Wim Wenders. Cinema and rock, “A sum greater than the parts”
Rock and cinema: songs make stories on the big screen even bigger, while films have given us great albums in the form of soundtracks and great sequences that amplify the work of the greats of music even more.
No director understands and visualizes rock like Wim Wenders, and few have been able to create such a close relationship with the greats of this genre, as well as rediscover forgotten gems and artists.
Among Wenders’ great soundtracks, “Until the End of the World” is one of the most important of all time: over time it has become an absolute reference, built around original and unreleased songs signed by some of the key names in international rock: U2, Nick Cave, REM
The director’s cut of the film recently returned to theaters in the restored version, on home video and in streaming (with distribution by CG Entertainment). In this exclusive interview with the great German director, we started from the history of that film, from how he managed to involve U2 and 16 of his favorite artists, to talk about the marriage between cinema and music, songs and images. As central to Wenders’ creative process (“The desire for the film’s music also helps the film itself take shape”) as it is unfathomable and magical (“I want the music to hold that place in my heart that I don’t quite know or understand”).
Let’s start with “Until the End of the World”, the title of the film and the U2 song. How did the meeting happen between you, the most famous band on the planet, and a still unreleased song that became the title of the film?
WW: I met U2 in Berlin while they were recording “Achtung Baby” at Hansa Studios, the same studio where I had recorded all my previous soundtracks, especially “The Sky Above Berlin”. I loved their music, we started talking, and I agreed to make a campaign video for them Red Hot And Bluea cover of the Cole Porter song “Night and Day.” We kept talking, one thing led to another and at a certain point I said I was editing my science fiction film “Until the End of the World”.
I had nothing to lose, so I asked if they could contribute a song to the film. Bono liked the idea, the band wasn’t against it, and in the end they actually did it! The song was written for the film, although a very rough version existed before and then The Edge took it and turned it into a gem.
“Until the End of the World” has one of the greatest soundtracks ever. How did you come to choose and convince the greatest rock artists of that period?
WW: The film was an attempt to imagine the near future. We shot it in 1990 and the story was set at the turn of the new millennium, around 2000, just ten years later. My main interest for the future was: where will the digital revolution take us?! What will happen to our audiovisual future? The Internet had just arrived, but no one was using it yet. Cell phones didn’t exist yet, and certainly not with screens. Nobody walked around looking at a small screen held in their hand… We imagined it, with satellite navigation for cars, search engines, Zoom video calls and more.
Since “Until the End of the World” is also a global road movie, I knew I needed a lot of music. But I didn’t want it to be music from 1990, I wanted it to be music from the future too. So I wrote 20 letters to my 20 favorite bands, asking if they would consider projecting into that future with us. I was hoping that maybe a third of them would say yes.
But a couple of weeks later the responses started coming in, and the miracle was that most of them were in favor! Like this: 16 of my favorite musicians and groups of 1990 agreed to write a new song for us, a song with which they also tried to imagine their future in the 2000s.
REM told me they deeply love your work and that their “Fretless” was perfect for the emotional arc of the characters. How did that relationship with the band and Michael Stipe come about?
WW: I hadn’t met Michael Stipe yet. He must have appreciated my letter. When the “Fretless” tape arrived, I was over the moon. The song exceeded all my expectations!
For most of the bands I had “assigned” a scene and sent them the written scene along with a rough cut. “Fretless” had a very important place in the film…
I met Michael later, and six years later he even contributed another song, together with Vic Chesnutt, for the film “Crimes Invisible”. A wonderful person!
The relationship with U2 continued with “So Far So Close” and “The Million Dollar Hotel”, the story of which was written by Bono. What kind of relationship is there between their music and your cinema?
WW: It’s above all a friendship I had with the band, especially with Bono and The Edge. And of course, I loved their music! I’ve seen every single one of their tours, all over the world. They are great storytellers, and their concerts are visually revolutionary. And I always thought they were extraordinary people, who put their heads where their hearts were. This alone is something incredible in the world they operate in, filling stadiums and attracting huge crowds. And I admit it: I can sing many of their songs by heart, I know so many of them.
And Nick Cave? You had already worked with him on “The Sky Above Berlin”.
WW: I’ve known Nick Cave for forty years now, ever since I met him in Kreuzberg, where he lived in 1986, to ask him if he would appear in the film. And I felt very privileged that he accepted!
The film had angels, but also fallen angels… He is one of the great contemporary voices, a poet, a songwriter, a novelist, a thinker, an artist. I am proud to know him and to be able to talk to him. And I read his “Red Hand Files” as soon as a new episode comes out. So far I know all 350 of them.
