Criterion - Joyce Lawler

Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

April 26th, 2010 | Author: xakigecira

Property Developers Paralimni Cyprus

Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Let’s fall in love – bernie – Arlington, Texas
Why shouldn’t we fall in love?
Our hearts are made of it
Let’s take a chance, why be afraid of it?

By: Harold Arlen, Ted Koehler

The basic story is of an angle that after recording life falls in love with life, not just the trapezes artist that he eventually wants to meet in the flesh. We get to follow his transition blow by blow, as he attempts to follow his desire.

Peter Falk as Der Filmstar is a catalyst and the glue to the story. I even mention that Colombo did not have a hat.

The film started out unscripted and the directors and writers had to punt. You may notice this as the story improves. There was a partial start script from Paris Texas.

I took a German class or several about the time of this film. Therefore, some of the film language is natural, some, I recognize after the subtitles and some is new. No one slurs the words so this would be a great training film. However, I never made it there so this is as close as I will ever get to 1987 Berlin.
Filmed in:
Berlin, Germany
Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche, Berlin, Germany

Potsdamer Platz, Mitte, Berlin, Germany
Siegessäule, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

Staatsbibliothek, Tiergarten, Berlin, Germany

The DVD has a great commentary by director Wim Wenders and Peter Falk, which lets you see what is attempted in the film. So did they accomplish what they set out to do?

Watch Berlin: Symphony of a Great City (1927 documentary) as a contrast.

Also, do not miss what is touts as a sequel but is really a standalone revision of this film.
“Faraway, So Close!” (1993) with Nastassja Kinski

Berlin: Symphony of a Great City
Faraway, So Close!
Image Entertainment: Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin) is one of cinema’s loveliest city symphonies. Bruno Ganz is Damiel, an angel perched atop buildings high over Berlin who can hear the thoughts—fears, hopes, and dreams—of all the people living below. But when he falls in love with a beautiful trapeze artist, he is willing to give up his immortality to come back to earth to be with her. Made not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, this stunning tapestry of sounds and images, shot in black and white and color by the legendary Henri Alekan, is movie poetry. And it forever made the name Wim Wenders synonymous with film art.

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES

• New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders with DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack • Audio commentary featuring Wenders and actor Peter Falk • The Angels Among Us (2003), a documentary featuring interviews with Wenders, Falk, actors Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander, writer Peter Handke, and composer Jürgen Knieper • Excerpt from: Wim Wenders Berlin Jan. 87, an episode of the French television program Cinéma cinémas, including on-set footage • Interview with director of photography Henri Alekan • Deleted scenes and outtakes • Excerpts from the films Alekan la lumière (1985) and Remembrance: Film for Curt Bois (about the actor who plays Homer in Wings of Desire) • Notes and photos by production designer Heidi Lüdi and art director Toni Lüdi • Trailers • New and improved English subtitle translation • PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by critic Michael Atkinson and writings by Wenders and Handke

“There are angels over the streets of Berlin,” quotes the movie poster, but these are like no angels you’ve ever seen. Bundled in dark overcoats, they watch over the city with ears open to the heartbeat of the human soul, listening to the internal musings and yearnings of earthbound humans like existential detectives. In these delicate, astounding scenes we float through the thoughts of dozens Berlin citizens, from the weary and worn to the hopeful and young, as the angels record the magic moments for some heavenly record. But when Damiel (the empathic and sensitive Bruno Ganz) falls in love with an angel of another sort, the lonely trapeze artist Marion (willowy, sad-eyed Solveig Dommartin), he gives up the contemplation and observation of life to experience it himself.

Wim Wenders’s most purely romantic film is like poetry on celluloid, a celebration of the transient and fragile moments of being human: the warmth of a cup of coffee on a cold day, the embrace of a friend, the touch of a lover, the rapture of love. Opening with an angel’s-eye view of Berlin in silvery black and white (delicately captured by the great cinematographer Henri Alekan, who photographed Jean Cocteau’s Beauty and the Beast 40 years earlier), it transforms into a gauzy color world when Damiel “crosses over” by sheer will. Peter Falk plays himself as a fallen angel with a special sensitivity for celestial visitors (“I can’t see you, but I know you’re there,” he proclaims), and Otto Sander, whose smiling eyes brighten a face etched by eons of waiting and watching, is Damiel’s partner. Wenders made a sequel in 1993, Faraway, So Close, and Hollywood remade the film as City of Angels with Nicolas Cage and Meg Ryan. –Sean Axmaker
Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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Joyce Lawler

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Wings of Desire (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]