Wim Wenders Collection – Volume Two (Scarlet Letter/Wrong Move/American Friend/Lightning Over Water/Room 666/Tokyo-Ga/Notebook On Cities & Clothes/A Trick Of Light; Anchor Bay)

Wim Wenders Collection – Volume Two (Anchor Bay)

Picture: C* Sound: C+ Extras: C+* Films: C+*

* The American Friend and Lighting Over Water - Picture: B-/Sound: B-/Extras: B-, Room 666, Tokyo-Ga and A Trick Of Light - Picture: C+/Film: B-

The Scarlet Letter (1972) is a competent adaptation of the Nathaniel Hawthorne book with the interesting Senta Burger, but I have yet to see an adaptation that goes as far as it needs to with the text. Still, you can tell he loves the book, but that does not always add up to a great film. This DVD presents it in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image that is pasty, detail-challenged (PAL-to-NTSC issue?) and has color issues, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary.

Wrong Move (1975) offers Nastassja Kinski in as tale about a young man (Rudiger Volger) who goes on a road trip to find himself. This was a standard of New Wave Hollywood filmmaking, but Wenders decided that doing this did not always help anyone find anything and he spends 99 minutes showing us how that would work. The result is something more akin to a Warhol film with a narrative and a film that is both shockingly and amusingly dumb. That he does an intellectual take on al this and especially in a cycle that without being populous, is exposing the limits of intellectuality, it seems Wenders missed the point of those films. Needless to say his production company was thus named Road Movie. This DVD presents it in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image that is pasty, detail-challenged (PAL-to-NTSC issue?) and has color issues, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary.

The American Friend (1978) was previous reviewed as a single DVD release on this site at:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/148/American+Friend

Lighting Over Water (1980, aka Nick’s Film) was previous reviewed as a single DVD release on this site at:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/200/Lightning+Over+Water

Room 666 (1982) is an interesting documentary where he simply asks about cinema’s future to several prominent directors. Dating very badly and frankly making most of its participants look bad, the exceptions whose comments hold up include Jean-Luc Godard, Mahroun Bagdadi, Michelangelo Antonioni, Steven Spielberg and some of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Not as savvy and not having made any major films of note since this work sadly include Susan Seidelman, Paul Morrissey, Robert Kramer and Monte Hellman. It is sad to watch.

This DVD presents this is a “reformatted” 1.33 X 1 image suggesting this was originally widescreen. It is not as pasty, detail-challenged (PAL-to-NTSC issue?) and color challenged as the oldest widescreen DVDs, but could look better. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary.

Tokyo-Ga (1985) is a personal and interesting documentary about Wenders’ trip to Japan because of his love of the innovative Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu. It includes clips of Ozu classics, talk about his fine films and a look at Japan now and then as Wenders tries to recapture what he finds so great about Ozu’s classics. This DVD presents this is a “reformatted” 1.33 X 1 image suggesting this was originally widescreen. It is not as pasty, detail-challenged (PAL-to-NTSC issue?) and color challenged as the oldest widescreen DVDs, but could look better. The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary.

Notebook On Cities & Clothes (1989) beginning with a very flawed premise on the difference between film and video (never heard of reversal film stocks I guess for starters) attempts to delve into the similarities between film and clothing fashion. Does not work much, gets bogged down and Robert Altman may have done better in Pret A Porter/Ready To Wear without knowing it. The mix of film and video is a wreck. This DVD presents it in anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image that is pasty, detail-challenged (PAL-to-NTSC issue?) and has color issues, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary along with extras that include a text bio on Wenders, deleted scenes with optional Wenders’ commentary and a featurette where Wenders reunites with clothing designer Yohji Yamamoto.

A Trick Of Light (1995) is a school class project with Wenders actually only directing a few scenes while supervising his students doing a film in silent movie speed and style. To his credit, this works more than most such recent attempts. The focus is on the innovations of the Skladanowski Brothers and their Bioskop camera. Not always successful, but the interviews with actual persons associated with the original invention are a plus. This DVD presents it in a decent black and white 1.33 X 1 image that is not bad for block-style or recent monochrome shooting, while the Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is simple stereo at best. Wenders offers a full-length audio commentary.

Of course, Wenders has made other films, but this is a strong sampling of him at his best and flattest. He is at least an original and making sincere attempts to make something smart and different, but it does not make him Alain Resnais. Other titles of his reviewed on this site include:

Hammett

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2958/Hammett

Paris, Texas

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1835/Paris,+Texas+(Fox)

Wings Of Desire

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/266/Wings+Of+Desire

We’ll next look at Land Of Plenty, so no one can say we never gave the man thorough coverage.

- Nicholas Sheffo