The grand theme of Wings of Desire, Wim Wenders’s fantasy of angels in Berlin before the end of the Cold War, is storytelling in all its forms as a coping mechanism of the human race. Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and his more objective but similarly empathetic cohort, Cassiel (Otto Sander), whose wings are only fleetingly shown, regularly swap tales of the small behaviors and interactions they’ve witnessed after traversing the skies and streets to hear “only what is spiritual in people’s minds.”
Among those observed are an elderly poet, Homer (Curt Bois), wandering the sites of his vanished haunts from the pre-Nazi era, wondering why “an epic of peace” has never been sung; Peter Falk, playing some eternal version of himself, arriving to shoot a film and provide a good measure of American soul and humor to Berliners and angels alike; and waitress turned trapeze artist Marion preparing...
Among those observed are an elderly poet, Homer (Curt Bois), wandering the sites of his vanished haunts from the pre-Nazi era, wondering why “an epic of peace” has never been sung; Peter Falk, playing some eternal version of himself, arriving to shoot a film and provide a good measure of American soul and humor to Berliners and angels alike; and waitress turned trapeze artist Marion preparing...
- 5/10/2023
- by Bill Weber
- Slant Magazine
Shot when the city seemed forever divided by the wall, this intensely romantic story of an angel who longs for human love is unlike any other
Wim Wenders’ extravagantly wistful, intensely literary romantic fantasy, co-conceived with Peter Handke, is re-released and right now it looks more than anything like an elegiac “city symphony” about Berlin. How extraordinary to think that just two years after this film came out, the Wall and the city’s division into east and west – which had seemed as poetically fixed and immutable as a river shoreline – disappeared. With its amazing crane and helicopter shots, Wenders’ movie swoops and hovers and floats over the city, pointedly surmounting the hated wall, enacting the longing of Berliners to somehow overcome history’s gravity and get over this ugly barrier.
Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander play Damiel and Cassiel, two angels in the sky above Berlin who amuse themselves...
Wim Wenders’ extravagantly wistful, intensely literary romantic fantasy, co-conceived with Peter Handke, is re-released and right now it looks more than anything like an elegiac “city symphony” about Berlin. How extraordinary to think that just two years after this film came out, the Wall and the city’s division into east and west – which had seemed as poetically fixed and immutable as a river shoreline – disappeared. With its amazing crane and helicopter shots, Wenders’ movie swoops and hovers and floats over the city, pointedly surmounting the hated wall, enacting the longing of Berliners to somehow overcome history’s gravity and get over this ugly barrier.
Bruno Ganz and Otto Sander play Damiel and Cassiel, two angels in the sky above Berlin who amuse themselves...
- 6/22/2022
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Three-time Oscar nominee Wim Wenders, the director of “Paris, Texas,” “Wings of Desire” and “Buena Vista Social Club,” joined the “Life Through a Different Lens: Contactless Connections” talk earlier this week. Held by the Venice Film Festival and Mastercard, the virtual event allowed him to reminiscence about his beginnings. “I had no intention of becoming a filmmaker. I wanted to be all sorts of things, from a priest to god knows what, and trying to become a painter I ended up in Paris. Where else? That’s where I discovered the Cinémathèque Française, because I lived in a tiny, unheated room and the Cinémathèque was warm!”
Soon, he started to pay attention to the screen as well. “The first retrospective I followed was dedicated to Anthony Mann. He might not be recognised as one of the greats, but I learned so much from this man.” Always inspired by American cinema,...
Soon, he started to pay attention to the screen as well. “The first retrospective I followed was dedicated to Anthony Mann. He might not be recognised as one of the greats, but I learned so much from this man.” Always inspired by American cinema,...
- 9/10/2020
- by Marta Balaga
- Variety Film + TV
Bruno Ganz with Christopher Plummer in Atom Egoyan's Remember: "There was a beautiful stillness to his piercing intelligence ..."
Bruno Ganz died on February 15 at his home in Zurich at the age of 77. A star in three Wim Wenders films - Wings Of Desire; Faraway, So Close! and The American Friend' Ganz played the voice of death, Verge, in Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built.
