WINGS OF DESIRE
(Der Himmel über Berlin)

PARTS: ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE SIX SEVEN
NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY

Proposed topics still to be elaborated on:

1. Handke/Writing: As in many of Handke's works, the angels keep journals. This is a very concrete expression of the notion of crafting a narrative from one's life. This element should be incorporated at appropriate points.
2. More Readerly & Writerly (levels of manufacturing narrative in the film): The film implies the ideal treatment of life is of life as a readerly text. This relies on the viewer reading into the film a certain implication that she should infer such a meaning. But if such an inference is what the film wants -- and is most likely to elicit -- then the film is a readerly text (unlike life). However, if only one of many possible interpretations is that the film wants the viewer to view life as writerly, and many other readings of the film are possible, then the film is not quite so readerly... . Moving, instead, towards the writerly end. How far? There are several other interpretations of the film in the literature (scholarly and popular).
3. Roger Cook: His article is probably worth mentioning fairly early. It will be important to differentiate this essay from his -- different direction, emphasis, and conclusions... few (if any) of which are contradictory, but which veer in different directions and/or possess different emphases or amounts of granularity.
4. Gender: Does the film contradict traditional gender roles in cinema? Does it only do this if one reads the Marion/Damiel relationship as allegory? If that relationship is troubling in its literal state, should that fact color our appreciation of the allegory? (The allegory would seem to then be infused with the troubling nature of the thing that is being allegorized.) Maybe move the large footnote, which mentions bell hooks' article into the text, and investigate this.
5. Christianity: The angels are not Christian -- except in their names. (What does the traditional Damiel angel embody? We already know and mention Cassiel.) Since the angels celebrate material life, are they therefor largely contradictory of a Christian cosmology? Are they fallen angels? (And, if so, does the film simply celebrate fallen angels and base human material life?) Or, does the film -- through it's awareness of metaphysical beings and a secular spirituality -- not so much contradict Christianity but exist separate from it? (If so, how? Where is the contradiction, compliment, and disjoint which neither supports nor violates Christian cosmology?)
6. History, Berlin, and Wings: History in general, of Berlin in particular (especially: pre-history, WWII, and the Cold War) and its architecture (esp sites portrayed in the film), and their relation to Wings. Much is added, but a direct treatment of the WWII images might be useful.
7. Wenders and Handke: more about Wenders past work, esp. with Handke, and more info about the production. Are there more resources available?
8. Acknowledgements: Michael Henley, DJV, who read and commented on drafts.

The first quotation on the home page is from Wim Wenders, "Impossible Stories," in The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1988. This text is from the English translation by Michael Hofmann, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991:59.

The second quotation on the home page is from Samual Delany, "Generic protocols: Science Fiction and Mundance," in Teresa de Lauretis, Andreas Huyssen and Kathleen Woodward, eds., The Technological Imagination: Theories and Fictions, Madison, WI: Coda Press, 1980, p179.

Wenders' next film, Until the End of the World, continues the theme of literally writing one's life story as a kind of salvation or redemption or assertive act, a source of command over life) in the Eugene character (portrayed by Sam Neill). Wenders says, "I see Eugene as a writer who's really engaging with life." End of the World, also shares with the Homer character in Wings the notion that the power in such an act is so strong, it can heal others. Wenders says, "Claire's sickness is a sickness of images, and she is healed by a much older and simpler art-form, by the art of storytelling, the art of the word. And Eugene, the writer who has followed and observed the course of her sickness, knows no other means of helping her, than holding up a mirror made out of words, not images. And it is these words that finally heal Claire, if I can put it so simply. When she reads her story, the sickness of the images is dispelled." These quotations are from pages 60 and 59, respectively, of the English translation of the interview with Jansen, "The truth of images: Two conversations with Peter W. Jansen," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hofman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7).

Commentators tend to cite the so-called "black and white" passages in the film as being monochrome -- more shades of blue/gray than true black and white. Alekan makes no such distinction. I have chosen to refer to such scenes as being black-and-white. (I suspect that printing the b/w stock used in shooting the film onto color stock -- so that one reel can have both color and b/w scenes, may have "tinted" the b/w passages.)

