The musical movies Wim Wenders considers his personal favourites
It’s fair to say that musical film might not be the first thing we think of when it comes to Wim Wenders. Music has invariably played an important role in the New German Cinema pioneer’s career, but concerning the famous musicals of yore, discovering that Wenders is a big fan comes as something of a surprise.
With the likes of Alice in the Cities, Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire and The American Friend, we would always see Wenders as a dramatic filmmaker, but in some of his films, music is a central theme, say in Perfect Days, in which the protagonist spends his days happily driving around Tokyo listening to his favourite rock music songs.
On the other hand, though, Wenders clearly has a passion for music, as shown in his documentary Buena Vista Social Club, which focuses on the musician Ry Cooder and his journey to bring together a selection of iconic Cuban music legends to record an album, leading to an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Documentary Feature’.
Another nomination for the same category arrived in 2011 for Wenders’ 3D documentary film Pina, which tells of the German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch and naturally uses music to the highest artistic degree. Bausch had suddenly died during the making of the film, but after cancelling the project, Wenders was urged to complete it as a way of commemorate the late dancer.
In an interview with Bomb, Wenders once identified his favourite musical films, noting, “I loved Singin’ in the Rain and The Red Shoes, all the Gene Kelly musicals. They were beautiful but they were all story driven.” According to Wenders, the films he mentioned would be little without their stories and would be reduced to beauty without narrative.
“Without the stories, without the characters, there is no story to pull you through, no characters, no biography, just the pieces on their own,” he said. 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain, directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, certainly had dance at its core, but it also told of the transition in Hollywood from silent movies to the “talkies” in the 1920s.
The Red Shoes, directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and released in 1948, is based on the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen. It tells of a hopeful ballerina who joins a world-famous ballet. Her dedication is put to the test when she must choose between dancing and romance.
Pina Bausch’s dances used sound design and stage sets to add narrative elements and explore trauma, relationships, and other dramatic facets. In his documentary on the iconic German dancer and choreographer, Wenders felt that he could add his own narrative as any good documentary maker ought to.
Wenders was introduced to Bausch’s work when his girlfriend took him to a dance show in Venice, even though the director had no interest in the medium. He explained: “I said, ‘No! Not under any circumstances will I spoil this beautiful evening by going to see a dance show.’ I didn’t have a high opinion of dance and what I had seen hadn’t really touched me. But my girlfriend was persistent, as you might have guessed, and that evening changed my life.”
Along with that first experience of Bausch and his later love for Gene Kelly’s works, Wenders gained a deep love for something he originally had no desire for. Pina is yet another stunning documentary from Wenders that focuses on a key figure in the dance world.
