On the Seine river, in Paris, France is located a small-scale replica of the Liberty Enlightening The World statue, or the Statue of Liberty. While not nearly as famous as its American counterpart, the statue does make a brief appearance in one shot of Wim Wenders’ 1977 film The American Friend.
The shot focusing on the Liberty replica could simply be Wenders’ appreciation of or fascination with American icons. The Statue of Liberty has certainly become a grand pop-icon of the country, and given the presence of an American lead actor (Dennis Hopper) and a classic American director (Nicholas Ray) it's clear that Wenders has some affinity for symbols of the United States.
But a more suitable argument for the statue’s presence in the shot is its symbolism and relation to Jonathan’s situation.

Shortly after Jonathan Zimmerman arrives in Minot’s flat, he examines the phony doctor's report. Minot comes close, so as to comfort Jonathan. Then Minot steps away and for a moment the camera quickly tilts downward and focus on the Liberty statue outside, which is framed in the shot by Jonathan on the left and Minot on the right.

The clear interpretation of the small sequence is Jonathan’s impending doom as liberation. Thinking he’s weak and dying, Jonathan is completely free to do as he pleases, whether right or wrong. In their first encounter he merely brushed off Minot’s offer of assassination for money, but after being hoodwinked Jonathan begins to reconsider the deal. After all, it is a very lucrative opportunity and the money can be used by his wife and son after his demise. Given his sense of looming death he figures there’s nothing to lose in the crime, but much to be gained.

The inclusion of the Liberty Enlightening The World statue is just one of many visual representations included by Wenders in The American Friend, but one of the most telling. It speaks volumes about what is going on within Jonathan’s mind and the choice he makes thinking he’s finished. As Kris Kristofferson once wrote-–prior to his collaboration with Blade-–“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose…”

Who, or what, frames the picture frame? Such is the query with Wim Wender’s 1977 endeavor Der Amerikanische Freund, a film that excels in casting an elusive, onerous and ubiquitous conspiracy over not only its protagonist but an entire universe of viewers. Set in the curiously seedy artworld-underworld that reaches beyond the borders of Europe and on to America, the film relies heavily on pictures within pictures, within paintings, within the film itself. The effect of such layering lends to a wary invisibility, yet downright existence of a very hearty, healthy conspiracy.

Oddly enough, however, is the pointed heavy-handedness of the film, incongruous with conventions, one would think, of adroit subterfuge. The implications, or relevance of trains as symbols, transportation, or artistic subjects, are so deliberate in Der Amerikanische Freund, that to explore them directly would be to fall prey to their own obvious connotations. Wenders, the mad conductor of these repetitive variants, feverishly works the bellows that propel and increase in narrative import these "trains," and by the end it would appear that his vehicle’s tracks run in an imperfect circle. Just what are we supposed to think when our protagonist hangs a frame around his neck, then opts to smash it on the countertop? And what of incorporating other notable "framesmiths" as bit characters?

Someone is being hunted here, and it isn’t who you’d think.

The various visual representations present in Der Amerikanische Freund create makeshift signposts that once viewed and subconsciously connected create a multifarious, conspiratorial web. There is a clandestine force at work within: white German graffito; Hopper’s "Liberation" newspaper and pseudo-suicidal Polaroid pictures, the pornographic gift; the spinning, figures leaping, cinematic lamp. When we find our characters on the train amidst a murderous rampage, the exterior world flying by, do the windows frame a green and gleaming landscape, nearly a painting?

Gleaning these points, in the end, though, may be indebted to an acute, ringing paranoia.




kunst für kinder und spielwaren für erwachsene
response by NORTHUP SHEISLER ZILTCH

The predominant thematic concept permeating The American Friend examines the relationship between art and commerce through emphasis upon various visual representations within the mise-en-scène. In the opening scenes, Wim Wenders includes numerous shots of an apparently sub-par yet highly sought-after Derwatt painting, a rather foreboding work depicting a solid black train entering an equally gloomy station. Dark gray billows of smoke disperse into a sky of stormy, midnight blue clouds. The painting’s colors, while somber, are nonetheless rich and intriguing; the film’s cinematography similarly presents a dull yet striking color palette that relies on mostly overcast skies to accentuate foreground hues. These similarities in visual approach suggest a correlation between the graphic and the cinematic arts, a relationship that solidifies through the presence of veteran filmmaker Nicholas Ray as the painter. This interesting casting choice, combined with the parallels between Derwatt’s on-screen art and the art on a screen (that is, the film itself), creates an elaborate metaphor essentially professing the artistry of the filmmaking process.

