PDF: American and European Voices in the Films of European

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American and European Voices
jn the Films of European Filmmakers
Wim Wenders, Percy Adlon and Aki Kaurismaki
Janina Falkowska
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I
l-
CET ARTICLE TRAITE DE LA NOTION DE «DISCOURS
VOIX» DANS LES FILMS PARIS, TEXAS
ET LENINGRAD COWBOYS
Go
(1984),
TO AMERICA
A DOUBLE
BAGDAD CAFE (1987)
(1989.)
LES DISCOURS
.EUROPEENS ET AMERICAINS DA:t\iS CES' OEUVRES CONSTITUENT UNE
«DOUBLE VOlX»' NON SEULEMENT AU NIVEAU DE LA DIEGESE DES
FILMS MAIS AUSSI PAR L'INTERMEDIAIRE DE MODES DE PRESENTA-
t
TION PARTICULIERS. CET ARTICLE EXAMINE LES PROCEDES PAR
LESQUELS LES VOlX EUROPEENNES ETAMERICAINES SEMANIFESTENT PAR LES TECHNIQUES DE PRESENTATION ET LA CONSTRUCTION
DU
LANGAGE
CINEMATOGRAPHIQUE
CREANT
UN
EFFET
HYBRIDE ET MULTIVOCAL.
Introduction
my coming to America in
I have been interested in
Since
the interweaving of American and European voices in visual
1987
culture. For eight years I have traced the influence of Europe as
a cultural and ideological construct in North America, and have
pursued the depictions of America in European films. This essay
illustrates some basic deliberations on these issues as presented in
Canadian Joul1Ull of Film Studies/Revue canadienne d'etudes cinematographi'1ues Vol 6 N" 1
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20
JAN I N A
~F A L K 0 W S K A
American and European Voices...
21
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three films by European directors. In the article I debate the ways
in which American and European voices are manifested in Paris,
Texas (1984), Bagdad Cafe (1987) and Leningrad Cowboys Go America
(1989) by Wim Wenders, Percy AdIon and Aki Kaurismiiki,
respectively. The European and American voices in th:se. fil~s
create a double-voiced discourse not only through the films d1egetlc
content, but also through the manner of presentation. The main
focus of this paper is the analysis of the double-voiced discourse
as I explore the technique$ of presentation and the constructi?~ of
the cinematic language which together create an effect of hybndization and multivoicedness in these films. 2
The three filmmakers incorporate the European and Ameri.can
voices in an innovative manner with a Brechtian distanciation from
the themes presented. Wim Wenders, the most prominent one of
the three belongs to the New German Cinema -group, which also
prided itself on such names as Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Werner
Herzog, Alexander Kluge and Volker Schlondorff. Following the
Oberhausen Manifesto, these filmmakers created a cinema of
recognizable identity, which sought new forms of freedom "from
the conventions and habits of the established industry, from
intervention by commercial partners, and finally freedom from the
tutelage of other vested interests."3 One ofthe best known directors
of the New GermanCinema, Wenders is often characterized as the
"existentialist" of the movement. Stylistically, his films blend
Hollywood forms and genres with elements of counter-cin~ma.
Thematically, his films attempt to disclose states of consclOUSness-loneliness, irresolution, anxiety-and explore the ambivalent
impact of American culture on post-WWII German life.
Percy Adlon, another German filmmaker, made his re~utation. with
the film Zuckerbaby (1985), a subversive comedy W1th Mananne
Sagebrecht in the main role. This film was followed by two others
with the same comedic actress, Bagdad Cafl (1988) and Ro~alie Goes
Shopping (1990).
Aki Kaurismaki, a Finn, is an inventive, prolific young director
who began receiving international recognition in the late 1980s.
Kaurismaki's output has ranged from wacky, comic-book style
adventures (Calamari Union, 1985, Leningrad Cowboys Go' America,
1989) to revisionist adaptations of literary classics (Crime and
Punishment, 1983, Hamlet Goes Business, 1987), and he has proved
himself adept at combining gritty, noir-ish realism with sly, sardonic
humour (Ariel, 1988). With his brother Mika and other directors
including Pekka .Parikka, Kaurismaki is at the forefront of a
burgeoning new wave of Finnish cinema. In their. films the three
filmmak~rs present '-:merica in an ironical manner, humourously
summorung the dorrunant stereotypes while relating to them in the
context of their own cultures.
It is worth noting at this pOint that the designation "America"
~s realized .inthese films in several manners. All the films take place
m the Urutes States of America. Thus, in referring to "America"
a particular geographical location is invoked (as it follows a general
way of thinking of Europeans, the British included who usually
refer to the USA as America). However, America in these films also
exists as cultural constructs referred to, on the one hand, as the
"New World," a Virgin aWaiting to be possessed, cultivated and
explOited; a "natural" realm aWaiting Europe's cultural advances
(clearly an affront to the cultures and civilizations of the First
Nations); and on the other, the product of capitalism run amok,
a country whose culture is debased by fmancial interest. These
three realizations of the designation "America" lie at the basis of
the interpretation of the American voice in the three films. 4
As early as the 1920s, America has been presented by European
filmmakers as a mythical place full of miraculously tall skyscrapers
an.d fabulously wealthy people. For instance, in Metropolis (1926),
:ntz Lang shows a city reple~e with mysterious skyscrapers and
mnumerable cars going in all possible directions-an image, which,
as Lang says in his own words, originated from the impressions
he had of New York during his first trip to the city.' This enthusiastic, mo~ological a~proach to America as a land of technological
wonders 1S replaced 10 the films ofWim Wenders, Percy Adlon and
Aki Ka~ri~~aki by ~n ambiguous image of North America depicted
as a pnm1tlve contlnent which, though colonized by Europe, has
not been entirely civilized by it and, alternately, as an imaginary
realm, full of beauty and innocence related to the unspoiled
l~ndscape ~nd the concept of the noble savage. By such a presenta!lon, the directors seem to reiterate Walt Whitman's vision of the
American West whereby "nature loomed larger than ciVilization
and where feudalism had never been established."6 In these films,
and es~ecia~ly in Bagdad Caft, Europeans in America are stereotypically vlsuahzed as colonizers-unwelcome intruders who impose
their old-fashioned European values onto free and happy American
!
22
JANINA .PALKOWSK.A
natives,. but they are also seen as individuals wl;1o reluctantly accept
the freedom .and.power which Arnerica offers whi\e retaining their
oldcfashionedsystem of values.