When you work on a film, at what point in the process do the music and songs come? Do you already imagine the scenes accompanied by specific sounds or songs, or does the music arrive later, during the editing phase?
WW: Very often I dream of certain music already in the preparation phase, and certainly during filming. The music that ends up in the film is often what I listen to while driving to the set or on the way home in the evening, or when I prepare the next day’s shoot, at night.
The desire for the film’s music also helps the film itself take shape.
Huge question, I realize… But what can be the contribution of a song to a film, to a scene, or more generally to the telling of a story through images?
WW: I know this with great precision, because I have experienced what music can add to a scene, and I always hope that this can happen again. At their best, the images and music do not simply add up, but together they create something new, a “Third,” which is more than their sum.
I don’t believe you can “produce” this thing or “consciously make it happen.” It is rather something that materializes by itself, when you are lucky. And when it happens, it’s a gift.
You have experimented with every possible form of interaction between cinema and music: the soundtrack (I’m thinking of Ry Cooder in “Paris, Texas”), original and unreleased songs, the rediscovery of repertoire pieces. How do you choose what type of music or songs to use?
WW: It’s much more of a gut decision than an intellectually driven choice. In fact, I don’t even want to try to explain or analyze it. Listening to music happens in a different part of our brain than “storytelling” or dramaturgy. I want music to hold that place in my heart that I don’t fully know or understand.
In general, it seems that cinema prefers original songs – especially for scenes and end credits – while TV series often focus on the rediscovery of catalog songs. Is it really like that? And why do original songs seem to work better in cinema?
WW: I’m not sure that’s true. Of course, for commercial reasons and for an Oscar nomination, a song written specifically for the film is needed. But due to the secret language of emotions that runs through a film, an old song can have much greater weight! It’s loaded with memories and experiences, it’s full of things in your life that you’re not even aware of. It can have many more resonances…
Looking at contemporary cinema, do you think that rock and pop music still have the same role as in the past, or has the relationship between cinema and music changed?
WW: It’s changed for a very simple reason: there’s a lot more music out there today, there’s a lot more of everything, and everything rotates a lot faster. You no longer spend as much time with an album as you did when you listened to it on the turntable day after day, like you did with the Beatles or the Stones.
Most young people today don’t even know the idea of an “album,” that songs were meant to be listened to in a certain order, to tell a story through that order. Today, most songs run in playlists, without any context of their own. Who still reads song lyrics? And where do you find them, if not on the internet? Not many people make that effort anymore. Listening becomes vague, understanding becomes vague, emotions remain vague. All this contributes to less “cohesion” between music and cinema.
With “Buena Vista Social Club” you told the story of music itself, of its memory and its transmission. How did that project change the way you think about the relationship between cinema, music and cultural preservation?
WW: The cultural preservation work was done beautifully by Ry Cooder, Nick Gold and recording engineer Jerry Boys. They had the whole “son” tradition in their heads, they knew all the heroes, the authors, the forgotten songs.
I simply tried, in the best possible way, to follow the events, to witness the incredible depth of the musicians’ relationship with their sound and their songs. All of them carried in their minds and bodies a lifetime of dedication to that sound. The musicians’ body language was as much a part of their expression as their voices and instruments.
“Cinematographic” is an adjective often used for pop-rock music, when the songs tell stories with epic sounds and words. Do you think it’s a good way to define a certain type of music?
More generally, what links rock to cinema?
WW: Maybe you could ask me a slightly easier question in the meantime? (laughs)
Yes, songs tell stories! Bruce Springsteen, Lou Reed, Patti Smith, Greg Brown and of course Bob Dylan are extraordinary storytellers. In a song, sometimes a few words can tell as much as an entire scene with minutes of dialogue. The songs have “co-authors” in every instrument, in every note, in every voice in the background, even in the echo of the words. The songs touch chords within you that only poets can make vibrate.
You have also directed music videos: for U2, Talking Heads, Eels. What relationship do you have with this format?
WW: As a self-confessed workaholic, I loved music videos. It was the whole cinematic process, but in miniature. You looked for locations, did the casting, worked on the storyboard or broke down every part of the song… you put together a complete crew with all the same functions as a film set, even if it only shot for a day or two.
Then the editing (my favorite part!), the color correctionand finally you showed the result to various people for criticism and suggestions. Video clips were a huge joy for a certain period of their history.
You have included Lucio Dalla, Fabrizio De André and also Rosa Balistreri in your films. What relationship do you have with Italian music?
WW: I love Italian music! Fabrizio De André is one of my greatest heroes of twentieth century music! He died tragically too young. I had a project with Hal Willner to put together a concert of Fabrizio’s songs in Central Park, sung by artists from all over the world. It never came to fruition.
