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| “Strangers” On A Train (Bruno Ganz and Dennis Hopper) |
This is my fifth Wim Wenders film after having seen Alice In The Cities; Kings Of The Road; Paris, Texas; and Wings Of Desire. My first time through left me perplexed. Sure there was Bruno Ganz, but where was The Road literally or metaphorically? Where was the spiritual aspect? After doing a little reading and returning to the film, I still don’t completely get it, but I am seeing patterns. The film follows two men who would appear to be strangers, but actually share an emptiness and lack of home.
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| “The Emigrant Longing” |
Jonathan Zimmermann (Bruno Ganz) was once an art restorer, but now makes picture frames since he was diagnosed with a rare disease. Tom Ripley (Dennis Hopper) sells forged art and is a cowboy in Hamburg. The two meet at an auction where Zimmermann is the only one who spots that the painting being sold by Ripley is a fake. He doesn’t say anything, but Ripley takes notice and after finding out about Zimmermann’s situation, he recommends him to a friend as a hitman. After all, since Zimmermann will probably be dying soon he would be willing to kill in order to leave money to his family. After that, the two get caught up in a series of murders that takes us to New York, Paris, Hamburg and Munich. With the plot out of the way, the patterns I see are frames of the characters within the cinematic frame, the American influence in West Germany, and a history of film.
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The last image is of Tom Ripley surrounded by Polaroids as he takes repeated shots of himself and cries. Zimmermann can only make empty frames and Ripley is unable to fill any of the frames that contain him.
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| The Cowboy |
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| The White House? |
The references to the history of cinema are a combination of old gadgets that create moving pictures to cameos from Hollywood elite. Two French film directors and Wenders himself make appearances as well.
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| Director Nicholas Ray as Ripley’s Art Forger |
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| Director Samuel Fuller as The American Mobster |
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| Train Appears To Move |
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| A Table Of Early Motion Picture Devices |
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| Manipulating The Edges Animates The Face |
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| A Zoetrope |
But how do these three patterns come together with the Hitchcockian plot to make The American Friend the lauded film it is? Maybe it’s all tied together in emptiness like the frames, the American references, and moving pictures whose illusion is easily broken and devoid of substance.Yet, Wenders doesn’t seem to take a Lars Von Trier attitude towards American influence, rather he embraces it. I don’t buy that it’s simply Ripley “helping” Zimmermann along through a plot stripped bare and sometimes broken to emphasize atmosphere and character. Maybe I am over thinking it, but I can’t shake the feeling I am still missing a piece that makes it all come together. If you have any ideas, please comment. As I currently understand it, it’s worth a look.
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