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Soul of a Man | |
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Directed by | Wim Wenders |
Written by | Wim Wenders |
Produced by | Martin Scorsese |
Cinematography | Lisa Rinzler |
Edited by | Mathilde Bonnefoy |
Music by | Skip James Blind Willie Johnson J. B. Lenoir |
Distributed by | PBS |
Release date |
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Countries | United States Germany |
Language | English |
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.
The film is narrated by Laurence Fishburne in character as Blind Willie Johnson, and features performances by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Beck, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, James 'Blood' Ulmer, T-Bone Burnett, Eagle Eye Cherry, Shemekia Copeland, Garland Jeffreys, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Los Lobos, Bonnie Raitt, Lou Reed, Marc Ribot, Lucinda Williams, and Cassandra Wilson. The film won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Cinematography for Nonfiction Programming, and the Audience Award at the São Paulo International Film Festival. It was also screened out of competition at the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. [1]
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German filmmaker and author, 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.
Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter. AllMusic stated: "Coupling an oddball guitar tuning set against eerie, falsetto vocals, James' early recordings could make the hair stand up on the back of your neck."
Ryland Peter Cooder is an American musician, songwriter, film score composer, record producer, and writer. He is a multi-instrumentalist but is best known for his slide guitar work, his interest in traditional music, and his collaborations with traditional musicians from many countries.
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).
Chris Thomas King is an American blues musician and actor based in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Marc Levin is an American independent film producer and director. He is best known for his Brick City TV series, which won the 2010 Peabody award and was nominated for an Emmy for Exceptional Merit in Nonfiction Filmmaking and his dramatic feature film, Slam, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Caméra d'Or at Cannes in 1998. He also has received three Emmy Awards and the 1997 DuPont-Columbia Award.
J. B. Lenoir was an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter, active in the Chicago blues scene in the 1950s and 1960s.
Henry Columbus Speir was an American "talent broker" and record store owner from Jackson, Mississippi. He was responsible for launching the recording careers of most of the greatest Mississippi blues musicians in the 1920s and 1930s. According to blues researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow, "Speir was the godfather of Delta Blues" and was "a musical visionary [without whom] Mississippi's greatest natural resource might have gone untapped." A historical marker commemorates his life and work.
Recorded Picture Company is a British film production company founded in 1974 by producer Jeremy Thomas.
The Blues is a 2003 documentary film series produced by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to the history of blues music. In each of the seven episodes, a different director explores a stage in the development of the blues. The series originally aired on PBS in the United States.
In-Ah Lee is a German film producer based in Los Angeles, California.
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 56th Cannes Film Festival started on 14 May and ran until 25 May 2003. It showcased a diverse selection of international films from various genres. French opera and theatre director, filmmaker, actor and producer Patrice Chéreau was the president of the jury. The Palme d'Or went to the American film Elephant by Gus Van Sant based on the Columbine High School massacre.
Soul of a Man may refer to:
"Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground" is a gospel blues song written and performed by American musician Blind Willie Johnson and recorded in 1927. The song is primarily an instrumental featuring Johnson's self-taught bottleneck slide guitar and picking style accompanied by his vocalizations of humming and moaning. It has the distinction of being one of 27 samples of music included on the Voyager Golden Record, launched into space in 1977 to represent the diversity of life on Earth. The song has been highly praised and covered by numerous musicians and is featured on the soundtracks of several films.
Road Movies Filmproduktion is a German film production company formed by Wim Wenders in 1977.
The Soul of a Man is an album of "twenty haunting spiritual blues songs" recorded in the late 1920s and 1930 by the American gospel blues singer and guitarist Blind Willie Johnson that was released by Charly Records in 2003.
David Rosier is a French scriptwriter and film producer.
Anselm is a 2023 German 3D documentary film directed by Wim Wenders, chronicling the art of German painter and sculptor Anselm Kiefer. The film had its world premiere at the 76th Cannes Film Festival on 17 May 2023 as a special screening, where it competed for the L'Œil d'or.