Kings of the Road: Wim Wenders' Road Movies Depicting Movement and Landscapes

Kings of the Road (Im Lauf der Zeit / 1976)

The three films Wim Wenders shot between 1974 and 1976, "Alice in the Cities", "Wrong Move", and "Kings of the Road", are etched into film history as his "Road Movie Trilogy".

Of course, many excellent road movies had been made before that within the outlaw movement represented by American New Cinema, such as "Bonnie and Clyde" (1967), "Easy Rider" (1969), "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), "Alice's Restaurant" (1970), "Two-Lane Blacktop" (1971), "Vanishing Point" (1971), "Badlands" (1973), "Paper Moon" (1973), and "Scarecrow" (1973).

Some move to escape crimes they have committed (flight), some move to meet people (searching for someone), some move for work (business), and some move without purpose after losing love (wandering).

A road movie is a world that exists because the characters are moving. And it is not about celebrating freedom; there is also the lack of freedom in having to move against one's will.

Why, then, are we so strongly drawn to Wenders' road movies? Is it because he is a German who keeps his distance from Hollywood? Is it because he is a director who insists on monochrome imagery? If I were to name one reason, it might be that he is a filmmaker who depicts "landscapes".

In Wenders' road movies, the "landscape" is more important than the characters and becomes the protagonist. The viewer is enveloped in the feeling of being on the same journey, almost as if they were inside a moving photo album. What one can feel in that "landscape" is also the aesthetic of Wenders' films.

It is said that for the final chapter of the road movie trilogy, "Kings of the Road" (Im Lauf der Zeit / 1976), the "landscape" around the border of the then-West and East Germany—the route from Lüneburg to Hof—was decided first before filming began. The script and dialogue were determined while moving during the 11 weeks of shooting.

Wenders is also famous for taking his own photographs of the land before filming. In the case of "Kings of the Road", it began with inspiration from the 1930s rural landscape photographs of Walker Evans, a legendary figure in American photography who also had a profound influence on Robert Frank.

Born in Germany in 1945, Wenders loved American culture from a young age and had a strong interest in movies, music, and comics. When he was a student, he encountered director Nicholas Ray's "They Live by Night" (1948), a story of love and flight between Bowie and Keechie.

Rock music was also one of those interests, and his feature debut "Summer in the City" (1970) is dedicated to the British band The Kinks. Furthermore, in the summer of 1973, he was shocked to watch Peter Bogdanovich's "Paper Moon", because it was so similar to his just-finished "Alice in the Cities".

In this way, homage to American culture and "landscapes" is the backbone of Wenders' work, and he has even said that he would never make a film that did not feature things like cars, televisions, motels, diners, phone booths, gas stations, billboards, and neon signs.

It is also a characteristic that a lonely journey is interrupted, an unexpected encounter with a stranger occurs, and before they know it, a relationship is built where they look in the same direction and talk side by side.

And then there is the music. In "Kings of the Road", there are scenes where they hum Bob Dylan or Robert Johnson's "Love in Vain" in the car or at stations along the way, and the music that blends into the "landscape" is incredibly memorable.

A few days where two men's wanderings—two separate lines—intersect. "Kings of the Road" was a masterpiece that depicted such a time.

Bruno is a film projectionist who has been traveling around small-town cinemas for nearly two years, using a large van as his bed. One morning, he witnesses a man driving his car at high speed into a river. The man is named Robert, and he seems to have just divorced his wife. From there, Robert accompanies Bruno on his rounds in his van.

The two, having such exchanges, make children laugh with improvised plays at cinemas and listen to the story of a man whose wife committed suicide in a closed-down mine. And they each visit the homes of their birthplaces.

Robert visits his father, a printer living alone, and Bruno visits the house where he lived with his mother, now abandoned. Something had sprouted in the hearts of these two men as they re-examined their origins. Things cannot stay the same forever. Things eventually change.

After parting ways with Robert, Bruno, realizing the successive closures of movie theaters in town, contemplates the end of an era and a new resolve... It would be seven years later that Wenders would film his timeless masterpiece 'Paris, Texas'.

Text/Mitsuhiro Nakano

Reference/ "Switch" (August 1988 issue)

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