Scott Bukatman's comments appear on page nine of his book, Blade Runner (BFI Modern Classics), London: The British Film Institute, 1997. The application of writings about science fiction film (in this instance) or literature (as with the Delany quote) is appropriate on three grounds. First, Wenders was steeped in the preparations for his next film, Until the End of the World, an overtly science fiction work, before shooting Wings. So he was arguably in that mode of thinking at the time of creating Wings. Second, if Wings were a Latin American novel, it would have been labeled "magic realism." Studies of science fiction film are the closest genre criticism available in Anglo-American writing on film. Finally, and most importantly, to the extent such criticism is useful in analyzing Wings of Desire, it is appropriate to use it.

Henri Alekan's discussion of the process of filming Wings of Desire appears in Richard Trainor, "Henri Alekan: Black and White Light," Sight and Sound 3:6 (June 1993): 14-17.

This neo-gothic -- an imitation of Late Romanesque basilicas of the Rhineland -- church was designed by Franz Schwechten and built by Kaiser Wilhelm II in honor of his grandfather, Kaiser Wilhelm I. It was consecrated in 1895. At the time of Wings, the church has spent nearly half its life in its damaged state, after being bombed during WWII, especially in 1943 and 1945. In 1961, the ruins were turned into an official monument, and several freestanding structures (in a contrasting modern style) were constructed around what remained of the original structure.

Hans Scharoun designed the Scharoun Building (on Potsdamer Strasse) of the Staatsbibliothek (State Library) in 1967. Edgar Wisniewski completed construction, and the building was opened to the public in 1978. Most commentators on Wings of Desire refer to this setting as the Berlin National Library. Between 1918 and 1945 the state's library holdings were held in the Prussian State Library. During World War II the holdings were evacuated into various parts of Germany. After the war they were divided between the German State Library, Unter den Linden, and the State Library on Potsdamer Strasse. Since the beginning of 1992 the libraries have been re-unified under the name: Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin - Preussischer Kulturbesitz, or the "Berlin State Library." The less modern-looking Ihne Building, which was erected for the former Royal Library between 1903 and 1914 under the management of the court architect Ernst von Ihne, primarily houses the library's older holdings. This information is from the library's Web site: http://www.sbb.spk-berlin.de/.

Wenders' comments appear on page 43 of his interview with Taja Gut, "Perceiving movement," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hofman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7).

Ruth Perlmutter's material is from her "Wenders Returns Home on Wings of Desire," Source: Studies in the Humanities 20:1 (June 1993): 42.

This comment, made in 1989, originally appeared in Reinhold Rauh's "Ein Gespräch mit Wim Wenders," Wim Wnders und seince Filme (Munich: Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, 1990). The translation here is Hora Alter's from her "Documentary as Simulacrum," in Roger Cook and Gerd Gemunden (eds.), The Cinema of Wim Wenders: Image, Narrative, and the Postmodern Condition (Contemporary Film and Television Series), Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1997, p.139.

The reminiscences are from a talk Wenders gave at a "colloquium on narrative technique" in 1982, published as "Impossible Stories," in Wenders' The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1988 (English translation by Michael Hofmann, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991, pp51-2).

Anton Kaes, M, London: British Film Institute, 1999, p. 52.

Although the printed screenplay calls this character "Colombo," whereas the television detective was named "Columbo," I believe that Wenders and Handke intend the construction Falk/actor = Falk/character = Columbo/Colombo. The "misspelling" is interesting in that a slight variation produces colomba or colombe (Italian and French for "dove," respectively) a winged creature symbolizing peace.

Wenders comments appear on pages 48 and 49, respectively, of his interview with Peter (W.) Jansen appears as "The truth of images: Two conversations with Peter W. Jansen," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hofman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7).

Except with regard to the recurring poem (which is transcribed from the US Orion Home Video/Image laserdisc release) the translations of dialog from the film that appear in this paper are based on the Bernard Eisenchitz and Anne Head subtitling available in the NTSC VHS Canadian video tape from Alliance Atlantis. The version of the film from Alliance more closely mimics the theatrical experience of the film -- both in terms of subtitling and in terms of preserving the film's aspect ratio through letterboxing. The differences between the two translations with regard to the poem are trivial for the purposes of this paper. For example, the former's "How can it be that I, who am I,/ didn't exist before I came to be/ and that someday/ the one who I am/ will no longer be the one I am?" become the latter's "How can it be that I, who am I,/ didn’t exist before I was/ and that sometime I,/ the one I am,/ will no longer be the one I am?" Neither literally translates the German einmal (roughly "once") but rather strive to capture the notion with "someday" or "sometime," respectively. The latter adds a literally appropriate "I" (einmal ich) to its construction.

