556 - Alice in the Cities, Germany, 1973. Dir. Wim Wenders.
Whenever we watch a Wim Wenders film, we feel we are in the presence of a man with a warm and open heart. He is generous with the people and places he films. He makes you want to meet those people and see those places. He shows the beauty in the ordinary, everyday world around you.
Rudiger Vogler is one of those people. He has worked with Wenders on ten films (nine features and one short), where his character has several times been named Phil Winter, as with this film. Volger is sometimes seen as a kind of spiritual double for Wenders.
Yella Rottlander is another one of those people. She has acted in three of Wenders' films, and she plays Alice in this one.
The members of the supporting cast are also treated with compassion and respect, especially the women Winter encounters along his journey.
The film follows Phil Winter, a travel writer from Germany on assignment in the United States. He is given four weeks on the road to see and write about America.
Rather than writing while traveling, he takes Polaroid pictures, using a prototype of the not-yet-available SX-70, the first instant camera with self-ejecting, auto-developing prints. Polaroid gave the camera to Wenders to use in the movie, and they gave him plenty of film to use. When the movie came out, the camera was new on the market, and the camera, though expensive, was widely successful. Within the film, the characters who see Winter taking pictures are seeing this kind of camera for the first time, and they are curious and occasionally cautious.
And again, contrary to "Hey, Ya!," Winter does not shake the prints as they eject. He holds them still as they self-develop.
Winter travels. He watches. He takes pictures. He allows the country to do things to him. He will compile it all when he returns and then write his article.
Wenders takes his time with Winter.
The opening portion of the film is largely silent and documentary-like. And one can see the painterly eye of Wenders at work, capturing this place, in this time, in images worth looking at. We watch Winter watch places and photograph them. He focuses on landscapes more often than people, and he shows an interest in architecture and culture.
The film begins with a shot of an airplane flying high in the sky. A big old jet airliner. With Winter leaving home, out on the road.
It then cuts to his sitting under the boardwalk, singing the song, taking a picture of the surf, lining up all his pictures.
We are in Surf City. Not the original Surf City, USA, in Santa Cruz. And not the second-comer, Huntington Beach, who took the name through legal scheming. But Surf City, North Carolina. On the Atlantic Coast. He is staying at the Roxanne, just down from the Driftwood Lodge, across from the Florentine and The B-Lee. The Roxanne, according to its marquis, has Color TV, Pool Now 80°, Golf, and Phones. The neon NO is lit up next to VACANCY. He pulls into the driveway, passing a woman walking to her car, and up to the edge of the parking lot, overlooking the beach, where people are playing in the surf and sand.
Winter stops at a roadside cafe to get a drink in a paper cup. We hear the first background line, off camera (OC) at around 5:38, as he walks away from the counter and a man asks him if he wants his change. He does not seem to hear--he certainly does not care--as he walks to an open ledge to look through his pictures. (The Republic Shoe Corp. across the street and the Schneider Beverages and Schaefer Beer signs above his head give it away that this particular scene was filmed in New York to stand in for North Carolina. So does the Crossbay Boulevard sign in the next shot.) Wim Wenders appears in a cameo at the jukebox, in pleated Sansabelt pants, suspenders, and glasses. He inserts his coin. He plays "Psychotic Reaction" as performed by Count Five.
We will also hear "Smoke on the Water" performed by Deep Purple; "On the Road Again," performed by Canned Heat; we will see Chuck Berry perform "Memphis, Tennessee"; and we will hear the Rolling Stones singing "Angie." The man loves the woman. The man loses the woman. The man misses the woman. We all know it from having lived it. We do not know about Phil's love life--we see him mostly alone--the image of the lonely traveller travelling the open road.
We go back to North Carolina for real, for the vegetation and the buildings. Wenders wanted palm drives, so he drove south from New York until he found them. Thus, the film begins in Surf City. Winter Stops at Chester's Groc. & Gas to get gas and to go inside. He passes a Pine State Ice Cream sign on the way back out. When he returns to his car he takes pictures of the store.
A boy standing next to his bicycle gives the first on-camera line of the film, at 7:20. The boy is styling in 1973, with his fiddler cap and bell bottom trousers.
"Hey, man. Whatcha takin' pictures for? Donna won't like it?"
Winter delivers his own first line in the film, not counting his singing "Under the Boardwalk" in the beginning.
He gets into his 1973 Plymouth Satellite Custom. He looks at the picture he has just taken of Chester's Groc. & Gas. He sets the picture down with a look of disappointment.
"They never really show what it was you saw."
Winter checks into the Skyline Motel in Rockaway Beach, Queens. He lies on top of the bed in his clothes. He falls asleep as John Ford's Young Mr. Lincoln plays on television, a black-and-white tube TV. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, he sees commercials that he finds so ridiculous that he jumps up and knocks over the television and smashes it to the floor.
When Winter arrives at his agent's office in New York, he informs him that he has a box of pictures and will be writing his article now. His agent is not happy.
"You weren't supposed to take photos. Just write a story."
"Yes, I know. But the story is about things you see. About signs and images."
"You have been on the road for four weeks, and all you have is a pile of pictures. You were supposed to write. Photos, I could have gotten anywhere. You were supposed to write about the American scene."
"When you drive across America, something happens to you. Because of all the images you see. The reason I took so many photos is part of the story. I can't explain it right now."
One feels the photographer Wenders talking to us. One feels Wenders has had something happen to him while travelling in America. One wants to say, Thank you, Mr. Wenders, for appreciating our country and for showing it back to us through your warm and insightful eyes.
Do you remember the gas stations Gulf and Union 76? They each had rotating signs. Gulf was a thick circle. Union 76 was a globe. In this film Wenders captures a shot of the two gas stations with both signs rotating next to each other. One does not see that anymore. It is a piece of nostalgia.
Winter has sold his car and has gotten only $300 for it. He told the car dealer he thought he would get more. The car dealer said nothing in return. He just stood there waiting for Winter to take the deal. Take it or leave it. Winter had to take it. He is flying back to Germany. He needs to leave the car behind. He needs the money to purchase his plane ticket.
When Winter arrives at the airport he meets a woman named Lisa and her daughter Alice. This is when the story of the film, as it is titled, as people remember it, begins.
* * * *
"Memphis, Tennessee"
Long Distance Information, give me Memphis, Tennessee
Help me find the party trying to get in touch with me
She could not leave her number, but I know who placed the call
Cause my uncle took the message and he wrote it on the wall
"Psychotic Reaction"
I feel depressed, I feel so bad
Cause you're the best girl that I ever had
I can't get your love, I can't get a fraction
Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction.
And it feels like this!
"Smoke on the Water"
With a few red lights and a few old beds
We make a place to sweat
No matter what we get out of this
I know we'll never forget
Smoke on the water, fire in the sky
Smoke on the water
"On the Road Again"
Well, I'm so tired of crying
But I'm out on the road again
I'm out on the road again
Well, I'm so tired of crying
But I'm out on the road again
I'm out on the road again
I ain't got no woman
Just to call my special friend . . .
But I ain't going down
That long old lonesome road
All by myself
"Angie"
Angie, I still love you, Baby
Everywhere I look I see your eyes
There ain't a woman that comes close to you
Come on, Baby, dry your eyes.
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