Lightning Over Water | |
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Narrated by | Wim Wenders |
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Music by | Ronee Blakley |
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Distributed by | Basis-Film-Verleih GmbH (all media) |
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Running time | 91 minutes 116 minutes (original) |
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Budget | $700,000 (estimated) |
Lightning Over Water, also known as Nick's Film, is a 1980 West German-Swedish documentary-drama film written, directed by and starring Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray. It centers on the last days of Ray's own life, who was already known worldwide for his 1955 classic film Rebel Without a Cause . It was screened out of competition at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival. [1]
The film is a collaboration between Wenders and Ray to document Ray's last days due to terminal cancer in 1979. The film is partially an homage to Ray who had a strong influence on Wenders' work, and partially an investigation on life and death. Ray's influence on Wenders includes Ray's "love on the run" subgenre as well as his film noir photography.
The film features excerpts from Ray's film The Lusty Men and his unfinished final work We Can't Go Home Again . The sequence featuring the former excerpt was shot at Vassar College, at which Ray presented the film and then gave a lecture, which itself is excerpted.
Nicholas Ray appears in a minor role in Wenders' film The American Friend . Wenders' science fiction film Until the End of the World is named for the last spoken words in Ray's 1961 Biblical epic film King of Kings .
The film crew is extensively featured onscreen. Jim Jarmusch, Ray's personal assistant at the time — and later a notable film director in his own right — can be briefly glimpsed at the 50:28 mark sitting at an editing console.
When Wenders goes to the Vassar campus to attend a lecture, a brief one-man performance is seen on-stage. It is Franz Kafka's story "A Report for an Academy", about an ape who becomes a man.
The American independent film director Jon Jost has come out against Wenders' status as the sole co-director, saying that Wenders "used his celebrity" to push Jost and Raúl Ruiz out of the project of which they had created.[ citation needed ]
James Robert Jarmusch is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been a major proponent of independent cinema since the 1980s, directing films such as Stranger Than Paradise (1984), Down by Law (1986), Mystery Train (1989), Dead Man (1995), Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Coffee and Cigarettes (2003), Broken Flowers (2005), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and Paterson (2016). Stranger Than Paradise was added to the National Film Registry in December 2002. As a musician, he has been part of the no wave band The Del-Byzanteens and in addition composed music for some of his films. He has released three musical albums with Jozef van Wissem.
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker and playwright, who is a major figure in New German Cinema. Among the honors he has received are prizes from the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin film festivals. He has also received a BAFTA Award and been nominated for three Academy Awards and a Grammy Award.
Wings of Desire is a 1987 romantic fantasy film written by Wim Wenders, Peter Handke and Richard Reitinger, and directed by Wenders. The film is about invisible, immortal angels who populate Berlin and listen to the thoughts of its human inhabitants, comforting the distressed. Even though the city is densely populated, many of the people are isolated or estranged from their loved ones. One of the angels, played by Bruno Ganz, falls in love with a beautiful, lonely trapeze artist, played by Solveig Dommartin. The angel chooses to become mortal so that he can experience human sensory pleasures, ranging from enjoying food to touching a loved one, and so that he can discover human love with the trapeze artist.
Paris, Texas is a 1984 neo-Western drama road film directed by Wim Wenders, co-written by Sam Shepard and L. M. Kit Carson, and produced by Don Guest. It stars Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski, Dean Stockwell, Aurore Clément, and Hunter Carson. In the film, disheveled recluse Travis Henderson (Stanton) reunites with his brother Walt (Stockwell) and son Hunter (Carson). Travis and Hunter embark on a trip through the American Southwest to track down Travis's missing wife, Jane (Kinski).
The American Friend is a 1977 neo-noir film written and directed by Wim Wenders, adapted from the 1974 novel Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith. It stars Dennis Hopper as career-criminal Tom Ripley and Bruno Ganz as Jonathan Zimmermann, a terminally ill picture framer whom Ripley coaxes into becoming an assassin. The film uses an unusual "natural" language concept: Zimmermann speaks German with his family and his doctor, but English with Ripley and while visiting Paris.
Nicholas Ray was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. Described by the Harvard Film Archive as "Hollywood's last romantic" and "one of postwar American cinema’s supremely gifted and ultimately tragic filmmakers," Ray was considered an iconoclastic auteur director who often clashed with the Hollywood studio system of the time, but would prove highly influential to future generations of filmmakers.
The Soul of a Man is a 2003 documentary film, directed by Wim Wenders, as the second instalment of the documentary film series The Blues, produced by Martin Scorsese. The film explores the musical careers of blues musicians Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir.
A Man Escaped or The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth is a 1956 French prison film directed by Robert Bresson. It is based on a memoir by André Devigny, a member of the French Resistance who was held in Montluc prison during World War II by the occupying Germans, though the protagonist of the film was given a different name.
Don't Come Knocking is a 2005 American western film directed by Wim Wenders, and written by Wenders and Sam Shepard. They had previously collaborated on the film Paris, Texas (1984). It was submitted at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival.
Lisbon Story is a 1994 feature film directed by Wim Wenders. It was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival. As part of Lisbon's programme as the European City of Culture in 1994, Wenders and three Portuguese filmmakers were invited to make a documentary about the city. The result was the fictional Lisbon Story.
Jon Stephen Jost is an American independent filmmaker from Chicago.
Shinji Aoyama was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, composer, film critic, and novelist. He graduated from Rikkyo University. He won two awards at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival for his film Eureka.
Kings of the Road is a 1976 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. It was the third part of Wenders' "Road Movie trilogy" which included Alice in the Cities (1974) and The Wrong Move (1975). It was the unanimous winner of the FIPRESCI Prize at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival.
The Wrong Move is a 1975 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the second part of Wenders' "Road Movie trilogy" which included Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976).
To Each His Own Cinema is a 2007 French comedy-drama anthology film commissioned for the 60th anniversary of the Cannes Film Festival. The film is a collection of 34 short films, each 3 minutes in length, by 36 acclaimed directors. Representing five continents and 25 countries, the filmmakers were invited to express "their state of mind of the moment as inspired by the motion picture theatre".
The 33rd Cannes Film Festival was held between 9 and 23 May 1980. The Palme d'Or went to the All That Jazz by Bob Fosse and Kagemusha by Akira Kurosawa.
The 37th Cannes Film Festival was held from 11 to 23 May 1984. The Palme d'Or went to the Paris, Texas by Wim Wenders.
Shinji Sōmai was a Japanese film director. He directed 13 films between 1980 and 2000 and almost always he focused on the young generation problems, being the successful A Sailor suit and a Machine-gun (1981) and Typhoon Club (1985) as the best examples of that.
Pina is a 2011 German 3D documentary film directed by Wim Wenders that is about German dancer and choreographer Pina Bausch. On 30 June 2009, during the preparation for the film, Bausch died unexpectedly, so Wenders cancelled the project, but the dancers of Bausch's company, Tanztheater Wuppertal, convinced him to proceed as planned, as a way of memorializing Bausch and some of her choreography.
Doktor Rej i đavoli is a 2012 Serbian film directed by Dinko Tucaković. It is co-written by Tucaković and Saša Radojević with input from Dimitrije Vojnov.