In ~uch stereotypical presentations, these contemporary
film~akers do not venture far from the first depictions of the
encounter b~tween Europe, the colonizer, and America as presented
in an engraving by Jan van der Straat (Stradanus) around 1600. The
engraving depicts a native woman lying naked being approached
by a. fully clad Vespucci, who looks at her with amazement
apparent in his face. The engraving epitomizes a meeting whose
narrative European discourse has repeated over and over to itself
ever since the end of the fifteenth century. As Peter Hulme notes,
In line with existing EuropeaJl'graphic convention the 'new' continent
was often allegorized as a woman and surrounded with the paraphernalia seen as typically American: parrots, tapirs, bows and arrows, and
cannibal feasts. The sexual dimension of the encounter with Vespucci
is both visually and linguistically explicit.'
This allegory of a new continent visualized as a naked woman
implies not only the sexual dimension but also a series of semantic
constructs, pervasive in cultural depictions of America for years
afterward. Since the time of its colonization America has been
semantically associated with, on the one hand, purity, nature, vast
spaces and the beauty of the landscape, and, on the other, with
cultural (meaning in those times European) lack of sophistication.
This lack of sophistication implies America's childishness and
naivete. In the chapter "Innocence of Nature" of his book, Virgin
Land: the American West as Symbol and Myth, Henry Nash Smith
comments on these characteristics when he summarizes Charles W.
Webber's book, Old Hicks, the Guide (1848). Webber interprets the
Western wilderness within the framework of primitivism with the
Indians presented as "children of ancient mother nature,"S
Europe, conversely, has always presented itself as a' cultured
saviour, a conqueror of nature and savage peoples. Almost four
centuries after van der Straat's engraving, the same underlying
representational dichotomy is present in the films of European
filmmakers: although less obvious and presented in a visually
sophisticated and diegetically intelligent manner, the basic opposition
of the savage. vs. the civilized, remains the same. Still, new
American and European Voices...
23
developments are seen in these films: first, America no -longer
of its lack of "culture" but prou dl y exposes
seems
.
. ' to be ashamed
.
ltS differences from Europe and treats the latter as an unwelcome
and unnecessary intrusion, a rupture which does not contribute to
any new cultural or ideological developments; and, second, the
~uropean filmmak~rs seem to be fascinated with the beauty and
Innocence of Amenca and show this fascination in a cinematically
exquisite manner. 9
In all three films" the two voices, the American and the
~urope~n, form two separate "otheJ;s" which manifest themselves
lO
1n tenaclOUS stereotypical cultural depicti.ons. As will become clear
from the discussion of the films, the vision of America emerging
from th~se. films, and the way Europe is seen by American
p~ota~omsts, are dialogically interrelated and they overlap in
dieg~tlc and ~rtistic manners. These hybridized voices produce a
poetlc. result 10 pari~, Texas and a comedic and a slightly surrealist
effect 10 Bagdad Cafe and Leningrad Cowboys Go America. In all three
films t~e Europeans mark their presence in the ways the im~ges
uncannily replay cultural prejudices and stereotypes. These conceptu~l constructs can basically be summarized by a number of
dichotomies in which Europe appears as a civilized and cultural
colonizer and America as a colonized savage. As will become clear
from the analysis of three films by these respective film directors
the underlying paradigms of civilized/savage, colonizer/colOnized:
and c~lture/nature, lurk behind sophisticated images in the film
by Wlm Wenders with his poetic depictions of America, and in the
films by Percy Adlon and Aki Kaurismaki with their comic
approaches.
The American Voice
L~t me concentrate on the first voice in these films: the
Amencan. The films discussed here reveal their own vision of
Am.erica which is ironic, strange and surreai in Wim Wenders's
P~ns, Texas; funny and unexpectedly warm in Bagdad Cafe; and
dIstanced and sardonic in Leningrad Cowboys Go America. The three
films differ from each other in what constitutes America for the
respective directors. In Paris, Texas, America is presented (mediated)
as a landscape, which, in the form of a series of beautiful
~equences, is appropriated or absorbed by American protagonists
m the film. In Bagdad Caff America is depicted as a hostile,
24
JANINA
FALKOWSKA
forbidding land inhabited by well-meaning, decent folks, seen
through the eyes of anewcomer.-a German tourist. In this film,
unlike in Paris,Texa,s, iUs not the landscape which constitutes the
essence of America but the American people, "desert flowers," who
are slowly appreciated by the newcomer and later transformed by
her. In Leningrad Cowboys Go America, on the other hand, America
is constructed throl;lgh the music which the band members play
in order to earn their living. America as a physical reality is not
recognized by the protagonists of Leningrad Cowboys Go America;
it does not exist for them. However, America as "other" exists for
the spectators, in the form of sequences depicting the passing
lam:lscape. Landscape, people and music-these three elements
constitute the fabric of the representation of America in the
respective films, realized with the help of various cinematic
'
techniques.
Wenders's Paris, Texas, produced on the basis of the screenplay
by the American playwright Sam Shepard, tells the story of Travis
Anderson, his wife Jane and his brother, Walt. Four years prior to
the action of the fllm, Travis Anderson and his wife, Jane, vanished.
. Their young son, Hunter, was left with Travis's brother, Walt, who
has been raising the boy as his own. Now, with no explanation as.
to why he left or has come back, Travis simply reappears; Walt
and his wife, Anne, unquestioningly take Travis into their home.
For 8-year-old Hunter, who has accepted Walt and Anne as his
parents, it means having two fathers, one of whom is a complete
stranger. For Anne, it raises the spectre of losing the boy whom
she loves dearly. For Walt, it means ongoing frustration as Travis
continues to remain silent about what happened years ago. One·
day, Travis takes Hunter away with him in order to find his wife
and Hunter's real, biological mother. According to Wenders in his
commentary on the film, the film ends with "an amazing act of
love,"l1 as both Hunter and Travis finally find Jane. Travis returns
Hunter to Jane and disappears.
As Norman Denzin explains it, Wenders presents Travis's
travels as a phenomenological experience in which "the senses are
heightened and awarenesses are intensified."lz The film is filled with
nostalgia for the past and for the family. It is self-reflexive in tone,
yet framed by a conventional sense of narrative cinema (the
biographical form, ambiguous closure, and so on). Admired by
critics (Studlar, 1985; Kauffmann, 1984; Lennett, 1985; Hoberman,
American and European Voices...
25
1984; Denby, 1984; but see Reed, 1984 and Canby 1984) 13n .
T".
'
,rans,
exas reverberates WIth the mythiC resonance of the view that
America is the last frontier, even as it focuses on the problematic
of ~.e ~erican archetype of the wandering male, the outsider
familIar In legend, literature and film."14
In this Vie:, Tr~~is seems to be modeled after the mythic
Western hero, a fugltlve from civilization who could not endure
the encroachment of settlements upon his beloved wilderness "15
This ~ero: loosely based on the persona of Daniel Boone, "co~ld
not lIve rn K~ntucky when it became settled...he might have
accuml;l1ated fiches as readily as any man in Kentucky, but he
prefers the woods, where you see him in the dress of the roughest
poorest
hunter."16
This idea of a lonely inhabitant.
of the ,
West an'
'
.
