixing 'The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty' we had one film and four soundtracks. These days we still have one film and hundreds of soundtracks with an army of sound editors. I am becoming more of a sound man than an image man."
U2 are also sound and image men, sometimes making not one, but two or three videos for the same song, not to mention countless concerts, video compilations and documentaries. But Bono and Wenders share a much deeper connection?their spirituality. Wenders is a born-again Christian who was raised Catholic and at one point considered becoming a priest. After leaving the church for 20 years because, as Wenders put it, "I thought the Catholic Church had made some tremendous mistakes and I had taken it personally," he came back to religion in 1989 when his father was dying. "My father's example, the total conviction he had, his total confidence in Christ,? he said. ?That really opened my eyes. There was no way for me to come back to the church, but I came back to praying and reading the Bible." Wenders now attends Presbyterian services with his photographer-wife Donata Schmidt, whom he met in 1994. Bono?s devout Christianity has been well known since U2?s early days.
Bono and Wenders also share a fascination with angels. Bono's lyrics are full of references to angels, both human and divine. He talks about finding angels in Harlem, speaking with the tongue of angels, an angel or devil wetting his lips. "You just have to be in my house to see that I share Wim's fascination with angels," Bono said in "U2 At the End of the World."
Wenders' films "Wings of Desire" and "Faraway, So Close!" tell the story of two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, following both as they watch over and listen to their human charges. Wenders' angels are not merely guardians with wings who fly above the humans they watch, they are, in a very real sense, human themselves. They stand next to the people they watch over, listen intently to their words, become engaged in their conversations, and show emotion when they can't help them, like Cassiel screaming in frustration when he can't stop a young man from committing suicide. The angels both eventually desire humanity, and fall to the ground purposely to make themselves human; Damiel because he falls in love with a woman at the end of "Wings of Desire,? and Cassiel because in "Faraway, So Close!" he is alone after Damiel takes the plunge.
Wenders' films aren't meant to show perfection, but part of his gift as a filmmaker is that he is able to portray grace not only in angels but also in ordinary people. Wenders' characters don't always see the grace in themselves but we do, through his eyes. He is a man in search of grace. "When you come to a place where you have never been before, and you start planning and then constructing something there,? Wenders said in a letter to a friend printed on his official Web site. ?That must be similar to be making movies in places that I've just been discovering, like I did in Havana, or Lisbon, or Australia, or Tokyo. Myself, I then sometimes think: 'I have no right to be here and film. I'm a stranger here!' but the next moment I also think: 'That's exactly why I should continue!' Being a stranger is sort of a state of grace. It allows you to see what the people who live here cannot see anymore, because it is too familiar for them.?
Bono is also a man in search of grace, and seeks it in song and words. In the song "Grace," Bono could be talking about Wenders and his films when he says "Grace finds beauty in everything," and "Grace makes beauty out of ugly things." "It's a powerful idea, grace,? Bono said in a 2001 interview. ?It really is. Christianity, which is supposed to be about grace, has turned, you know, redemption into good manners, or the right accent, or, you know, good works or whatever it is. I just can't get over grace?so hard to find."
Bono and Wenders didn't meet until the Red, Hot and Blue AIDS benefit concert in 1990, which U2 played, but the filmmaker's influence was felt years before on "The Joshua Tree." In "U2 At the End of the World" Bono says that in the 1980s Wenders and U2 were the two European artists devoted to getting a handle on America. "I'm still interested in America as a subject, but in the '80s it was an obsession,? he said. ?Wim had made this movie, 'Paris, Texas,' which very much influenced our album 'The Joshua Tree.'"
"Paris, Texas," centers on Travis, a lost soul who doesn't start speaking in complete sentences until well into the film. Paris, Texas, refers to Travis' idea of heaven, the place where he believes he was conceived, and where he has bought land to live with his wife and son. It is, literally, in the middle of nowhere?the desert. His beautiful much-younger wife has long since left him and their son, who is living with Travis' brother. The film follows Travis' journey towards faith and redemption as he is reunited with his son, and eventually his former wife. Bono says Wenders told him when he was making the movie Wenders was listening to "Boy," which was, according to Bono, "a sweet thing for him to say because I'm sure it had less impact on his work than his did on ours."
On ?The Joshua Tree,? one song in particular owes much to Wenders? film. "The monologue in 'Paris, Texas,' was a big influence on 'Running to Stand Still,'" Bono said in "U2 At the End of the World." It really doesn't matter that the film takes place in the American Southwest and the song takes place in Dublin. From the Ry Cooder-inspired guitar introduction throughout (bluesman Cooder's haunting steel guitar can be heard throughout "Paris, Texas,"), it's the same story: an unhappy girl, running, trying to escape her unhappiness with self-destructive behavior. Bono talks about her in the song just as Travis does in the film.