Atom Egoyan worked with Bruno Ganz, who played Rudy Kurlander #1 in Remember, which starred Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. Atom sent the following tribute to me this morning.
"It was such an honour to work with this legendary actor. I will never forget the time we spent together, which I treasured. We talked a lot about theatre, and I always had the sense that the stage...
Bruno Ganz died on February 15 at his home in Zurich at the age of 77. A star in three Wim Wenders films - Wings Of Desire; Faraway, So Close! and The American Friend' Ganz played the voice of death, Verge, in Lars von Trier's The House That Jack Built.
Atom Egoyan worked with Bruno Ganz, who played Rudy Kurlander #1 in Remember, which starred Martin Landau and Christopher Plummer. Atom sent the following tribute to me this morning.
"It was such an honour to work with this legendary actor. I will never forget the time we spent together, which I treasured. We talked a lot about theatre, and I always had the sense that the stage...
- 2/16/2019
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
Close-Up is a feature that spotlights films now playing on Mubi. Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire (1987) is showing from February 16 - March 18, 2018 in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and France.Forty minutes into Wim Wenders’s Wings of Desire, Cassiel (Otto Sander) sits next to an old man dubbed Homer (Curt Bois) and watches him flick through a photo book inside Berlin’s City Library. Homer, however, can’t see him: Cassiel does not belong to this world, but to the community of somber-looking, coat-wearing angels hovering above Berlin. The old man’s eyes glued to the book, the camera suddenly shifts to World War II newsreel footage of the war-torn capital, and Homer’s voiceover accompanies the photos of dead infants and corpses piled along the sidewalks: “No one has so far succeeded in singing an epic of peace… what is it about peace that makes its story so hard to tell?...
- 2/21/2018
- MUBI
“When a child was a child…”A man’s voice is heard, reading out words as they are written in thick ink on paper.…it didn’t know it was a child”He continues, some of the words delivered in sing-song, joyfully, as if they were a children’s nursery song:“Everything was full of life/And all life was one...”His voice is friendly voice; a comforting voice; a voice that we will soon learn belongs to Damiel (Bruno Ganz), an angel who watches over the city of Berlin and its inhabitants with the curiosity and reverence of a child. Damiel has such deep affection for human life that he is willing to eschew immortality for earthly pleasures and the most intoxicating human experience of all: love. Both Damiel’s voice and those of the humans he consoles and studies feature prominently on the film’s soundtrack, sometimes in isolation,...
- 7/31/2017
- MUBI
Diplomacy director Volker Schlöndorff with Anne-Katrin Titze at Lincoln Center on Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man: "Actually, I always compared Niels Arestrup to Philip Seymour Hoffman." Photo: Anne-Katrin Titze
At the 2014 Telluride Film Festival, Volker Schlöndorff was awarded the Silver Medallion and Diplomacy (Diplomatie), starring Niels Arestrup and André Dussollier was screened, as well as Billy, How Did You Do It? (Billy Wilder, Wie Haben Sie's Gemacht?) and Baal starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In New York, we discussed his adaptations from The Tin Drum by Günter Grass to Cyril Gely's play Diplomatie and dubbing Dustin Hoffman in German with Otto Sander in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. Working with Sam Shepard on Voyager, Arestrup's correspondence with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, Bertrand Tavernier's The French Minister and Ralph Fiennes' Max Frisch desires are explored.
Anne-Katrin Titze: As far as adaptations are concerned,...
At the 2014 Telluride Film Festival, Volker Schlöndorff was awarded the Silver Medallion and Diplomacy (Diplomatie), starring Niels Arestrup and André Dussollier was screened, as well as Billy, How Did You Do It? (Billy Wilder, Wie Haben Sie's Gemacht?) and Baal starring Rainer Werner Fassbinder. In New York, we discussed his adaptations from The Tin Drum by Günter Grass to Cyril Gely's play Diplomatie and dubbing Dustin Hoffman in German with Otto Sander in Arthur Miller's Death Of A Salesman. Working with Sam Shepard on Voyager, Arestrup's correspondence with Philip Seymour Hoffman in Anton Corbijn's A Most Wanted Man, Bertrand Tavernier's The French Minister and Ralph Fiennes' Max Frisch desires are explored.
