Wim Wenders quotes

The Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit. (Wim Wenders)
Take opera for example - to go to the opera you have to dress up in a tuxedo and pay lots of money.
Wim Wenders
Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it.
Wim Wenders
But I think that the spirit of protectionism would be the grave of European cinema. You cannot protect something by building a fence around it and thinking that this will help it survive.
Wim Wenders
Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it's up to you.
Wim Wenders
Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie.
Wim Wenders
Of course the French are making very credible movies and it is still one of the greatest nations in terms of world cinema but the real problem is the decay in film criticism.
Wim Wenders
Filmmakers and critics wrote about each other and sometimes very harshly. This no longer exists.
Wim Wenders
It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings.
Wim Wenders
Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.
Wim Wenders
The more opinions you have, the less you see. (Wim Wenders)
Everything is entertainment; criticism is now entertainment and it seems that the French directors have woken up one day and suddenly realised that they were not backed up any more.
Wim Wenders
In fact, it is amazing how much European films - Italian, French, German and English - have recovered a certain territory of the audience in their countries over the last few years.
Wim Wenders
Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.
Wim Wenders
On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world.
Wim Wenders
In this age of consumerism film criticism all over the world - in America first but also in Europe - has become something that caters for the movie industry instead of being a counterbalance.
Wim Wenders
For us music is mainly part of the entertainment world and is often a luxury.
Wim Wenders
So I am getting a little bored with defining one type of film as American and the other European or from somewhere else because the division is no longer true.
Wim Wenders
Cinema is a worldwide phenomenon.
Wim Wenders
The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.
Wim Wenders
What is generally referred to as American-style films are, in fact, studio productions. (Wim Wenders)
For years all I seemed to be doing was lobbying politicians and others to persuade them that European culture needed movies, and that we had to protect it.
Wim Wenders
In the late 1980s the amount of German films was down to four or five percent of the market, and the remaining 95 percent were American. It is now 20 to 30 percent German productions.
Wim Wenders
Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes.
Wim Wenders
Maybe it's the music that enables them to function like that, to always take everything as it comes and never complain about the misery, hardship or injustice.
Wim Wenders