Wim Wenders Quotes

What is it in the human condition that tries to impose our own view onto others, without the ability, capacity, propensity, to receive somebody else's openly?

The Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit.

In the late 1980s the amount of German films was down to four or five percent of the market, and the remaining 95 percent were American. It is now 20 to 30 percent German productions.

Filmmakers tell actors to adjust their body language, and the famous presence of the actor is his or her body language. That is what makes them special and a movie star. An actor's capital is his body.

It's almost scary how stylish things can look if you take the color out - how much more you see the essence of things and how much more something can appear elegant.

Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes.

An image that is unseen can't sell anything. It is pure, therefore true, beautiful, in one word: innocent. As long as no eye contaminates it, it is in perfect unison with the world. If it is not seen, the image and the object it represents belong together.

the more opinions you have, the less you see

Cinema is a worldwide phenomenon.

I think seeing happens partly through the eyes, but not entirely.

Now it's serious. At last it's becoming serious. So I've grown older. Was I the only one who wasn't serious? Is it our times that are not serious? I was never lonely neither when I was alone, nor with others. But I would have liked to be alone at last. Loneliness means I'm finally whole. Now I can say it as tonight, I'm at last alone. I must put an end to coincidence. The new moon of decision. I don't know if there's destiny but there's a decision. Decide! We are now the times. Not only the whole town - the whole world is taking part in our decision. We two are now more than us two. We incarnate something. We're representing the people now. And the whole place is full of those who are dreaming the same dream. We are deciding everyone's game. I am ready. Now it's your turn. You hold the game in your hand. Now or never. You need me. You will need me. There's no greater story than ours, that of man and woman. It will be a story of giants... invisible... transposable... a story of new ancestors. Look. My eyes. They are the picture of necessity, of the future of everyone in the place. Last night I dreamt of a stranger... of my man. Only with him could I be alone, open up to him, wholly open, wholly for him. Welcome him wholly into me. Surround him with the labyrinth of shared happiness. I know... it's you.

Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism.

If you travel a lot, if you like roaming about in order to lose yourself, you can end up in the strangest places. I think it must be a kind of built-in radar, which often takes me to places that are either peculiarly quiet or peculiar in a quiet sort of way.

In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.

Every photo, every 'ONCE' in time is also the beginning of a story starting 'once upon a time ... ' Every photo is the first frame of a movie.

It's a great lesson in modesty that you realize you're illiterate in a field that you think you're an expert in.

Images are no longer what they used to be. They can't be trusted any more. We all know that. You know that. When we grew up, images were telling stories and showing them. Now they're all into selling. They've changed under our very eyes. They don't even know how to do it anymore. They've plain forgotten. Images are selling out the world. And at a big discount.

Pina Bausch's motto was "Dance, otherwise we are lost." She really meant it, that dance was her answer to life and to the troubles and to the problems that can arise. That was her way to deal with everything, to dance.

Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.

I dislike the manipulation that's necessary to press all the images of a
film into one story; it's very harmful for the images because it tends to
drain them of their 'life'. In the relationship between story and image, I
see the story as a kind of vampire, trying to suck all the blood from an
image. Images are acutely sensitive; like snails they shrink back when you
touch their horns. They don't have it in them to be carthorses: carrying
and transporting messages or significance or intention or a moral. But
that's precisely what a story wants from them.

What is generally referred to as American-style films are, in fact, studio productions.

Loving photography and wanting to be a painter, it all ended up in the process of filmmaking. It's strange professionally be to connected because it connects you to architecture, it connects you to painting, it connects you to writers, to actors. It connects you to really all of the arts.

To evoke the classic period of Italian cinema in a little film seemed like a great, fun thing to do. I had relations to that period. I had known Fellini and I had known Antonioni. I had made a movie with Antonioni and I had visited Fellini in his studios. So, it seemed like something worthwhile doing. You bring yourself to that mythical cinema.

Everything is entertainment; criticism is now entertainment and it seems that the French directors have woken up one day and suddenly realised that they were not backed up any more.

The most political decision you make is where you direct people's eyes. In other words, what you show people, day in and day out, is political ... And the most politically indoctrinating thing you can do to a human being is to show him, every day, that there can be no change.

Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it's up to you.

Photographs put time into such a perspective. They humble us and our selfish memories.

Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.

Filmmaking is really connected to life and all of the expressions that different arts found to allow access to life. Filmmaking touches on all of it.

It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings.

I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.

For me, black and white is more
realistic than colour. Black and white can be colourful, and colour can be
very black and white.

Ibrahim tells his story without a grain of complaint, and this was true for all of the band members. This is very much part of the Cuban spirit and soul.

The Yanks have colonized our subconscious.

Without dreams, there can be no courage. And without courage, there can be no action.