{"id":9307,"date":"2014-10-06T20:00:34","date_gmt":"2014-10-07T01:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=9307"},"modified":"2014-10-05T18:40:36","modified_gmt":"2014-10-05T23:40:36","slug":"the-state-of-things-1982-wim-wenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/9307","title":{"rendered":"The State of Things (1982, Wim Wenders)"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Making movies is suicide.”<\/p>\n

Watched this right after Ruiz’s The Territory<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

Alexander Graf quoted by Michael Goddard: “The story is based on the situation [Wenders] found when he visited [Ruiz] in Portugal to charitably bring black and white film stock to a stranded film-crew whose finances were exhausted: their story became the background to the story for The State of Things<\/em>, in which he films the crew – some of whom were borrowed from the real stranded crew – in the act of waiting.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Opens as a sepia-toned post-apocalyptic sci-fi film starring The Territory<\/em> cast, and after a few minutes turns to silvery black-and-white behind-the-scenes, with Sam Fuller playing the cinematographer, and Patrick Bauchau (Rohmer’s La Collectionneuse<\/a><\/em>) as the director Fritz. After a close-up shot, Fuller tells Fritz they’re out of film. The crew gets down time, hangs around their hotel, everyone assuming the producer can send more film soon, but after a few days Fuller hears that his estranged wife has died and returns to the States, soon followed by Fritz who wants to find their producer Gordon.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sam and Fritz:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

This first half is great, from the sci-fi stuff to the beautifully shot (by Alekan again) boredom and cast\/crew artistic hobbies. Then in the States, Wenders thinks we need a pulp plot. Gordon’s lawyer (Roger Corman, who supposedly helped produce The Territory<\/em>) won’t say where Gordon is, but Fritz finds his mobile home and goes for a ride, finding out Gordon (Allen Garfield, a Gene Hackman type, of Hi, Mom!<\/em> and Putney Swope<\/em>) is broke, never paid for the movie in the first place (the screenwriter did), and owes money to gangsters, who inevitably catch up and kill both men. The very ending is a highlight, Fritz pulling out his camera, holding it like a gun while searching for the shooter.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Movie references about. Fuller himself makes a Forty Guns<\/a><\/em> reference, pointed shots of a marquee with The Searchers<\/a><\/em> and Fritz Lang’s star on the walk of fame. Billboards for 1980-81 movies like Caveman<\/em>, The Jazz Singer<\/em> and Ordinary People<\/em>. Wenders was in his classic American cinema phase, having just worked with Nicholas Ray and made a couple of detective movies.<\/p>\n

Corman:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Fuller’s driver: “I take pictures, photographs, but I never really thought in black and white before I saw our rushes. You can see the shape of things.”
\nFuller: “Life is in color, but black and white is more realistic.”<\/p>\n

Organ doom music (by Wenders regular J\u00fcrgen Knieper – not Jim Jarmusch as IMDB states) sometimes overloads the scene. Nice use of X’s Los Angeles<\/em> when they arrive in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Fritz complete filmography:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Artur Semedo, the other man on the dam in The Territory, plays the production manager:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

I read that Joaquim Pinto’s new movie What Now? Remind Me<\/em> has behind-the-scenes footage of The Territory<\/em>. I would’ve made this a triple-feature, but it’s not out yet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Making movies is suicide.” Watched this right after Ruiz’s The Territory. Alexander Graf quoted by Michael Goddard: “The story is based on the situation [Wenders] found when he visited [Ruiz] in Portugal to charitably bring black and white film stock to a stranded film-crew whose finances were exhausted: their story became the background to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[91,112,564],"class_list":["post-9307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-filmmaking","tag-samuel-fuller","tag-wim-wenders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9307"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9307\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9387,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9307\/revisions\/9387"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}