plato's cave twenty five (being a film journal)

wim wenders - kings of the road - 1976

seen recently at BAM. second viewing (first time on VHS)

cinematography in this film by the great robby müller (covered elsewhere on this website) and martin schäfer, in which roger ebert compared to the photography of john ford films. stunning. i love the image of them filming into the moving truck, serious guys.

music by axel linstädt, member of the german krautrock band improved sound limited. gets very heavy.

i can't say i like the other two films in the trilogy much, but this is one of wenders' best films, and one of the great films from the new german cinema.

it is a truly cinematic experience to watch the two male characther's relationship to one another progress over this three hour film. teaming up after what i saw as the hanns zischler character's falling asleep at the wheel (but read was a light-hearted suicide attempt), and spending much of the beginning of the film not speaking, to finally being very close to one another in an uncommon way.

in fact, the rüdiger vogler character seems to pass on a relationship with the beautiful lisa kreuzer (memorable in wenders the american friend), to be reunited with his traveling mate. very touching. 

living in a time and place where one must spend all of one's time working to pay expensive rents and groceries; seeing a film like this with two gentlemen and scholars vagabonding across germany makes one really displeased with the way the world is operating now.

robby müller, cinematographer

robby müller (1940-)
bio from wim wenders site:
"robby mueller was born on april 4th 1940 in villemstad, curacao, on the dutch antilles. he studied at the filmacademy in holland from 1962 to 1964 and started to work as a director of photography soon afterwards".
certainly one of the most interesting living cinematographers, he has worked with wim wenders, lars von trier and jim jarmusch among others.

his filmography includes: the american friend, repo man, paris, texas, to live and die in l.a., down by law, barfly, mystery train, dead man, breaking the wave, and dancer in the dark.a great example of his craftsmanship is the ending sequence of dead man, when the canoe drifts out into oblivion (see image below).

paris, texas 1984 (d. wim wenders)

the american friend 1978 (d. wim wenders)

breaking the waves 1996 (d. lars von trier)

dead man 1995 (d. jim jarmusch)

down by law 1986 (d. jim jarmusch)

dancer in the dark 2000 (d. lars von trier)

some films:
-the scarlet letter 1973 (d. wim wenders)
-the wrong movement 1975 (d. wim wenders)
-kings of the road 1976 (d. wim wenders)
-the american friend 1978 (d. wim wenders)
-saint jack 1979 (d. peter bogdanovich)
-honeysuckle rose 1980 (d. jerry schatzberg)
-they all laughed 1981 (d. peter bogdanovich)
-tricheurs 1984 (d. barbet schroeder)
-repo man 1984 (d. alex cox)
-paris, texas 1984 (d. wim wenders)
-to live and die in l.a. (1985) (d. william friedkin)
-down by law 1986 (d. jim jarmusch)
-barfly 1987 (d. barbet schroeder)
-mystery train 1989 (d. jim jarmusch)
-korczak 1990 (d. andrzej wajda)
-until the end of the world 1991 (d. wim wenders)
-dead man 1995 (d. jim jarmusch)
-breaking the waves 1996 (d. lars von trier)
-buena vista social club (1999) (director of photography: amsterdam) (d. wim wenders)
-dancer in the dark 2000 (d. lars von trier)
-coffee and cigarettes 2003 twins & memphis version segments (d. jim jarmusch)