Derivatives of the Laconian criticisms that informed Laura Mulvey's famous essay "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" have been applied to the role of vision in Wings. This is a particularly appropriate mode of discourse when examining Wenders' creation. Vision is foregrounded early in the film (with the close up of the angelic eye in the opening scene) and is emphasized throughout the angelic portions of the film in its definition of a particular mode of perception. bell hooks' essay "Representing Whiteness" is the most scathing such examination, though her reading of particular moments in the film are contentious. Ruth Perlmutter provides a more interesting starting point, and Alice Kuzniar, Christian Rogowski, and Assenka Oksiloff provide the most nuanced examination of such issues.

In terms of hooks' other criticisms, it's worth noting that there are at least six different languages in the film, several female angels, and a Berlin populated by diverse ethnicities. That said, a universal claim is a heavy burden to place on a film -- and such a claim, made by people hooks knows, appears to be her main target. (An important contrast, the American "remake" of Wings of Desire, Brad Silberling's 1998 City of Angels, reminds the viewer just how much Wenders managed to subvert the dominant Hollywood portrayal of this subject matter.) As Perlmutter notes, Wenders

Or, as Kathe Geist notes, Wings "is somewhat of a departure from the patterns described in this article [about Wenders' previous films, which describes the manner in which women are constructed as male fantasies and projections more than as real women]."

Or, as Oksiloff notes: "the journey undertaken by the protagonist angel, Damiel, is one that attempts to leave behind a specular realm in which seeing is the dominant mode and to enter a world determined by the interaction of the senses".

Laura Mulvey's " Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" appears in her Visual and Other Pleasures, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989.

bell hooks' comments appear in her "Representing Whiteness: Seeing Wings of Desire," Yearning: Race, Gender, and Cultural Politics, Boston: South End Press, 1990, pp165-171.

Ruth Perlmutter's comments appear in her "Wenders Returns Home on Wings of Desire," Source: Studies in the Humanities 20:1 (June 1993): 35-48.

Andre Bazin's comment about Chaplin appears in his What is Cinema, Volume II, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1971: 72.

Alice Kuzniar's comments appear in "Suture in/Suturing literature and film: Handke and Wenders," in Ingeborg Hoesterey and Ulrich Weisstein, eds., Intertextuality: German Literature and visual Art (Columbia, SC: Camden, 1993) 201-17.

Christian Rogowski's comments appear in "'Der liebevolle Blick'? The problem of Perception in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire," seminar 29:4 (November 1993): 398-409.

Assenka Oksiloff's comments appear in "Eden is Burning: Wim Wenders' Techniques of Synaesthesia," The German Quarterly 69:1 (Winter 1996): 33.

Kathe Geist's comments appear in her "Mothers and Children in the Films of Wim Wenders," Gender and German Cinema: Feminist Interventions, volume I, Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, Inc., 1993: 11-22.

Wenders makes this connection or transformation in "An attempted description of an indescribable film: From the first treatment for Wings of Desire," in The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1988 (English translation by Michael Hofmann, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991: 77).

Ruth Perlmutter, "Wenders Returns Home on Wings of Desire," Source: Studies in the Humanities 20:1 (June 1993): 35-48.

I have chosen to exclude the nominal sequel to Wings of Desire: Far Away, So Close. However, it is interesting to note that Damiel chooses to literally create a life -- a child -- sometime between the periods in which the films are set. Interestingly, Damiel's first discussion of wanting to be human -- in the BMW dealership -- contains a plain expression on his part that he would have no desire to make a baby as soon as be became human. I read this "contradiction" as a testament to the self-propelling power of the creative urge which, once chosen, takes on a life and direction of its own. Certainly Damiel's lament while sitting in the BMW with Cassiel than angelic actions are all pretense has finally been mitigated.

Ruth Perlmutter, "Wenders Returns Home on Wings of Desire," Source: Studies in the Humanities 20:1 (June 1993): 44.

This is the Stephen Mitchell translation, from his Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, new York: Random House, 1982, pp171-2 of the 1989 Vintage Edition. Unless otherwise noted, the English renderings of Rilke that follow are from the same work.

Roland Barthes, S/Z: An Essay (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1970), English translation by Richard Miller, new York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1974: pp3-16.

The remarks are from a talk Wenders gave at a "colloquium on narrative technique" in 1982, published as "Impossible Stories," in Wenders' The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1988 (English translation by Michael Hofmann, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991, p53).

