{"id":9891,"date":"2015-06-08T20:00:08","date_gmt":"2015-06-09T01:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=9891"},"modified":"2015-06-02T18:32:20","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T23:32:20","slug":"the-american-friend-1977-wim-wenders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/9891","title":{"rendered":"The American Friend (1977, Wim Wenders)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Felt like a good time to watch this since I’d recently seen Purple Noon<\/a><\/em>, and The American Friend<\/em> is more or less a sequel. I don’t know how things worked in the book series, but besides some art forgery at the beginning, I’d easily believe that they’re unrelated and Dennis Hopper’s character just happens to be named Tom Ripley.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Movie connection #2: Joe vs. the Volcano<\/a><\/em>. Bruno Ganz, who’s the real star of the film over Ripley\/Hopper, is sick and short on money, but it turns out his doctor is exaggerating Bruno’s health problems so he’ll be desperate enough to accept a mission as assassin. This despite the fact that Bruno works in a frame shop and is not normally a killer (naturally, the working title was Framed<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Bruno, making it literal:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Movie connection #3: Barton Fink<\/em>. Bruno takes an instant dislike to Hopper at a (fraudulent) art auction at the beginning, refuses to shake his hand. At the end, Hopper confesses this is why Hopper put Bruno through it all, the doomed medical prognosis and three murders.<\/p>\n

Movie connection #4: Rushmore<\/em>, via the Kinks song “Nothing In This World Can Stop Me Worryin’ ’bout That Girl”.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Cool movie, with real suspense to the spy\/murder proceedings, and a visual theme of magic lanterns and other illusions. Terrific lighting, color and cinematography (by Robby M\u00fcller, natch), as far as I could tell on my DVD copy. And of course it features both Nicholas Ray (as Hopper’s painter of fakes) and Samuel Fuller (as head target “The American”, eventually thrown down stone stairs).<\/p>\n

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

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

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

Can’t say I fully understood Ripley’s involvement in the whole plot, nor why Bruno has to die at the end (Wenders loves<\/a> when everyone dies at the end). Ebert says it’s not important. Dave Kehr says that’s the whole idea: “The plot, laid out baldly, gives only a thin impression of the film itself. For one thing, Wenders has systematically eliminated most of the purely expository scenes (purposefully, after shooting them). … We already know the story, having seen its variations in a hundred films.”<\/p>\n

Film Quarterly says it cost more than Wenders’s previous five films combined. Won best editing and direction in Germany and played at Cannes along with 3 Women<\/a><\/em>, The Duellists<\/em> and Padre Padrone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hopper’s follow-up to Apocalypse Now<\/em>, which wouldn’t be released for two more years. Bruno was between The Marquise of O<\/a><\/em> and Nosferatu<\/a><\/em>. As his wife: Lisa Kreuzer of Radio On<\/em> and Alice in the Cities<\/em>. Gerard Blain (star of Chabrol’s Les Cousins<\/em> and Le Beau Serge<\/em>) is the guy who gives Bruno his assignment, and Lou Castel (star of Fists in the Pocket<\/em> and Beware of a Holy Whore<\/em>) is his driver\/overseer. Semi-remade a couple times, once with Malkovich as Ripley and once with Barry Pepper.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Felt like a good time to watch this since I’d recently seen Purple Noon, and The American Friend is more or less a sequel. I don’t know how things worked in the book series, but besides some art forgery at the beginning, I’d easily believe that they’re unrelated and Dennis Hopper’s character just happens to […]<\/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":[1262,1085,1087,112,181,564],"class_list":["post-9891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-bruno-ganz","tag-dennis-hopper","tag-nicholas-ray","tag-samuel-fuller","tag-sequel","tag-wim-wenders"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891","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=9891"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9958,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9891\/revisions\/9958"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}