Wenders, Wim, 1945–, German filmmaker, b. Düsseldorf. During the late 1960s he attended film school and worked as a film critic in Munich. Wenders first attracted attention with The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick (1971), a film whose themes of alienation and rootlessness are subsequently echoed in Alice in the Cities (1973), Kings of the Road (1975), and many of his other works. His first truly successful feature was Paris, Texas (1984), a haunting search-for-identity story (with a screenplay by Sam Shepard Shepard, Sam, 1943–, American playwright and actor, b. Fort Sheridan, Ill., as Samuel Shepard Rogers 7th. A product of the 1960s counterculture, Shepard combines wild humor, grotesque satire, myth, and a sparse, haunting language evocative of Western movies to
..... Click the link for more information. ) set in the American Southwest. Wenders' elegant Wings of Desire (1987), filmed in black-and-white and color, with a screenplay by Peter Handke, Handke, Peter (pā`tər hänt`kə), 1942–, Austrian novelist and playwright.
..... Click the link for more information. tells of a Berlin angel's desire for the vividness of human experience. Wenders achieved international popularity with Buena Vista Social Club (1999), a documentary featuring a group of superb elderly Cuban musicians. His other films include The American Friend (1977), Hammett (1982), Until the End of the World (1991), and The End of Violence (1997). Wenders also is a still photographer and painter.

Bibliography

See his The Act of Seeing (1997) and Wim Wenders on Film: Essays and Conversations (2001); studies by R. P. Kolker (1993), R. F. Cook and G. Gemunden, ed. (1997), and R. Bromley (2001).

Wenders, Wim

orig. Ernst Wilhelm Wenders

(born Aug. 14, 1945, Düsseldorf, Ger.) German film director. He directed short films from 1967 and made features from 1973, including Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976), which explored themes of alienation and anxiety that are typical of Wenders's work. He won acclaim in the U.S. for Paris, Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987). He later directed Far Away, So Close (1993), Lisbon Story (1994), The End of Violence (1997), and the documentary Buena Vista Social Club (1999).