“Ich werde mich entschlossen verirren.” Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter [The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick] (Wim Wenders, 1972)
Jul
28
National Soccer Day
Trainer, reserve players and goalkeeper Bloch on the bench after the latter has been removed from the match. Bloch (Arthur Brauss) has his upper body turned away from the others' and sits with only half of his backside on the bench. DP: Robby Müller.
A lot of #soccer there's not, in Wim Wenders' Die Angst des Tormanns beim Elfmeter. What we do have happens almost right at the start. After a foul, the titular goalkeeper Bloch (Arthur Brauss) is removed from the match. Frustrated he leaves and finds himself roaming the streets of #Vienna where he picks up boxoffice girl Gloria (Erika Pluhar). In the morning he kills her and travels to the countryside, waiting for the police to arrest him.
– Peter Handke
Die Angst is an early, perfect example of Junger Deutscher Film (”New German Cinema”). Its cinematic thanks to Robby Müller's observant eye and Peter Handke's precise language, both describing scenes and performers as if observed through a fourth wall.
A very slow burning road movie, a Taxi Driver in reverse if you will, that does without the neurotic showmanship of its Hollywood counterpart.
RoadMovie
“Salt, pepper, sugar, ketchup and napkins, New York.” 66 scener fra Amerika [66 Scenes from America] (Jørgen Leth, 1982)
Jul
4
Independence Day
Director Jørgen Leth capturing Tsé Biiʼ Ndzisgaii [Merrick Butte] in Monument Valley, AZ, for the opening scene. He's waving a small American flag in front of the camera. DP: Dan Holmberg.
A road movie becomes interesting when the traveller is a stranger. When he or she takes that first step, head still firmly planted at home, soul on its way out.
Jørgen Leth is a Danish documentary maker who in the early 80s sent sixty-six postcards from America. These postcards form a #travelogue of bewilderment. The #landscape, #food, language, anything an American may take for granted framed in a moving still. The American, ever ready for stardom, poses and orates. The scenes become show, regardless if it's a New York cabbie or a man famously (falsely) credited for predicting fame, slowly eating a Whopper.
The resulting 66 scener fra Amerika is as much a time capsule as it is a portrait of forever.
Last Chants for a Slow Dance (Jon Jost, 1977)
May
3
National Montana Day
Tom Blair as Tom Bates. We see him through a rest stop's window with the reflection of the word ƎᖷAƆ in red neon over his face. Tom's reading a newspaper. DP: Jon Jost.
Last Chants for a Slow Dance is shocking in its simplicity. Tom (Tom Blair) is out there looking for work. Out of the way of his wife and into the heart of Montana. On a slow moving road trip, as scorching and dragging like hot tar, we accompany him and some of the vapid interactions with others out there. The heat, pursuit of sex, and inter-human exchanges are endless.
Things do break.