.
I~OruC represent~tion of a Western hero in all cultural representatIOns, and espeCIally American westerns,' underlies the construction
of a West~rn .hero in Sam Shepard's Motel Chronicles (1982) which
gav.e a begmnrng to the mm's sCript. As Norman Denzin interprets.
Pans,. Texas, the film is "the Wenders-Shepard story·
a m 0 d'ern
.
,
verSIOn of the saddle-tramp story which combines the American
car-centered cUI:u~e as a symbol of freedom, with the concept of
the
traveler as hvrng on the edge of society. "17 The c0 11ab oratlOn
.
.
With Sam Shepard on the mm involved not only the script but the
process of film production, as well. Shepard even suggested the
l~cation for the first sequences of the film, as Wenders recalls in
hls book, The Logic of Images. Essays and Conversations. 1s The
collaboration. between Wenders and Shepard on thi s project,
.
an d
the productIOn of a mm in which the hybridization of American
and European vOic.es is extremely pronounced, was Widely comn:ented upon. In his book, Gennan Cinema: Texts in Context, Marc
Silberman reports that'
the American reception among mm critics was restrained, concentrating
o~ .Wenders's appropriation of programmatically American myth whil
failIng to recognize that "America" can represent different imagina~
construct~ on either side of the Atlantic ... In Gennany, on the other
h~d, Pans, Texas was perceived as Wenders's most Gennan mm since
Kmgs of the Road, West German critics were unified in their admiratio
of the mm's aesthetic appeal."
n
It is worth noting~at this point thatWenders's fascination with
America is justified by his seven year life in the USA. In the years
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JAN I N A
F
A LK 0 W S K A
1978-85 Wim Wenders lived and worked in America,zQ whic~ .part~y
explains his utopian image of America a~ ~n i~aginary V1S10,~ m
Paris, Texas, He extensively writes about It m ~s o:"n essay,. Der
' h e T.raum. "21 An. d as Denzin explams,- hke Baudn11ard,1
amerikarusc
Wenders is "a disillusioned European, a carrier of a cultura
tradition which has found, with few prior exceptions, a wel~ome
.
. the United States', ,.. [he is] in quest of f an 1dentrecepuon
In
. "22
'
[ nd] is taken by the myth of America as the last ronuer,
1ty... a
hi "£
11
However, Wim Wenders has described pa~:, Texas as ,s arewe,
to an imaginary country called America. 23 Elaboratmg on. this
statement he observed that by making the film he had got nd of
the preoccupation, the fascination he had had with America as a
mythical place. "The very word 'America,"'. says Wenders,
"always means so much more than just t,h~ Uruted States, even
for Americans. America has been this b1g plac~ whe~e p~ople
invested all their hopes, not just a country, but still an ll~agm~
place."24 In Paris, Texas all of the protagonists are ~encan bu
the European directorial eye makes ,the~ doub~y al1enated-from
themselves and from the reality of life m Amenca.
In this film, America as an imaginary place is mediate,d through
brilliant cinematography which positions the protagorusts so~e­
where in between reality and a dream from which they are try~g
to awaken, The dreamlike quality of the American landscape ~hich
forms an integral part of this waking process is mast~r~,~ly ~e~,1cted
in split frames and surreal shots. The landscape 1S mS1de ~e
characters and outside them at the same time. T~e prota~orusts
constantly look at the landscape and the surrounding~ as 1f they
are seeing them for the first time. This reawakenmg .of the
protagonists, Travis, Walt and Hunter, always happens wl~h ~he
American landscape as the "other" intruding upon them, rem~ndmg
both the spectators and the protagonists that it eXi~ts, .and 1S part
of their psycholOgical constitution. In this adm1ra~lOn o~ the
American landscape, Wenden; seems to repeat (and ~emforce.) the
first impressions of Columbus on his arrival in Ame,nc.a. Columbus
describes his first moments on the American SOlI m the letter
addressed to the Spanish monarch,
When I came to Juana (Cuba), 1 followed its coast to the wes,tward,
and I found it to be so extensive that I thought it must be the mlll?land,
the province of Cathay. And since there were neither towns nor villages
f
[
American and European Voices...
27
on the seashore, but small hamlets only, with the people of which 1
could not have speech because they all fled immediately, 1 went
forward on the same course, thinking that'l could not fail to find great
cities or towns ... (emphasis added, J 191-92.)25
I
~.
I
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l
Like Columbus before him, Wenders, a European filln director,
seems to be awed by the enormity of the continent and also, like
many after Columbus, he is clearly fascinated by the beauty of the
landscape and, in consequence, makes the protagonists of his fIlm
reassess and repossess them with him. In the car, the protagonists
look 'at the passing scenery; in a motel room and at Walt's home
they look out of the Windows, and look down at a Los Angeles
valley; and, then, they look inward, submerged in their own
psychblogical problems. All the shots in Wenders's film are carefully
constructed to depict this mediating and mediated look of the
characters, the camera and the director. Editing constructs the
reality of the gaze and of the landscape at which the gaze is
directed within one sequence functioning as the referent to the
psychological condition of the characters. At the same time, this
constant reassessment of the surrounding reality produces a peculiar
hybrid of the American reality and the European sensitivity which
utilizes the eyes of American protagonists as mediators'- America
as "other," an imaginary realm of dreams and memories, is
presented in a non-conventional way, with its beauty a little askew
and surprisingly surrealistic objects appearing in the frame out of
nowhere, causing characters to look at them in astonishment. 'Like
Wenders, like other newcomers to America, they constantly wake
up to America's surrealist "otherness," The director realizes that
the complexities of America cannot be easily dismissed by framing
them withiIJ. the dichotomy of good (meaning Europe) and bad
(meaning America); or civilised (Europe) vs. savage (America). In
his depiction of the American "other," instead of criticizing the
American reality, Wenders concentrates on the nature! civilization
dichotomy, as it is the landscape which in the film expresses
Wenders's and Travis's naive longing for America's 'natural'
innocence.
A different, more cynical (poignant) reappropriation of the
American "other" is seen in Percy Adlon's Bagdad Cafe, The film
explores the confrontation of provincial Bavaria with a desert
outpost in the American West. Jasmin Munchgstetter, a middle-aged
28
JANINA
FAL.KOWSKA
middle-class German tourist, parts company with her husband on
a highway in tl).e middle of nowhere and. struggles o~ with her
suitcase in' search of the nearest settlement.' She lands lIT a place
called Bagdad which consists of no more than a rundown cafemotel and filling station, and a motley bunch of desert flowers,
including Brenda, the hard-headed black woman who runs the place
with her idle family; Rudy Cox, a former set-painter in Hollywood
who now lives in a caravan in the desert and paints his own
canvases; Debbie, a tattoo artist, who caters to the tattooing needs
of passing truck drivers; and an Indian sheriff..