Anne-Katrin Titze: As far as adaptations are concerned,...
- 9/14/2014
- by Anne-Katrin Titze
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
The German actor Otto Sander has died at the age of 72, after a long bout with cancer. Renowned for his work on the Berlin stage, both before and after German reunification, Sander was best known to international audiences for his work in two big ‘80s German exports: Wolfgang Peterson’s Das Boot (1981), in which he had a famous drunk scene in a nightclub, and Wim Wenders’ Wings Of Desire (1988), as the angel Cassiel, gliding among the earthbound mortals and eavesdropping on their internal monologues, wearing a look of rueful sympathy. He reprised the role of Cassiel in ...
- 9/13/2013
- avclub.com
Versatile actor at Berlin's Schaubühne theatre who made films with Wim Wenders and Eric Rohmer
The German actor Otto Sander, who has died aged 72 after suffering from cancer, made his name as one of the members of Peter Stein's Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, where he developed a versatile but precise stage presence that he brought to all kinds of roles. Sander also had more than 100 credits in film and TV productions, most notably Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (The Boat, 1981), as a drunk and disillusioned U-boat captain, and Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire, 1987), as one of the two angels in Wim Wenders's magical survey of the divided city.
Born in Hanover, Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated from the Friederichsgymnasium in 1961. He did his military service as a naval reserve officer. In 1965, in his first engagement at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele, he showed a natural...
The German actor Otto Sander, who has died aged 72 after suffering from cancer, made his name as one of the members of Peter Stein's Schaubühne theatre in Berlin, where he developed a versatile but precise stage presence that he brought to all kinds of roles. Sander also had more than 100 credits in film and TV productions, most notably Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (The Boat, 1981), as a drunk and disillusioned U-boat captain, and Der Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire, 1987), as one of the two angels in Wim Wenders's magical survey of the divided city.
Born in Hanover, Sander grew up in Kassel, where he graduated from the Friederichsgymnasium in 1961. He did his military service as a naval reserve officer. In 1965, in his first engagement at the Düsseldorf Kammerspiele, he showed a natural...
- 9/13/2013
- by Hugh Rorrison
- The Guardian - Film News
Famed scientist Stephen Hawking to present the Stephen Finnigan-directed documentary in Cambridge.
The 33rd Cambridge Film Festival, which runs from September 19-29, is to open with documentary Hawking.
Told in his own words and by those closest to him, the film relays Professor Stephen Hawking’s journey from boyhood underachiever, to PhD genius, to being diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease and given just two years to live. Despite the constant threat of death, Hawking has risen to fame and stardom and continues to make scientific discoveries.
Review: Hawking
The professor, best-selling author (A Brief History of Time) and Cambridge resident will present the film in person on September 19.
Stephen Finnigan, BAFTA-nominated series producer of The Choir: Military Wives, directs the Channel 4 and PBS co-production, which is produced by Darlow Smithson Productions (Dsp).
It received its world premiere at SXSW in March and the UK rights have been secured by Vertigo Films. It is also...
The 33rd Cambridge Film Festival, which runs from September 19-29, is to open with documentary Hawking.
Told in his own words and by those closest to him, the film relays Professor Stephen Hawking’s journey from boyhood underachiever, to PhD genius, to being diagnosed with Motor Neurone disease and given just two years to live. Despite the constant threat of death, Hawking has risen to fame and stardom and continues to make scientific discoveries.
Review: Hawking
The professor, best-selling author (A Brief History of Time) and Cambridge resident will present the film in person on September 19.
Stephen Finnigan, BAFTA-nominated series producer of The Choir: Military Wives, directs the Channel 4 and PBS co-production, which is produced by Darlow Smithson Productions (Dsp).
It received its world premiere at SXSW in March and the UK rights have been secured by Vertigo Films. It is also...
