Wim Wenders: King of the Road Movies

By Sarah R. Barnes

Since the end of World War Two, German filmmakers have been striving to assert the viability of German film. With the terrors of the Third Reich looming behind them, they felt they needed to establish a new identity for their film. They had no tradition in which to follow. In 1962, they declared that “Papa’s Kino ist Tot!” in the writing of the Oberhausen Manifesto. “This new film needs new freedoms. Freedom from the conventions of the established industry. Freedom from the outside influence of commercial partners. Freedom from the control of special interest groups.” (UVIC 1) This commitment to film outside of the confines of “profit-making” provided a unique atmosphere in which the directors of this “New German Cinema” could experiment and create cinematic art.

The movies of Wim Wenders exhibit the influence of the filmmakers who composed the Oberhausen Manifesto like Alexander Kluge and a deep love for American directors such as John Ford and Nicholas Ray. (Kolker 38-39) When brought together by Wenders, this combination produces a thought provoking, yet, silent and observing style of movie. His signature films have been his “Road Movies.” The road movie format is not, by any means original to Wenders, but there is clearly a “Wenderian” style of this type of film.

The premise is often the same: a man, disassociated with civilization “takes to the road,” seemingly searching for a meaningful existence or at the very least proof of his existence. By looking at three of Wenders’ films, Alice in the Cities (1974), Kings of the Road (1976), and Paris Texas (1984) one can assess that which comprises a Wenders road movie.

A noticeable trait in Wenders’ films is their tendency to be extremely male-driven stories. Since the main characters are male, their quests and problems are nearly unique to their gender. They have placed themselves in self-exile in order to “find themselves” and they have fleeting or insubstantial relationships with women. The very concept of the road movie in itself where “change will satisfy desire” is a male story. A good example of a road movie where this is not the case is Thelma and Louise (1991); however, its story is known not for being a road movie, but because the main characters are female rather than male and seems out of the ordinary. It is interesting to note that it is often seen by some as ‘lesbian‘ movie, but films like Kings of the Road are not seen as “homosexual” simply because they are the norm.

In Alice in the Cities, Philip Winter (Rüdiger Volger) plays a writer who, while on assignment in America, finds he cannot bring himself to write his story. Instead, he develops a fascination with taking Polaroids of the things he sees in his travels. What first is seen by the viewer as a severe case of writer’s block, is later pointed out by a female friend of his to be his attempt to reaffirm his existence. He is driven by his obsession with finding himself so much so that it detracts from his assignment. He does not succumb to his depression by shutting out the world, however, he keeps moving, hoping to find the answer. It seems that he hopes that somewhere in his photos he will find it.

Philip’s interaction with the aforementioned woman is very brief. We get the impression that they were probably once lovers, but neither one is emotionally fit enough to reestablish that relationship. Philip’s second relationship with a woman is when he meets Alice’s mother Lisa (Lisa Kreuzer). They talk and seem to get along fine, but the next day she is out of his life, with the exception of leaving her young daughter with him. Later in the film, Alice (Yella Rottländer) and Philip meet a young woman in the park when Alice asks the woman if she thinks that Philip is her (Alice’s) father. They end up staying with the woman that night, a fortuitous development since they hardly have any money, but Alice becomes jealous when Philip and their new female friend sleep together. In the end though, this is just another fleeting relationship with a woman for Philip.