.
. Jasmin rents a room at the motel and deCldes to stay m
Bagdad, which does not please. Brenda, who senses that ~e
newcomer from Rosenheim will disturb their sleepy way of life.
Sure enough, Jasmin soon tidies . up the motel, takes care of the
children helps out in the coffee shop and generally concerns herself
with thi~gs that are none of her b~~iness. Slowly Brenda's antago~­
ism towards her melts, and the pair has a most successful magic
show running in the coffee bar that attracts the truck drivers from
miles around-until the sheriff informs Jasmin one day that her
permit has expired and she must leave.
.
In Bagdad Cafe, Jasmin functions as a European mtruder and
colonizer. The American desert with its strange combination of
exotic characters appears as a surreal, and, from Jasmin's point of
view an uncolonized "other." In his modern-day version of the
colo~izer, Adlon presents j asmin as a person who changes American
natives, untidy, lazy, and revealing a general lack of purpose or
direction, into well-behaved, culturally sophiSticated European
clones. In this presentation of the European colonizer Adlon seems
to recall Webber's primitivistic theory in which "his tributes to
a natural as contrasted with a civilized life return again and again
to the notion that the essence of civilization is struggle."z6 Following this paradigm, Jasmin overpowers Bagdad Cafe perpetuating,
as Konstanze Streese and Kerry Shea note, "the colonial notion
of 'the white saving the black,' i.e., of the legitimacy of colonization as a means toward the 'betterment' of the colonized and
their cireumstances."Z7
America as "other" is seen as a land of the innocent, decent
folk who do not know how to make good coffee, keep the cafe
tidy, play classical music, and, in general, how to behave themselves. From her position at the window in Bagdad Cafe, Jasmin
American and European Voices; ..
29
sees America's innocence personified by the cafe's owners and customers, whom she will slOWly but gradually transform into civilized
representatives of the human kind. America as the innocent "other"
is mediated through Jasmin's eyes in poetic sequences which consist
of shots of Jasmin juxtaposed with romanticized shots of the cafe's
patro~s behind the cafe's window. Seen through yellow filters,
Amencan roughnecks look like innocent children who have to be
taken proper care of by a motherly, good-natured Jasmin. At first,
the American ~'other" responds aggressively to jasmin's civilizing
efforts by shOWing distrust and anger, but later, charmed by her
openness and vulnerability, the American people allow themselves
to be won entirely over by her. The process of colonization by
motherly Europe is complete-Bagdad Cafe changes into a civilized
coffee shop with artistic pretensions as Jasmin and Brenda run a
magic show, and nobody curses or gets furty in the motel's office
any more. Konstanze Streese and Kerry Shea's article, "Who's
Looking? Who's Laughing? Of Multicultural Mothers and Men in
Percy Adlon's Bagdad Cafe," -chosen speCifically for its reve~ling
discussion of racism in the film-comments on this "miracle":
In Bagdad Cafe a spiritual, later on even entrepreneurial, bonding
between Brenda and Jasmin is presented as the self-understood
~onseq~ence of. shared gender definitions (" ... we both know, a change
IS .commg, commg closer, sweet release"). But one needs to recognize
thIS arrangement as the ideological gloss that allows not only for the
film's continuous disregard of social and cultural disparities, but also
for the deception of the audience about the neo-colonial strategies of
representation. and narration in the film.l8
In Bagdad Cafe the American and the European "others"
become objects of laughter. The comic effect is obt'ained thanks
to the opposition of uncivilized America to civilised Europe-:-the
opposition which is crudely played upon by Adlon in his presentation of tidy vs. untidy protagonists, mostly white Europeans vs.
black Americans, etc. Although the fihn is a warming and charming
comedy, its subcurrent of racism is poignant. As Streese and Shea
note, "it remains astounding how neatly the authors of the script
managed to fit their story, probably against their cognitive intentions, into an allegory for the entire process of colonial expansion
and neo-colonial domination."29
--------=-J AN
INA
F
A LK 0 W S K A
American and European Voices...
In Leningrad- Cowboys Go America, on the other hand, America
is depicted,as a lonely and cruel place, inaccessible to Europ~an
protagonists because of their lack of· knowle~e. of the. English
language. The film tells a story of a mediocre Fmillsh musICal band
who live somewhere in the tundra; In order to earn some money
they decide togo to the United States where, t~ey thi~, the
unsophisticated Americans wilLaccept almostanythmg. Lenm~ad
Cowboys land in New York where the American tour orgamzer
soon realizes that the band is hopeless by American standards and
decides to send them down to Mexico to play at his cousin's
wedding. The band travels in an old Cadillac, Wit~ th~ corp~e. of
their brother on the car's top and with their native village Idiot
following them wherever they go. The band ends tqeir t~ip in
Mexico where they decide to play the same type of folk Iluxture
they were used to playing backin their old country. This time their
audience enjoys their music and the film ends on a happy note.
. Leningrad Cowboys Go America seems to function as a parody
of a western in which the newcomers from the "civilized" East
arrive to conquer the "uncivilized" West. The quotation marks are
intentional here as in the general cultural perception of stereotypes,
the Finnish peasants coming to America are the ones who seek
enlightenment, money and the "American dream." To sophisticated
American audiences it is the musicians who seem to lack the lustre
of the Western civilization and have to be instructed how to appeal
to Americans. The westward expansion of the Leningrad Cowboys
poorly imitateS the expansion of the true American ones, ~hus
transforming and parodying the central model of the Amencan
tradition.
In Leningrad Cowboys Go America, America as "other" exists for
the spectators, but is not appropriated by the mam protagonists of
the film. The members of the musical band do not even look at
the American landscape or people through the car Windows; they
look straight ahead or rather they do not look outside at all. Their
look is an inward look indicating a state of contemplative stasis
which allows. them to remain within the boundaries of their own
European realm. America is presented as a parallel "other,:' an
adjacent entity, as a construct not transformable, not appropnated
by the protagonists and not understood by. them. at all.
For the Finnish band members Amenca eXlsts as a set of
references, an inventory of cliches to which they return in rare
.A&Q.JJ1&h2 _ &&tb.
