A murderous footballer’s journey is the focus of this majestic meditation on madness, misogyny and the American dream
Wim Wenders’s debut movie from 1972, now on rerelease, is a fantastically strange, lugubrious existential crime noir based on the novel by Peter Handke (with whom Wenders co-wrote the screenplay). It is now sadly stuck with the clumsiest and most tin-eared translated title imaginable, terrible compared with The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty, which was what Handke’s book was generally called for English-speaking audiences. It is a bit of an ironic time for this film to reappear here, of course. The English no longer have any fear of penalties.
The scene is a football match in Vienna, where the goalkeeper for the visiting side is shown impassively standing in the goalmouth watching the action at the other end. He has the faintly Kafkaesque name of Joseph Bloch (played by...
Wim Wenders’s debut movie from 1972, now on rerelease, is a fantastically strange, lugubrious existential crime noir based on the novel by Peter Handke (with whom Wenders co-wrote the screenplay). It is now sadly stuck with the clumsiest and most tin-eared translated title imaginable, terrible compared with The Goalkeeper’s Fear of the Penalty, which was what Handke’s book was generally called for English-speaking audiences. It is a bit of an ironic time for this film to reappear here, of course. The English no longer have any fear of penalties.
The scene is a football match in Vienna, where the goalkeeper for the visiting side is shown impassively standing in the goalmouth watching the action at the other end. He has the faintly Kafkaesque name of Joseph Bloch (played by...
- 7/13/2018
- by Peter Bradshaw
- The Guardian - Film News
Very few movements in film history have been as rewarding, and yet as undervalued among film fans, as that of the New German Cinema. With names like Rainer Werner Fassbinder now beginning to be muttered in broad collections of film fans, the world of German filmmaking that came to light in the late 1960s has birthed some of the greatest auteurs of its generation, even a handful that are still turning out some of their best work. Most notably filmmakers like Werner Herzog have transitioned from this movement into worlds that they themselves have broken the ground on.
Same could be said for one Wim Wenders.
Best known for masterpieces like Wings Of Desire and Paris, Texas, the filmmaker is to this day pushing the boundaries of what cinema can do. With 3D films like Pina and his startlingly poignant Salt Of The Earth, Wenders has had a more than productive career spanning 5 decades,...
Same could be said for one Wim Wenders.
Best known for masterpieces like Wings Of Desire and Paris, Texas, the filmmaker is to this day pushing the boundaries of what cinema can do. With 3D films like Pina and his startlingly poignant Salt Of The Earth, Wenders has had a more than productive career spanning 5 decades,...
- 8/28/2015
- by Joshua Brunsting
- CriterionCast
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