"The Joshua Tree" tour documentary, "Rattle and Hum," follows U2 across America and back home to Ireland, but another documentary about the tour, "Outside, It's America," takes place entirely in the American Southwest and is, to some extent, an ode to "Paris, Texas." There are scenes from in bars where country music keeps time for the patrons. There is U2 playing country music on stage in one of these bars, and a man who could have been Travis' brother telling us Arizona is a "lonesome state." In a continuum on the theme of trains as metaphor for escape that runs through "Paris, Texas," there are several scenes with trains and train tracks in the background, and Bono is seen running, then walking down train tracks in the "Spanish Eyes" video. He could have been walking next to Travis, who does the same in "Paris, Texas."
By the time U2 and Wenders met, there's no doubt the band had great admiration for the director. It would seem, also, that Wenders was a U2 fan. A friendship and professional relationship soon developed. Wenders directed U2 videos, and U2 wrote songs for his films. U2 wrote the title songs for "Until the End of the World," which follows two lovers across four continents, and "Faraway, So Close!" Wenders, in turn, directed U2's "Night and Day" video (the song U2 played at the Red, Hot and Blue benefit concert) and their video for the song "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)."
In "Stay (Faraway, So Close!)," the realms of U2 music and Wenders filmmaking do a double take, and Bono and Wenders again get to elaborate on their fascination with angels. On "The Best of U2: 1990-2000" DVD, Wenders explains that the video is based on "Wings of Desire," and that some of the scenes in the video are taken directly from the film. The video is shot in Berlin, in black and white and color, as is the film. The toy Edge plays with in the video is from the film. The U2's angels look down from above but also stand next to the humans they watch over, and become engaged in the lives of their human charges, in this case a German rock band, just as the angels in both films do. Bono transforms himself into a physical likeness of Damiel, the angel who falls in love in "Wings of Desire." Bono also falls in love, in this case with the female singer of the rock band. At the end of the video he falls to the ground, complete with armor in hand, just as Damiel did, eager to begin his human journey.
The most recent project collaboration between U2 and Wenders is "The Million Dollar Hotel," released in 2000. While filming the video for "Where the Streets Have No Name" in Los Angeles in 1987, Bono became fascinated with the decaying hotel marquee seen in the background that read ?The Million Dollar Hotel,? and soon after, the hotel itself. So began the process that evolved into the fictional story of Tom-Tom, Eloise, and myriad other characters living at the hotel. "Wim has a great eye,? Bono told the Irish Times. ?His father was a surgeon and Wim has the eye of a surgeon. He never puts a foot wrong visually. And he makes this film look so beautiful, even though it was shot in 36 days, which is about the speed of television in America. He is able to produce these rare feelings when you leave the cinema at a deeper level than you had when the Titanic went down. You don't know what it is, or why. That, I suppose, is what he does.?
The film, which starts with a death and works its way backwards through the voice of Tom-Tom, is, according to Bono, a fable. "It's a fable about unconditional love and I think it's a theme in Wim's movies about how hard it is to love and what it is to love truly,? he said. ?It's a very simple fable. The only tricky thing about the film is the weave. We had three stories, a murder, an art scandal, a love story?and Wim was interested in the love story above everything. It takes awhile, but by the end of the movie you kind of care about these people. They've moved in, in a way you can't quite explain. Even people who don't like the movie have said that a few days after seeing it they're still walking around with these people in their heads.?
?The Million Dollar Hotel? allowed Wenders and U2 to once again collaborate musically with U2 and Bono contributing to the film's soundtrack and Wenders directing the video for "The Ground Beneath Her Fee," the U2 song plays during the end credits of "The Million Dollar Hotel." "Salman [Rushdie] was writing a book about a rock band from India and he'd written lyrics for this imaginary rock band and he asked me to put music to them so I did,? Bono said. ?And U2 recorded the song, called 'The Ground Beneath Her Feet,' which is this kind of eternal love song, and it was a perfect fit for the end of the film according to Wim.? (11) The video mixes scenes from the film with scenes of U2 and Salman Rushdie, who appear in the windows of The Million Dollar Hotel?s rooms.
Wenders has directed 20 feature films and several short films and documentaries, and is also a painter and photographer. He recently directed "The Soul of a Man" for PBS, which was part of Martin Scorsese's mini-series on blues music, and is currently working on a screenplay with Sam Sheppard ("Paris, Texas,"). U2 and Wenders' last collaboration may have ended a film, but hopefully they will begin a new collaboration soon, maybe even a video for U2's upcoming album.
For more information on Wim Wenders, visit: http:// www.wim-wenders.com