I
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31
conversations and which have no correspondence to the situations
they are involved in. These cliches also involve references to a
weste~n present in the AmericanformuI:aic lineage as a romantic
narrative, a tale which insists on the idealizations of characters who
wield near-magical. ~owers. Here I agree with Kitses that only this
very general defiOltlOn of a western gives proper merit to all its
varieties; thus, "the model [of a western] we must hold before us
is o~ a varied and flexible structure,a thematically fertile and
ambIguous ~or1d of historical material shot through with archetypal
elements which are themselves ever in flUX."30 With its conquest
of the West, an introdUCtion of refinement, culture and individualism, the western constitutes an archetypal text, accurately though
broadly surpmarized by Kitses,
The ~oma~tic.mainstreamthat the western took on from pulp literature
prOVided It With the stately ritual of displaced myth, the movement of
a god-like figure into the demonic wasteland, the death and resurrection, the return to a paradisal gard~n. Within the fo~ni were to be
found seminal 'archetypes COrilmon to all myth, the journey and the
quest, the ceremonies of love and marriage, food and drink, the
rhythms of waking and sleeping, life and death. But the incursions of
melodrama and revenge had turned the form on its axis, the Structure
torn in the directions of both morality play and tragedy. Overlaying
and inter~ene~atingthe historical thematic there was an archetypal and
meta.PhyslcalIdeolo~as well. Manifest destiny was answered by divine
prOVIdence, a ClaSSIcal conception of fate brooding over the sins of
man. Where hi~tory. was lOcalizing and authenticating archetype,
archetype was stifferung and universalizing history."
The spectators react to the icons of a western among which the
quest, the journey and the confrontation, all present in Leningrad
Cowboys Go America, take on an allegorical overtone. Accordingly,
the land of the western, America, is shown in the, film as a set of
cultural stereotypes-big cars, endless roads, seedy bars, ruthless bar
Owners and disapprOVing audiences. The band members try to
transform themselves through music in order to please the America
of their dreams: the country of big bucks and rich food. Nothing
really works. The America they approach remains as alien and
inaccessible as the America of which they had dreamt in their own
country.
",cq
------------'
••;$.
American and European Voices...
JANINA
33
FALKOWSKA
In response to this lack of acceptance by Americans, Leningrad
Cowboys perform cultural rites (a funeral, ~fire in the desert, a
drink in the bar) as if the reality surrounding them belonged to
Finland, not to America, making the latter subjectively disappear.
After covering almost all of the country from New York to Mexico,
they are fmally able to enjoy t?emselves in the surroundings a~d
cultural atmosphere which is similar to the cultural atmosphere m
their own country. The peasant origins of Mexican culture affect
them deeply. They happily return to the kind of music they had
played in Finland, relieved of.the necessity'to .tr~~sfo~ t~emselve~
into American clones. America as the mythic other disappears,
in fact it did not exist at all for the band members. The only
person who notices it and appropriates it for himself is the village
idiot who in his naive curiosity is able to appreciate the goodnatured innocence of American folks.
Three Americas as "other": an America romanticised, mythologised, hybridised, and reappropriated by in infatuated Wenders in
Paris, Texas; an America ridiculed and mercilessly transformed by
Percy Adlon in Bagdad Cafe; and an .America non-existe~t and
hostile in Aki Kaurismaki's Leningrad Cowboys Go Amenca are
physically present in all these films. However: textually, t~ey
function as three different entities, three subjective realms which
have to be understood as separate voices in the films. America as
a voice is imprinted onto the film's semanti~ fa9ric anddialogized
within the intricate web of meanings in Pans, Texas. In Bagdad Cafe
it is clearly heard in its entirety by the protagonists and the
spectators, but is presented as a mono10gicaI construct which is
transformed by jasmin, the colonizer. And, in Leningrad Cowboys
Go America, America as a voice is presented as a monolithic
assembly of images, the meaning of which remains inaccessible to
all the parties in the film.
The European Voice
In all three films, Europe, in its diegetic component and
representational form, constitutes an intrUsion and a rupture.
Especially in Bagdad Cafe and Leningrad Cowboys Go America this
insertion or imposition of the European element is clearly seen and
is more significant than the poetiC double-voicedness in Paris, Texas.
Paris, Texas, in its diegesis, does not even reveal its European
roots-in fact, the only way to learn about the film's Europeanness
is through ~he knowledge of the European origins of Wim Wenders'.,In Pan~, Texas, the European element is represented in the
film s poetics and its specific treatment of mise-en-scene and
characters.32 In Bagdad Cafl and Lenin;grad Cowboys Go America, on
the ?~her hand, the European element appears as the films' most
exphat element and point of reference. Streese and Shea state even
th,at
Bagdad Cafi, Adlonuses "Wim Wenders's mode of
alienatlOn (an~ expands the film's potential for marketing in the
USA) bylocatmg the events in the arid Southwest of the Urn't d
Sta,tes "33 b ut t h e fi11m is baSically about Germans and their own
e
u:
attitudes. In fact, "through the friendship between Brenda and
Jasmin, Bagdad Cafe thus touches upon the issues of race as well
as ~ender, s~arkingr~cognition in boththe USA and Germany with
their exclUSIve defimtions
of cultural
identity,be
r
.
eth
y b ase d on
concepts of sexual, national, ethnic, or social a1terity."34
. In ~agdad Cafe, the European voice is heard in the way Jasmin
tnes to Impose onArnerican people the European system of values
German cleanliness and order, when transported into the dilapidated
sha~ of Bagdad Cafe in the middle of the Texas desert, produce
a mlXture of .the o.utrageous and the ridiculous. Jasmin tries to
clean. everything and bring it to a civilized order: she is seen
cleamn~ B~enda's office, her-own motel room, and, in one of the
most
the water t ower.
A
. hl1anous scenes in the film, cleaning
.
mencan protagonists in the film watch her with amused disb Ii f
E
. h
e e.
urope 1S t. us seen by Americans as a freakish set of values
completely irrelevant to them. Jasmin is never praised for h
she is usually rebuked by a furious Brenda or looked
:Vlth amus~ment: ja~min as Europe-a sn,lfry, bizarre figure, dressed
lll. a BavarIan smt-Is depi~ted as an outsider who is impossible to
understand or to agree With. In this, the Americans' reactions to
her ,res~mb1,e the fir~t reactions of the Native peoples to Europeans
emb~rking
~enca. Let me present a lengthy quotation from
Ga~nel Garcia Marquez as it creatively depicts the reactions of the
naUve peo~le of South America in the fifteenth century to European co~omzers-the reactions uncannily similar to the responses
of Amencan protagonists in both Bagdad Cafl and Leningrad Cowboys
Go America:
e~orts;
up~~
u:
IS]ome strangers had' arrived who had gabbled in funny old talk because
they made .the word for sea ,feminine and not masculine, they called
- - - - - : - - - - - - - - -_ _..
filiiJii.-w
34
JAN I N A
FA L
K 0 W S K A
macaws poll parrots, cano~s rafts, harpoons javelins, and when they
saw us going' out to greet them and swim around their ships they
climbed up onto the yardarms and shouted to each other look there
how well-formed of beauteous body and fine face, and thick-haired and
almost like horsehair silk, and when they saw that we were painted
so as not to get sunburned they got all excited like, wet little parrots
and shouted look there how they daub themselves grey, and they are
the hue of canary bi~ds,' not white nor yet black, and what there be
of them, and we didn't understand why the hell they were making so
much fun of us since we were just a~ normal as the day our mothers
bore us and on the other hand they were all decked out like the jack
of clubs in all that heat..."
