Wenders' near five hour film won its long delayed tribute this afternoon as a MoMA audience saw a superb technical and aesthetic tour de force. Shining through past his visionary use of animation (including dream-realization astonishingly close to contemporary science), his compassionate eye for character, his skill at keeping a sophisticated audience wanting to know what happens next, his unerring ear for the right music, is a quality of benevolence which, while not denying the existence of evil, gives it no purchase.
And then there are the actors, who give skillful voice to ideas while providing breadth and nuance to the thousand odd tasks they are given. Wenders doesn't avoid the sheer fun of having Rüdiger Vogler play an older Winter not morally improved but very adept at playing the harmonica. He pays homage to Ozu as well, casting Ryu Chishu and Miyake Kuniko in a perfect interlude which he admitted to creating for the purpose of casting Ryu.
Wenders spoke to the above and other issues after the film. On the music, he revealed he had written to such artists as Lou Reed and Patti Smith asking them to project their art ten years into the future (some twenty agreed and their songs are in the film, seeming more contemporary than the 1991 film date would suggest). He also described exhausting the still experimental Japanese digital technology (and technologists) which enabled him to create the film's absorbing dreamscapes.
Very rewarding, too, seeing one of our great filmmakers get the standing ovation appropriate to his work on "Until the End of the World."
And then there are the actors, who give skillful voice to ideas while providing breadth and nuance to the thousand odd tasks they are given. Wenders doesn't avoid the sheer fun of having Rüdiger Vogler play an older Winter not morally improved but very adept at playing the harmonica. He pays homage to Ozu as well, casting Ryu Chishu and Miyake Kuniko in a perfect interlude which he admitted to creating for the purpose of casting Ryu.
Wenders spoke to the above and other issues after the film. On the music, he revealed he had written to such artists as Lou Reed and Patti Smith asking them to project their art ten years into the future (some twenty agreed and their songs are in the film, seeming more contemporary than the 1991 film date would suggest). He also described exhausting the still experimental Japanese digital technology (and technologists) which enabled him to create the film's absorbing dreamscapes.
Very rewarding, too, seeing one of our great filmmakers get the standing ovation appropriate to his work on "Until the End of the World."
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