Kings of the Road offers even fewer instances of interaction with those of the female persuasion. It is the story of two men visiting small towns along the East German border maintaining film projection equipment. Robert Lander (Hans Zischler) has decided to leave his old life, he has separated from his wife and commits a kind of ‘spiritual suicide‘ by driving his Volkswagen Beetle into a lake where our other protagonist Bruno Winter (Rüdiger Volger) happens to have been parked next to in between towns. Bruno’s character at first seems quite at ease with his current status. He seems to enjoy the solitude and takes developments with ease. We find, however, that his relationship with Robert allows him to admit to himself that he is on the road searching for his purpose. Robert’s new transience is his attempt to find a way to find who he is. Late in the film Bruno calls him a coward because he won’t go back to his wife. Robert had been blaming his wife for their problems, but Bruno tells him that he is really just afraid of himself. The only real interaction we see on film with a woman is Bruno’s chance meeting of Pauline (Lisa Kreuzer) at a fair. She agrees to meet him at the movies. As it turns out, she is filling in as the cashier for her grandmother. He ends up angering/embarrassing the projectionist whom he caught masturbating to the porno that is playing there and has to fill in when the other man storms out. After the movie they talk, but their relationship ends in the morning when Bruno heads off to meet up with Robert.

Other relationships with women are alluded to, but never seen. Robert tries to call his wife, but he never gets to speak to her. The only time he says anything to her in the movie, she hangs up on him. They also meet a man whose wife committed suicide by driving her car into a tree. He is so distraught he wears her bloodstained coat. He confides in Robert his inability to understand why she became so “fed up” with their life. The other relationships with women are with their mothers. Bruno’s mother has died and Robert’s mother committed suicide when he was six. Therefore, both mothers are again female relationships that are in the periphery.
Harry Dean Stanton plays another wandering soul, Travis, in Paris, Texas, a road movie unlike the other Wenders films discussed here in that it is based on a play written by Sam Shepherd rather than by Wenders himself. This movie was also filmed in color and in English for an American audience; however, all of the elements of the Wenders Road Movie are present and perhaps even refined. Travis is even further from society in his self-imposed exile that he has been feared dead for the past four years. He turns up in a small desert town and collapses presumably from exhaustion and heat stroke. The first part of the movie involves a road trip with Travis’ brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) who has been contacted to come get Travis by the local doctor, who happens to be German. Walt, however, is not on a personal quest of any sort. He is only interested in taking care of his brother reuniting Travis with Travis’ 7 year old son, Hunter, and returning to his busy life as a billboard designer.

Travis is the classic Wenders soul-searching male, but he has clearly been involved in some kind of traumatic event that has sent him on his journey. We watch as he slowly emerges from the shell he has become accustomed to. In a way, the character of Travis is a portrayal of the “Wenderian” traveller after a prolonged trip down the road. The first road trip with Walt is a trip back to society. The second half of the movie involves Travis’s second trip with his son. He is finally finding himself again and realizing who he is as Hunter’s father. He tries to correct his mistakes by looking for Hunter’s mother.

Women are still in the periphery, but they aren’t as fleeting. They are always in the backgro
und. Anne (Aurore Clément), Walt’s wife is quite welcoming to Travis, but afraid of losing the family they have with Hunter as their “son” in his father’s absence. There is a brief, but pivotal, interaction between Travis and Carmelita (Socorro Valdez) the family maid. She helps him to work on his poise so that he can feel like a father. The other woman in the film is Jane (Natassja Kinski), Hunter’s mother. Jane has been “out of the picture” in Hunter’s life for nearly as long as Travis. She “took to the road” as well, but in contrast to Travis, she established herself in Houston by getting, presumably the only job she could, at an strip club of sorts in order to put money in a savings account Hunter’s future.

Another theme that seems to prevail in the movies of Wim Wenders is the role of children. This can be seen in The State of Things (1982) his “Angel Movies” Wings of Desire (1987) and Far Away, So Close! (1993). The role of children in his road movies offer particular significance that is referred to by Kolker and Beicken in The Films of Wim Wenders, Cinema as Vision and Desire as “Retrieval and Recognition.” “They retrieve his adult characters from local despair and, through their presence, permit them to recognize probabilities of change.” To illustrate the importance of children as saviours to Wenders men Kolker and Beicken point to Goalies Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1972) where the main character Josef Bloch (Arthur Brauss) does not find his way because there is not a child with whom he connects.