In Leningrad Cowboys Go America, no process of integration takes
place. The European voice runs parallel to its American counterpart.
In fact, Aki Kaurismaki, in his comedy inflected with an offbeat,
Jarmusch-like deadpan, slapstick sense 'ofhumour,36 presents his own
-country, Finland, "a country mysterious'for its border neighbour.
A schizoid culture wavering between incomprehensible weirdness
and gloom, and midsummer madness and excess. Tango and
eternity. Humppa and suicide. The Finns came across as an
understatement. Certainly, a culture not big on communication!"3?
The musicians feel out of place in America and are perceived as
such by Americans. Far from their beloved land, they feel artificially
transported into a different world and are frantically trying to
preserve the same system of values which held them together in
Finland. The film, in this sense, illustrates not only the impossibility
of integration of an immigrant culture with the American culture
but also the reluctance of the arriving culture to start this process
of integration. This impossibility of integration and a basic misunderstanding between the natives and the colonizers is already
detected in the early documents. As <:;arcia 'Marquez presents it in
his imaginative recreation from the position of the native people,
...and we traded everything we had for these red birettas and these
strips of glass beads that we hung around our necks to please them,
and also for these brass bells that can't be worth more than a penny
and for chamberpots and eyeglasses.. " B
This report on the meeting between the natives and the colonizers
attests to a basic misunderstanding concerning the intentions of the
colonizers (an offering in good will of glass beads and brass bells),
American and European Voices.. "
35
to which the reaction ofthe natives th '
.
order to please them) is a ro f . ( . elr aC,cepting these gifts in
Go America, disputes conce~ni o. ~lmdar1y, 10 Len~ngrad Cowboys
g
musicians play and the I k n , t e type of mUSIC the Finnish
" th"
ac 0 f understanding f h'
. ,
o emess revealed in th la k f
0
t elr F10rush
l
and dress by Americans Sl' e 'fyc 0 acceptance of their hairstyle
, gru a general inabil'ty f h
and the European cultures t
l o t e American
0 meet and accept each other.
All three mm h
s, owever, are unified b
.
strategy which involves"
d
y a smgle narrative
a car an a well-1m
,~
and travel. As Deozl"n
'
own m,otu of the road
summariZes thi
. ~
Baudrillard,
s pomt lOr Wenders and
'The point is to drive All
d
7
'"
you nee to kn
b
can be gleaned from an anth
1
ow a out American SOciety
ropo ogy of 't d' .
Each, like a nomad
d
th
I S
nvmg behaviour'[p.54].
, wan ers e country
.. . .
b h .. ' CIltIClzmg what he sees.
NostalgiC for a past that is go
laughable sights in things Am n~, ot CIltiCS are comedians, who find
.
eIlcans take to b
d
their comedy lurks me10d
d
e sacre . But underneath
rama an tragedy' th
I
"
of the American fronti er. J9
'
ey too ament the passing
The car perform~ many funCtions .
in all of them it fun .
In these rums, On the one hand
,
, C t l o n s as a t r '
'
'otherness"
an,.d
on'
t'h
th
.
ansport
Into the American
,
"
e 0 er It
.
European identity, In Leningrad ~ b constitutes :he locus of the
travel in a battered old C dill ow oys Go Amenca, the musicians
'a ac which th
home. In this car they e t I
ey treat almost as their
eep
resolve leadership problemas ,TSh
, qfuuarrel, sing and sometimes
,
'.
, e car nctions
b
Fmns' claustrophobic world .
'bi
as a sym 01 of the
in which they retain their n~t~::~~:tle e, to ~eri~ans. It is a place
to dissolve when they h
I
grl~ which IS under pressure
h .
ave to p ay Amencan tunes to
: t , ~~lC American public,- On another level of analysis at~eu::~:
s m attests to the influence of American "road"
h
The FUgitive Kind (Sidn
L
ms suc as
ey umet, 1959) or Easy R'd
'
Hopper, 1969),
t er (Denms
ill
n
Germian Beaffigda.d Cafe, adBMW is initially introduced as a symbol of
Deney an solidity In hi
quarrel and finall·
,
"
t s rented car the Germans
Cafe o~ foo~. Bu/~~t::11av~s th~ car only to arrive at Bagdad
is presented as a parod o;n~f:a. Cowboys Go America the car
symbol 40 in Bagdad C ,-F,' Yh
Important cultural American
,
aJe t e German-made BMW' I
as a parody of German efficiency· The BMW b ISk c dearly meant
.
rea s own w~en
·tii'tftliW-·WtTW
---------UAlil.···iITII!I
JAN INA' FA L K 0 W S K A
Jasmin's husband backs it up in rage. Jasmin leaves the car and its
oppressive claustrophobic space and walks into the scorching desert,
apparently freeing herself from European prejudices and paternal
bullying. She arrives at Bagdad Cafe which seems to be an
imaginary place of American freedom.
The car functions in a different way in Paris, Texas-as a locus
of the psychological dilemmas of the film's protagonists. In Walt's
car Travis breaks a four-year silence w:4en both brothers travel to
Los Angeles. In this sense, the film of the European director
precedes those American films in which a car is a site ofpsychological action, as, for instance, Barry Levinson's Rain Man (1988)
or David Lynch's Wild at Heart (1990).
In all these mms, the car functions as a counterpart to the
expansive and free American landscape. All three film directors,
Wim Wenders, Aki Kaurismaki and Percy Adlon make this narrative
s~rategy dnematically consistent in its presentation. The films open
with a shot of expansive land. In Paris, Texas the shot of the desert
introduces the dream-like realm of Travis's psychological space. It
is presented in a positive manner, as a beautiful, illusionary space.
In Leningrad Cowboys Go America and Bagdad Cafe, on the other
hand, the desert is presented as a hostile, unnatural place
cinematically constrained by the closed spaces of the car interiors
which signify the Europeans' prejudices and their claustrophobic
cultural enclosure. In Leningrad Cowboys Go America, the open space
of the American countryside is opposed to the compressed space
of the old Cadillac, And, in Bagdad Cafe, the open space of the
desert is constrained by the space of the rented BMW, cinematically
reinforced by low-angle shots and extreme close-ups of the
grotesque faces of the Bavarians. The opposition-the desert vs. the
car-produces a stereotypical juxtaposition of the natural, the free
and the expansive associated with America, and the claustrophobic,
the compressed and, the grotesque associated with Europe, In
Bagdad Cafe the claustrophobia of the rented car is further reinforced by the claustrophobic space of the cafe, where prejudices
and cultural misunderstandings make the atmosphere curiously
stilted. In both closed spaces, the European cultural enigmas seem
to be reinforced. The strangeness becomes even more strange and
more complex when seen in the context of these contrasts.
