Amanda Yates

Wim Wenders: �Why Do You Make Films”

 

Note: it seems a bit strange writing a response paper that rivals the length of the essay in question, but I’ll disregard the notion for the sake of discussion.

 

Wim Wender’s written response to the question “Why Do You Make Films” is less about his final concluding statement than it is about his own personal meditations on the question itself.  He does indeed give what could be pinned down as the ultimate answer, “(to create) a record of something’s existence” so it doesn’t “disappear,” but this seems trite and overly summarized.  Perhaps it is this simple for him, he just wants to record what exists with no manipulation of natural variables – but I think there is more to making films for him than can be described in a few lines of a questionnaire reply.

 

The depth of his feelings on the subject is alluded to by his attitude to the question itself.  He opens by calling it “terrible” and ends by calling it “bloody stupid.”  In this way, he suggests the complications involved in answering such a simple question: why should he have to answer such a general, impersonal question with an exact response? It’s like asking an artist why he paints and expecting a one-sentence summary of all his thoughts and works.  It’s just too hard to be answered succinctly.

 

So in order to delve into the answer, he goes through a short series of thoughts ranging from the first film he made to quotations from Bela Balasz and Cezanne.  This self-questioning stream-of-consciousness reply is appropriate, showing a depth of his internal struggle with the theories.  He throws out some ideas, but doesn’t really establish a satisfactory reason, perhaps because he doesn’t completely know himself.  In addition, by floating from thought to thought, under the pretense that he has tried many times to no avail (at least in his own eyes) to answer the question “Why Do You Make Films,” he shows us the complications involved. 

 

Although Wenders provides a succinct answer: that he makes films to “rescue the existence of things,” the simplicity of the question and his hesitation to arrive at this conclusion cannot be overlooked. It appears that although he has a response for the interviewers, he is still actively pursuing the answer. 

 

Is Wenders’ response to this questionnaire to be trusted as his theory of filmmaking? Is there more to it than simply “creating a record of something’s existence?”  Is this evidenced in Alice in the Cities?