Alice and Philip’s relationship in Alice in the Cities begins quite by accident when Alice’s mother does not show up to take her daughter off of Philip’s hands. The longer they stay together the more we see Philip writing in his notebook. He still frames pictures with his camera, but doesn’t take the shot. They initially get on each other’s nerves, but they develop a camaraderie. Alice and Philip are clearly distressed when they are intercepted by a police officer who has located Alice’s mother and grandmother and their trip is over. On the way, Alice asks Philip what he will do in Munich. He replies that he will finish his story. Alice has provided a way for Philip to write again.

The children in Kings of the Road only appear by chance but one in particular provides a sort of “salvation” for Robert. He meets the child at a train station at the end of the film. When Robert asks the child what he is doing, the child answers that he is writing down what he sees. Struck by the amazing simplicity of the way the child is interpreting the world. Robert trades the empty suitcase and sunglasses he’s been carrying for the notebook containing the child’s observations. Maybe by reading the words the child had written down, Robert can again see the world with the same simplicity.

Hunter from Paris, Texas is less like a child than Alice or the child at the train station. He is almost like an adult and makes responsible decisions once he realizes how much his father needs his assistance. He is instrumental in bringing his father to deal with his past. Travis begins to realize that he can conquer his demons, confront the past and the woman he left chained to the kitchen stove. Travis tells Jane that Hunter is in a hotel downtown. He won’t be rejoining their estranged family and isn’t completely healed at the end of the film, but has begun to make amends the best way he knows how.

Each Wenders road movie involves a confrontation with the past. For Philip in Alice in the Cities it is the ex-lover in New York and the revisiting of the area in which he grew up. Robert confronts his father in Kings of the Road because he blames him for causing his mother’s suicide. Bruno, on the other hand, confronts his lost past by visiting the home in which he grew up on the Rhine. Paris, Texas’ Travis, of course, is throughout the film confronting his past
Along with the prevailing themes in the road movies of Wim Wenders comes the aesthetic beauty that he creates with music and wonderful shots that become stories in themselves. Take, for instance, the image of Bruno Winter driving down the narrow road along the East German border in his huge moving van with a Michelin Man Light attached to the driver’s side top of the van singing “Kings of the Road.” Or the image of the child sitting next to the jukebox at the ice cream parlor in Alice in the Cities. The child is has a look of complete boredom: head propped on hand and occasionally licking an ice cream cone, but humming contentedly to Canned Heat’s “On the Road Again.” The shot invokes the feeling of a lazy afternoon in summer or a Sunday in a small town. Wenders holds the shot for most of the duration of the song and it becomes pure poetry.

Wenders work offers an intriguing look into the mind of this modern master. His films have a tendency to be very close to his own sensibilities and it is easy to speculate as to whether or not they are journal entries rather than movies. We watch while his characters struggle with themselves and rejoice when they finally find their way. We sing along with them when they are happy and ache when they seem beyond hope. Perhaps, however, the greatest element of his films is the opportunity to come along for the ride. His is, after all, the King of the Road Movies.

Works Cited
Kolker, Robert and Peter Beicken. The Films of Wim Wenders, Cinema as Vision and Desire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993.
University of Victoria German 439 New German Cinema (http://castle.uvic.ca/german/439/)

Works Consulted
Images: A Journal of Film and Popular Culture (http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue01/features/wenders.htm)
The Internet Movie Database (http://us.imdb.com/Bio?Wenders,+Wim)
The German-Hollywood Connection (http://www.german-way.com/cinema/wenders.html)

Films Cited
Alice in the Cities, dir. Wim Wenders (Germany, 1974)
Kings of the Road dir. Wim Wenders (Germany, 1976)
Paris, Texas dir. Wim Wenders (USA, 1984)
Thelma and Louise dir. Ridley Scott (USA, 1991)
Goalies Anxiety at the Penalty Kick dir. Wim Wenders (Germany, 1972)
Wings of Desire dir. Wim Wenders (Germany, 1987)
Far Away, So Close! dir. Wim Wenders (Germany, 1993)

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