American and European Voices".
37
Conclusion
The three films reveal different de i .
:
European voices, In Paris, Texas the
. p ~tlons of American and
through the European fil ...... ~ 1 - ' ~~n~an landscape is filtered
<U"LaKer s SenSitIVIty t "b
expansive quality The E u ' .
0 ItS eauty and its
ropean VOIce thus d
liz
.
and makes strange and m'yst'
th
enatura es, distances,
enous
ese
char
t
'
.
which are C 'li
'
ac enstlCS 0 f America
~aml ar to Amencans th
1
American and th E
. emse ves. In this sense, the
,
european VOIces di 1 . 11
content-the American ro t
fil
d a Oglca y create a new
..., n ent tere through h E
'
t european eyes
becomes a hybrid of what A
familiar with what European~~~~~s would ~onsider normal and
B~gdad Cafe and Leningrad Cowbo s see as b~arre and unreal. In
distantiation occurs when th
I Y IGo ~menea the moment of
"
e cu tura pre' udic
f Am '
Europeans clash in th fil
d
~
es 0
encans and
Bagdad CaFe and Leni:a-radmsc an provoke laughter. The charm of
::1<
0"
owboys Go Am .
. 11 .
appreciated and comprehended l if th
mea especla y is fully
cultures-the Ame .
d h on Y
e spectators combine both
ncan an t e European- ·th th
respective landscapes, mentaliti
d
Wi
e knowledge of
their outrageouslr funny and su;~a:n . se.nses of humour, Despite
ly though bitingly depict the Euro ~:~ness, ~oth films accurateother on the American
soil. A reflective corned . L . P
y 10 emncrrad Cowb
G
.
B, agdad Cate and a p t ' d
?
oys 0 Amenea and
::1<
oe IC rama 10 Pa' T
dialogization of two cultu
.h
ns, exas result from a
res, nel! er of which
' .
both of which are distin t
d
seems prIVileged but
c an non-transferable.
NOTES
1. The article is a longer version of a
Conference for the Inte;national S ' P£ape~ presented at the Fourth
in August 1994, Graz, Austria. oCiety or t e Study of European Ideas
2. Other aspects of these directors' works have
.
by many authors. Wim Wenders and hi
been extensIvely discussed
Thomas Elsaesser in New Genna C'
s work.have been analysed by
NJ
n mema. A Hutory (New B
. k
..: Rutgers, 1989)-where chapter 7 "Th N
runSWIC ,
Germany," is pertinent for the stud'
e ew German Cinema's
of New German Cinema' E', R yho f Wenders as a representative
, fIC entc l er in "c " I
Oberhausen: West German Fil
. th
ntica Junctures Since
1n
Review of Film Studies vol 5 m 2 ( e course of Time,'" QuarterLy
,
"
no.
1980)' 141 56' M
Silb
Gennan Cinema: Texts in Context (Detr 't''';
- , arc.
erman in
Oi, ayne State UnIversity Press,
JA
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
NI N A
FA LK 0 W S K A
1995)-especially chapter 14, "The Archeology of the Present: Wim
Wenders's Paris, Tex!lS"; Ronnie S!=hieb in "Angst for the Memories,"
Film Comment, vol. 26 Guly and August 1990): 9-17; and Shawn Levy
in "Until the ~ End of the World. Wim Wendel's' Dance around the
Planet" American Film, vol. 17 Ganuary and February 1992): 51-52. Wim
Wenders himself made his opinionsknoVl'uin numerous interviews and
in his own bookS. 'See, for instance, "Wtin Wenders's Guilty Pleasmes" in Film Comment,·vol. 28 Ganuary and February 1992): 74-77; The
LOgi; ofI~ages. Essays and Conversations, translated by Michael Hofmann
(London: Faber and Faber, 1991); and Emotion·Pictures: Rtiflections on the
Cinema, translated by Sean WhiteSide in association with Micqael
Hofmann (Ldndon: Faber and Faber, 1989). Percy Adlon's work has
been examined by KonstanzeStreese. and Kerry S1?-ea in "Who's
Lookingt Who's Laughingt Of Multicultural Mothers and Men in Percy
Adlon's Bagdad Cafe," iIi Women in German Yearbook 8 (1992). Femi~ist
Studies in German Literature and Culture, eds. Jeanette Clausen and Sara
Friedrichsmeyer (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press,
1993), 179·97. The film style of Aki Kaurismaki has been analysed ,by
Roger Connah· in K/ K. A Couple of Finns and Some Donald Ducks. Cin~ma
in Society (Helsinki: VAPK-Publishing, 1991); Daniel Sauveget in, "Aki
et Mika deux cineastes venus du froid" in La Revue du Cinema 468
(Fevrier 1991):59-66; Jean-Loup Bourget in "Le lit de W.C. Fields et
de Jean-Luc Godard (Leningrad Cowboys Go America)," Positif 352 Guin
1990): 3; and by Stanley Kauffmann in "From the Present, From the
Past," The New Republic, voL 203 (12 November 1990): 26-27.
Pflaum and Prinzler, Cinema in the Federal Republic of Germany (Bonn:
Inter Nationes, 1983),5.
These definitions of "America" emerged from conversations with Susan
Birkwood, Department of English, University of Western Ontario.
David A.Cook, A History of Narrative Film (New York: W.W.Norton &
Company, 1990), 123. Cook writes: "Lang claimed that Metropoli~ was
inspired by his first vision of the New York City skyline, from the deck
of the S5 Deutschland in October 1924, at night."
Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
(New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 48.
Peter Hulme, Colonial Encounters. Europe and the Native Caribbean, 14921797 (London and New York: Methuen, 1986), preface.
,
Henry Nash Smith, on page 79, refers to the book, Old Hicks, the Guide;
or, Adventures in the Camanche Country in Search of a Gold Mine, first
published 1848, 2 vols.; (New York, 1855).
On another plane, this specific development can be interpreted in terms
not only of new emerging ideologies in Germany but also in the
context of a new economic situation in Europe. Peter Green explains
this phenomenon for the Germans in his article "Germans Abroad"
published in Sight and Sound, vo1.57, no. 2 (Spring 1988): 126-30. Green
American and European Voices...
39
writes: "It is twenty six years since the OberhausenManij'esto launched
the New German Cinema. Now many of the angry young men of the
early years are in their fifties'; their viewpOint has shifted and the
. generation that has' followed them lacks'much of the elan and motivation of those pioneering days. With the return to a conservative
political order,in the 1980s, sights are set on economic viability in
German film rather than experimental dynamics or social controversy.
