Alice in the Cities (1974)
Rüdiger Vogler: Philip Winter
Photos
Quotes
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Lisa - Alice's Mother : What are you writing?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : The inhuman thing about American TV is not so much that they hack everything up with commercials, though that's bad enough, but in the end all programmes become commercials. Commercials for the status quo. Every image radiates the same disgusting and nauseated message. A kind of boastful contempt. Not one image leaves you in peace, they all want something from you.
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Philip 'Phil' Winter : I got completely lost. It was a horrible journey. Once you leave New York City nothing changes anymore. It all looks the same. You can't imagine anything anymore. Above all, you can't imagine any change. I became estranged from myself. All I could imagine was going on and on like this forever. Some nights, I was sure I would go back the next morning. But then I'd keep on driving, listening to that vulgar radio and every night in a motel that looked just like all the others before. I'd watch that barbarous television. I didn't know what hit me.
Angela - Friend in New York : You haven't known that for a long time now. You don't have to travel across America for that. That happens when you lose all sense of your own self. And you lost that long ago. That's why you always need proof, proof you still exist. Your stories and your experiences - you treat them like raw eggs. As if you were the only one to experience things. And that's why you keep taking pictures. They're something you can hold on to, more evidence that it was you who saw these things.
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Philip 'Phil' Winter : Taking pictures is a way of proving things. Waiting for the image to develop, I was often filled with a strange unease. I could hardly wait to compare the picture with reality. But comparing them wouldn't reassure me either. As the still images were always overtaken by reality...
Angela - Friend in New York : You can't stay here.
Philip 'Phil' Winter : I photographed even more obsessively.
Angela - Friend in New York : You're really beside yourself!
Philip 'Phil' Winter : That's why I only took Polaroids...
Angela - Friend in New York : I don't want you to stay here, understand?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : What? Are you serious?
Angela - Friend in New York : Yes, my friend. I can't help you.
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Alice : What is it?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : Fear.
Alice : What kind of fear?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : Are there different kinds?
Alice : Yes.
Philip 'Phil' Winter : I'm afraid of fear.
Alice : Why are you afraid of fear?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : Yes. Why?
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Alice : What will you do in Munich?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : I'll finish writing that story.
Alice : Your scribbling?
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Philip 'Phil' Winter : Talking to yourself... Actually, it's more like listening than talking.
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Philip 'Phil' Winter : When you drive around America, something happens to you. The images you see change you.
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Lisa - Alice's Mother : Would you wait with us? Otherwise, I don't know how I'll stand it.
Philip 'Phil' Winter : I can do that, but I'm not very entertaining.
Lisa - Alice's Mother : You could be mute for all I care.
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Alice : Do you like flying?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : No.
Alice : I like the food. It's nicely wrapped up.
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Publisher : You've been on the road for four weeks now and all you've got is a bunch of pictures. You were supposed to write something. I could have gotten pictures somewhere else. You were supposed to write about the American landscape. I've already gotten three telexes from the publisher in Munich and I look like an idiot. So what do I do now?
Philip 'Phil' Winter : I'm not done yet. That's all.