Yet Wenders also emphasizes the commercial role art inevitably plays. He accomplishes this in two ways: one, through the character Tom Ripley, who “treats art as an investment,” and acts as a liaison between Derwatt and his wealthy, tenacious appreciators; and two, through inclusion of another image-based object that epitomizes the art-as-commodity relationship Tom advances. This visual representation, a children’s night-light, depicts, like Derwatt’s work, a speeding locomotive and features, like the painting and the film’s cinematography, an aesthetic arrangement of colors. The night-light, however, functions primarily as a consumer product, an object that garners profits for a business and a company. Considering this gadget’s visual and topical affinities with Derwatt’s painting, Wenders, through juxtaposition, identifies the toy’s commercial status with that of art, suggesting that paintings, in a capitalist society, are nothing more than adult night-lights – aesthetically stimulating, perhaps even comforting, commodities rampantly bought and sold.

Interestingly, the film’s protagonist assassinates all his victims while riding on trains, thus drawing another parallel to Wenders’ art-based commentary. He self-reflexively reveals the dual nature of the film itself-–as both a work of cinematic art and a commercial product, a status stemming not only from parallelism but also from the narrative’s dependence upon the beautifully filmic B-picture noirs of Nicholas Ray and Samuel Fuller.




2 pills for a dollar
response by RIGBY REARDON

The American Friend is a series of pictures. Well, any movie is a series of pictures, but The American Friend is very aware of this fact. Countless connections are drawn between pictures and film. Most of the film frames in the movie look as though they are actual pictures that someone has painted or drawn.

The film is obsessed with drawing a connection between film and pictures. The main character creates frames, a connection to a film frame, that he puts around actual pictures. His children play with a zoetrope at one point, which is one of the many steps taken to actual movies as we know them today. It’s quite literally still pictures that when activated appear to move. Jonathan’s child also has a three-dimensional light-up train picture in his room. This picture therefore has another dimension beyond a normal picture. Film itself incorporates the dimension of time into that of a two-dimensional picture.

Many of the landscape shots in the film look exactly like a painting. In the train scene, when given a view of the landscape by the tracks, the grass in the foreground is a bright light green color that seems unnatural at first. In Zimmerman’s house there is a picture of a landscape that uses the exact same color for the fields in the foreground. It is as though this movie is a series of Edward Hopper paintings where the audience is given the story along with the images. There is a view of a landscape and a train and the viewer is completely aware that alongside that beautiful landscape a double murder is occurring.

Many scenes in the movie still leave the audience an interpretation. For instance, the scene where Dennis Hopper is in the green-lighted pool room taking pictures of himself. The shot is beautiful and it certainly looks like it’s supposed to mean something but that isn’t explicitly revealed. While we might know what’s happening on the train, we don’t know what’ going on in Dennis Hopper’s head. He probably doesn’t even know what’s going through his head. This is another instance where movies are similar to pictures, they are both left open for personal interpretation.




through the eyes of a painting
response by BLONDE VS. BRUNETTE

In the 1977 Wim Wenders film The American Friend, it appears that the artful practice of painting and all aspects thereof, has a quite significant impact on the film. Interestingly a few of the key characters--Tom Ripley, Jonathan Zimmerman, and "Derwatt" to name a few--are all in some aspect involved with painting. Derwatt is a painter faking dead to make a buck, while Tom Ripley deals Ray’s paintings and finally Jonathan Zimmerman frames them with perfection.

All throughout the narrative are glimpses of various landscapes painted by Derwatt. Much attention is dealt to the colors involved as well as the subject matter which arguably is reflected visually within the film itself. For example, more or less halfway through the film, there is a shot from a hotel window several stories high, and out through a large window is a magnificent view of the cityscape with striking blue hues. If one recalls in the early stages of the film, an art buyer at an auction comments on the blue hues of Derwatt’s painting and how they just don’t look right. Thus Derwatt’s blue tinted landscape is reflected later on in the film through the high-rise view which itself doesn’t quite look correct with such a striking and unrealistic use of blue hues.

Wenders himself studied as a painter in Paris before he ventured on into filmmaking and included painting as an integral part of his films. Perhaps he was even influenced by various artists throughout his filmmaking career. One such artist could questionably be Edward Hopper, whose paintings display vivid colors, high contrast and an undeniable film noir quality to them. Wenders may have been influenced by the unique way in which Hopper deals with the urban setting. Also Hopper characteristically contrasts dark hues with bright vivid colors, particularly red. This is similar to Wender’s film in which there will be a dramatic thrust of color especially in the scene following one of the murders which displays a blood red sunset and a few buildings. It could be deduced that there is an interesting dichotomy between the two. Hopper’s paintings are influenced by the films of his time while Wender’s films are influenced by Hopper’s paintings among others.

>  >  >  >   n o i r  h o m e