- 7/1/2013
- by michael.rosser@screendaily.com (Michael Rosser)
- ScreenDaily
Since 1984, The Criterion Collection has been dedicated to compiling the greatest classic and contemporary films of all time and releasing them in pristine laser disc, DVD and now Blu-Ray editions loaded with extensive supplemental features, extensive essays from an assorted host of acclaimed film critics and, of course, the highest technical picture and audio standards available. Translation? They make the best… and most expensive… DVDs on the market.
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
- 7/24/2012
- by Brett Warner
- Celebsology
Since 1984, The Criterion Collection has been dedicated to compiling the greatest classic and contemporary films of all time and releasing them in pristine laser disc, DVD and now Blu-Ray editions loaded with extensive supplemental features, extensive essays from an assorted host of acclaimed film critics and, of course, the highest technical picture and audio standards available. Translation? They make the best… and most expensive… DVDs on the market.
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
- 7/24/2012
- by Brett Warner
- TVology
Since 1984, The Criterion Collection has been dedicated to compiling the greatest classic and contemporary films of all time and releasing them in pristine laser disc, DVD and now Blu-Ray editions loaded with extensive supplemental features, extensive essays from an assorted host of acclaimed film critics and, of course, the highest technical picture and audio standards available. Translation? They make the best… and most expensive… DVDs on the market.
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
All this month in stores and online, Barnes & Noble is offering every title in the Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-Ray at 50% off. Where to start? For all you aspiring film scholars out there, here's a list of 10 essential Criterion Collection discs, presented in chronological order. Take a look:
The Rules Of The Game (1939)
Directed by Jean Renoir
One of the greatest (and, initially, most controversial) films of all time, Renoir's The Rules of the Game was destroyed during World War II,...
- 7/24/2012
- by Brett Warner
- Filmology
I think it’s safe to assume that we all love what Criterion is putting out these days, especially those deemed worthy to receive a high definition release on Blu-ray. It’s a given that we also love spreading the good word of Criterion, being that we went so far as to start a podcast and website, to keep the discussion of quality home video releases alive and well.
We also love using our Disc 2 episodes to feature other DVD’s and Blu-ray’s that we find exceptional, and over the past year there have certainly been a lot to talk about.
The fine folks over at Home Media Magazine have unveiled their annual HD Awards, and they want you to weigh in on the best Blu-ray releases from the past year. While I’m sure we’d all like to see that list completely full of discs from the Criterion Collection,...
We also love using our Disc 2 episodes to feature other DVD’s and Blu-ray’s that we find exceptional, and over the past year there have certainly been a lot to talk about.
The fine folks over at Home Media Magazine have unveiled their annual HD Awards, and they want you to weigh in on the best Blu-ray releases from the past year. While I’m sure we’d all like to see that list completely full of discs from the Criterion Collection,...
- 6/29/2010
- by Ryan Gallagher
- CriterionCast
Wings Of Desire is a lot like Where The Wild Things Are. Ok, I know that sounds extremely far-fetched, but stick with me here. I know one film involves invisible angels watching humans, their struggles and suffering and the other involves large hirsute monsters with big heads and even bigger tempers making friends with a runaway boy with anger issues, but there are two major common denominators to both films: 1) They’re rooted and invested in human emotions, and 2) Neither adheres to the standard three-act narrative format, forgoing customary cinematic structure and instead drifting and meandering along an (apparently) uncharted course.
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
I’ve seen Wings Of Desire and Where The Wild Things twice. And in both cases I enjoyed and appreciated the film more after the second viewing, probably because I wasn’t encumbered by expectations of a traditionally told story. Do I think both movies are perfect? No. They...
- 11/27/2009
- by no-reply@starlog.com (Allan Dart)
- Starlog
Chicago – When true film fans receive the monthly Criterion newsletter, they usually skim it looking for their favorite films. It’s not that Criterion really ever makes bad decisions, but when a personal favorite gets the call, it’s like watching the baseball player you grew up idolizing get inducted into the Hall of Fane. Such is the feeling I get when I look at the Criterion Blu-Ray release of “Wings of Desire,” one of the most lyrically beautiful films ever made.
