Wim Wenders: Early Short Films

Includes the following films:

3 American LPs

1969. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. “3 American LPs was the first film I did with Peter Handke. It was a film about American music, about three pieces of three LPs. There was a song by Van Morrison, another by Harvey Mandel, and one of Creedence Clearwater Revival. It was mainly the music and some shots out of a car, landscapes out of the car window. And it had a little bit of commentary—dialogue between Peter and me about American music and about how American rock music was about emotion and images instead of sounds. That is to say, about a kind of phenomenon, that it was in a way a kind of film music, but without a moving picture” (Wenders). 12 min.

Alabama (2000 Light Years)

1969. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. With Paul Lys, Peter Kaiser, Werner Schroeter, Muriel Werner. “Alabama was the first film I shot in 35mm and 1:1:85 widescreen format. It was also the first time I worked with a real cinematographer (until then I had shot everything more or less on my own). So it was the first time with Robby Müller, who for the ten following years shot all my films. The film is named after a piece by John Coltrane with which the film opens…. This much can be said about the story: it deals with death. In the end the camera dies, not the man. But the main thing is that the music is always present. When I was asked by a film critic at a festival (in Mannheim I think) what the film was about, I said: ‘It is about the song “All Along the Watchtower”and about what happens and what changes when Bob Dylan sings the song or Jimi Hendrix’” (Wenders). 21 min.

Polizeifilm

1968. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. With Jimmy Vogler, Kasimir Esser. “Polizeifilm is a 16mm black-and-white film about the Munich police and their psychological approach to handling the student riots of 1968 (in which I was deeply involved). It illustrates the strains of ambitious and systematic police work. A funny film, in my opinion…a sort of slapstick film” (Wenders). 12 min.

Silver City Revisited

1968. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. “I was very impressed by the views from the different apartments in which I lived as a student in Munich. And I had a postcard collection. And in the attic of the film school I found a collection of old 78 shellac records and numbered them consecutively with the same title: Mood Music. A recording mix did not happen. With the 16mm projector of the film school, I recorded them directly onto the audio track by rule of thumb” (Wenders). 25 min.

Same Player Shoots Again

1967. West Germany. Directed by Wim Wenders. With Hanns Zischler. “Schauplätze was my first short film. But it got lost somehow. However, two leftover shots remained and became the first two shots of Same Player Shoots Again. They form some kind of prelude. The rest of the film, after the title consists of a three-minute shot repeated five times, like the five balls in a pinball machine. It was shot in black and white and then repeated five times, dyed in a different color each time. It did not really turn out a color film. Just a bit of blue, red, yellow and green along the road” (Wenders). 12 min.