The remarks are from a talk Wenders gave at a "colloquium on narrative technique" in 1982, published as "Impossible Stories," in Wenders' The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1988 (English translation by Michael Hoffman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1991, pp53-4).

Wenders makes these comments in conversation with Ira Paneth in "Wim and His Wings," Film Quarterly 42 (Fall 1988): 7.

The interview with Jansen appears as "The truth of images: Two conversations with Peter W. Jansen," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hoffman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7:p68).

Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster, London: new Left Books, 1971.

Wenders in conversation with Jansen, "The truth of images: Two conversations with Peter W. Jansen," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hoffman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7:pp52-3).

Wenders' comments appear in an interview with Reinhold Rauh in Peter Buchka's Augen kann man nicht kaufen: Wim Wenders und seine Filme (Munich: Heyne, 1990): 262 and are reproduced in the original German in Christian Rogowski's "'To Be Continued.' History in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire and Thomas Brasch's Domino," German Studies Review 15:3 (1992): 562-3. The translation here is mine.

Brian Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, p109.

Brian Ladd, The Ghosts of Berlin: Confronting German History in the Urban Landscape, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997, p115.

See David Bordwell's Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1989, especially pp.170ff. I believe that some of my suggestions for additions to his schema are implied elsewhere Making Meaning but not incorporated into his diagram and discussion because he is modeling a historical convention.

The character is not named in the diagetic world of the film, but is labeled in the credits. This is another instance to the seepage between the film's world and the viewer's world.

The individually self-determined life story is not above reproach in Wings. In particular, the chauffeur driving the antique automobile to the movie set infuses a note of ambivalence regarding such projects. He speaks of the gaps between people -- each with their own story -- being like the gaps between nations.

Wenders' comments regarding the centrality of the Marion character appear in Ira Paneth's "Wim and His Wings," Film Quarterly 42 (Fall 1988):2-8.

[Removed diagetic/non- note]

Throughout most of this essay, I speak of "the filmmaker" (ie, Wenders) while occasionally bringing people other than Wenders into the discussion (such as Alekan or Handke) by name. I see auterism as imperfect, but also as one useful shorthand approach to Wings of Desire. This is definitely a heavily modified kind of auterism. I think of it this way: The Wenders I refer to is not the historical Wenders, resident of Berlin, but a plausible personality constructed by a reader of his films, writings, and interviews. The Wenders I refer to is a construct composed of the available evidence.

Les Caltvedt, "Berlin Poetry: Archaic Cultural Patterns in Wenders' Wings of Desire," Literature/Film Quarterly 20:2 (1992): 123.

Assenka Oksiloff's comments appear in "Eden is Burning: Wim Wenders' Techniques of Synaesthesia," The German Quarterly 69:1 (Winter 1996): 39.

Wender's comments about Wings ending right as the story beings appear in his interview with Taja Gut, "Perceiving movement," in Wim Wenders, The Act of Seeing: Essays and Conversations, Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1992 (English translation by Michael Hofman, London: Faber and Faber Limited, 1996/7). On page 37 of this interview Wenders says, "Wings of Desire end where it really ought to begin. The film is just a kind of prologue, the promise of a story to follow, a love story. And that's also why it says 'To be continued' at the end of it."

This comment appears in Wolfram Schütte's "Niederfahrt zu den Menschen. Der Himmel über Berlin: der neue Film von Wim Wenders," Frankfurter Rundschau (Oct 29, 1987): 23. My thanks to Christian Rogowski's "'Der liebevolle Blick'? The problem of Perception in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire," seminar 29:4 (November 1993): 398-409, for bringing this review to my attention. The translation here is mine.

My thanks to Christian Rogowski's "'Der liebevolle Blick'? The problem of Perception in Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire," seminar 29:4 (November 1993): 398-409, for bringing this to my attention.

Ruth Perlmutter, "Wenders Returns Home on Wings of Desire," Source: Studies in the Humanities 20:1 (June 1993): 40.

Alexandra Richie, Faust's Metropolis: A History of Berlin, NY: Carroll & Graf, 1998: 293-4.

Production Information

from the Internet Movie Database (www.imdb.com, specifically: http://us.imdb.com/Details?0093191) and from the DER HIMMEL UBER BERLIN entry in Magill's Survey of Cinema, 06-15-1995, author uncredited.

These essays are copyrighted © 1999 - 2001 by Nathan Wolfson (nathan underscore wolfson at yahoo dot com). Quotations from other sources are copyrighted by those sources, as indicated in the Notes and Bibliography. All rights are reserved.