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Wim Wenders’ 1987 masterpiece is the filmmaker’s ode to his favorite city, Berlin, using faith and love as its instruments. Some readers may know the story better from the Nicolas Cage remake “City of Angels,” but that film is merely a shadow of one of the most acclaimed works of the last three decades. Bruno Ganz plays Damiel, an angel who wanders the streets of Berlin...
Blu-Ray Rating: 5.0/5.0
Wim Wenders’ 1987 masterpiece is the filmmaker’s ode to his favorite city, Berlin, using faith and love as its instruments. Some readers may know the story better from the Nicolas Cage remake “City of Angels,” but that film is merely a shadow of one of the most acclaimed works of the last three decades. Bruno Ganz plays Damiel, an angel who wanders the streets of Berlin...
- 11/19/2009
- by adam@hollywoodchicago.com (Adam Fendelman)
- HollywoodChicago.com
DVD Release Date: Nov. 3 Director: Wim Wenders Writers: Wenders, Peter Handke Cinematographer: Henri Alekan Starring: Bruno Ganz, Otto Sander, Peter Falk, Solveig Dommartin Studio/Run Time: Criterion, 127 mins. Wim Wenders’ masterpiece illuminates the sublime in everyday existence In this 1987 Wim Wenders classic (finally getting the Criterion treatment this month), two angels, Damiel and Cassiel, watch over a divided Berlin. Sometimes they observe from lofty perches, but mostly they move freely through the ordinary lives of the city’s inhabitants, observing and documenting what they see. Occasionally, an angel will put an intangible arm around someone to offer subtle comfort....
- 11/10/2009
- Pastemagazine.com
Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin), Wim Wenders' lyrical hymn to angels over Berlin, is one of the great movies about human empathy. In Wenders' wreck of a Berlin, split in two by the graffiti-covered Berlin Wall, angels are the great sympathizers. Looming in Henri Alekan's silvery black-and-white shots, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander) have spent eternity in Berlin, clad in long black trenchcoats, strolling, wandering around the crumbling city, serving witness to the city's people. And that is, simply, what they do: they bear witness. Alekan's gentle, precise camera slowly drifts throughout the city, stopping at a circus, the film set for a schlocky Nazi drama, through the windows of an apartment, the exhausted faces of the people on the train, the cacophony of thoughts in the library. Throughout it all, the history and hurt of Berlin's past and present weighs on the characters.
- 11/4/2009
- TribecaFilm.com
Wim Wenders's Wings of Desire is able to capture your attention despite its sparing plot for the main reason you know its about something even if that something takes its sweet time in fully revealing itself. The film follows two guardian angels, Damiel (Bruno Ganz) and Cassiel (Otto Sander), as they watch over humanity from up high above the streets of Berlin, and, more often than not, at street level.
As they walk the streets, an often visited library and ride the trains we listen in on the thoughts of others as those Damiel and Cassiel encounter can be heard. However, their thoughts don't come across as a string of cohesive sentences as much as they are fragments of ideas, occasionally offering something of substance, but most often an example of the mundane. To that effect you could say Wings of Desire is about just that, an appreciation for the simpler things in life,...
As they walk the streets, an often visited library and ride the trains we listen in on the thoughts of others as those Damiel and Cassiel encounter can be heard. However, their thoughts don't come across as a string of cohesive sentences as much as they are fragments of ideas, occasionally offering something of substance, but most often an example of the mundane. To that effect you could say Wings of Desire is about just that, an appreciation for the simpler things in life,...
- 11/3/2009
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
BERLIN -- Veteran talent agent Erna Baumbauer, locally known as the Queen of Bavaria for her benevolent reign over the German film industry, will be presented with a lifetime achievement award at this year's German Film Awards, known as the Lolas. Baumbauer has been a central force in the German film scene for decades, discovering and promoting some of the country's biggest stars, including Bruno Ganz (Downfall), Otto Sander (Wings of Desire), Maximillian Schell (Judgement at Nuremberg) and Katja Riemann (Rosenstrasse). At 87, Baumbauer isn't slowing down. She still runs her eponymous agency, one of Germany's largest, out of Munich.
- 4/13/2006
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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