Aspects of change are the attempts to revive screen comedy and a
grOWing internationalism." (126) This trend can be seen within a mOre
general tendency of European mm makers to seek' visual, images in
other parts of the world and not be preoccupied with domestic issues
or national histories of their countries only. On the other hand, the
trend has to be interpreted as an economical necessity in the context
of a difficult financing position in Germany and other European
countries which forced European directors to seek financing possibilities
elsewhere.
By the time Wendel'S ventured to the US, Wernet Herzog had
already been there as part of a search for visual images which took him
to the remote corners of the world. His film, Stroszek (1977), tells a
story of a,German man, who, accompanied by his two friends, decides
to go to the mythical America in order to improve his life. Wim
Wenders, . like many German directors of the early years, went to
America, not so much in search of a larger audience, but in the hope
of fmding the essential images of modern civilisation, not to mention
better production conditions. In the long run, however, few directors
found there what they were really looking for nor were they the only
Europeans seeking their fortune in America. Aki Kaurismaki, the Finnish
director, is an example of the type of mmmaker who was part of this
Drang nach West (Movement to the West).
,10.
The terms "double-voiced. discourse","dialogical", "hybridization"
and '''the other" are· introduced in this essay follOWing the theoretical
work of Mikhail Bakhtin as it is applied to' literary texts. His two major
books, The Dialogic Imagination. Four Essays, translated by Caryl Emerson
and Michael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981), and
~roble~s of Dostoevsky's Poetics, translated by Caryl Emerson (Minne'!polis: Umversity of Minnesota Press, 1984), best exemplify the researcher's
method of analysis.
11.
Wirn Wenders's words were quoted by the editors of the laser disk
Paris, Texas, released by CBS FOX Video, Road Movies Film Produktion
GmbH, 1984 (laser disk cover).
12. Norman Denzin, Images of Postmodern Society: Social Theory and Contemporary Cinema. (London: Sage Publications, 1991), 146.
13. Canby, "Directors evoke many Americas: review of Paris, Texas," New
York Times, 11 November 1984, sec.2, p.17; Denby, "Review of Paris,
Texas," New York Times, 19 November 1984, 52; Hoberman, "Review
--------------_P'J!II•.
4°
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
JA
NI'NA
F AL
K 0 W S K A
of Paris, Texas,", Village Voice, 29 November 1984, 84; Kauffmann,
"Invasion of the culture snatcher; review of Paris, Texas," New Republic,
3 December 1984, 26-27; Lennett, "Review of Paris, Texas," Cineaste
14 (1985): 60; Reed, "Revie~ of Paris, Texas," New York Post, 9
November 1~86, 19; Studlar, "Review of Paris, Texas," in Magill's
Cinema Annual, 1985: A Survey of 1984 Films, ed. Prank N. Magill
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ Salem Press, 1985), 359-64.
Gaylyn Studlar, "Review of Paris, Texas" in Magill's Cinema Annual,
1985: A S~rvey of 1984 Films, ed. Frank N. Magill (Englewood Cliffs: New
York Salem Press, 1985), 360.
Henry Nash Smith, 57
Henry Nash Smith, 57-58.
Denzin, 138.
Wim Wenders, The Logic of Images. Essays and Conversations (LondonBoston: Faber and Faber, 1991), 67.
Marc Silberman, German Cinema: Texts in Context (Detroit:, Wayne State
University Press, 1995), 28,5, note 15.
In 1978 Wenders went to the United States under contract to direct
Hammett for Francis Ford Coppola.
Wim Wenders, "Der amerikanische Traum," in Emotion Pictures: 'Essays
und Filmkritiken (Frankfurt: Verlag der Autoren, 1986), 141-70;
subsequently published as Emotion Pictures: Reflections on the Cinema,
trans. Sean Whiteside in association with Michael Hofmann (London:
Faber and Faber, 1989).
Denzin, 142.
See Note 11.
Ibid.
Hulme, 28.
Smith, 79. See also an interesting analysis of Charles W. Webber's
book, Old Hicks, the Guide: or, Adventures in the Camanche Country in
Search of a Gold Mine (New York, 1855) presented by Smith, 77·84.
Streese and Shea, 193.
Ibid., 192.
Ibid., 194.
Jim Kitses, Horizons West: Anthony Mann, Budd Boetticher, Sam Peckinpah:
Studies of Authorship within the Western (London: Thames and Hudson,
1969), 19.
Ibid., 20.
However, to some critics, for instance, Marc Silberman, the European
aspect of the mm is extremely important:
That Wenders filmed this narrative in the United States based on
a text by the celebrated American writer Sam Shepard does not
undermine this view of the film's German specificity. Beyond the
personal and commercial ties Wenders had developed in the States
after having lived there for seven years, the "ideological subtext"
American and European Voices...
41
already hinted at .in his earlier Kings of the Road is pertinent...
Writt~ large, the Oedipal relationship between West Germany and
the Uruted States, between the New German Cinema and Hollywood, resonates throughout Paris, Texas. Shepard's input was
crucial for addressing the father-son rivalry, a theme he had
touched in several plays-most prominently in True West and Buried
Child-and also later in his screenplay for the Robert Altman film
Fool for Love (1985); and the language and diction of Paris, Texas
is quintessential Shepard. Nonetheless, the specific form of the
family constellatjon and the calculated disruptions of spectator
positioning are signals of German particularity in the cinematic text
of Paris, Texas. (284, note 11)
33. Streese and Shea, 180.
34. Ibid., 189.
35.
Gabriel' Garcia Marquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch. trans. Gregory
Rabassa (New York: Harper & Row, 1976), 35-36.
36.
Aki Kaurismaki mentions his fascination with Jim Jarmusch in an
interview granted Isabelle Ruchti ("Propos voles a Aki Kaurismaki"
in POsitif 352, June 1990, 6-8). He states that Jim Jarmusch's Mystery
Train wa~ especially important for the production of Leningrad Co~boys
Go Amenca. Probably, out of gratitude and respect for Jarmusch
Ka~ris~aki gave him the part of the car dealer in the mm, a gestur~
which IS of both symbolic and metatextual importance.
37. Connah,30.
38. Garcia Marquez, 35-36.
39. Denzin, 143.
40.
A similar presentation has been offered by another outsider to the
American culture, Bruce McDonald, a Canadian fIlmmaker who in his
film Highway 61 (1990), depicted an old, white Cadillac which ~arried
a corpse on its roof from Canada to the United States.
*
*
*
. Janina Falk~wsk~ teaches film studies in the Department of English of
The Um~~rstty ~f Western Ontario. She is the author of the book
The Political FIlms of Andrzej Wajda, Dialogism in Man of
Marble, Man of Iron and Danton. (Providence, Oxford: Benghahn
Books, 1996).
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