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The Discourse of Death in Wim Wenders' Essay Film "Nick's Movie - Lightning Over Water"

by Björn Jensen
published 1990
available as book and Kindle E-Book (in German only) at Amazon

Introduction: Similar to the literary essay, which for a long time resisted closer scholarly examination and was not studied in depth until the 1960s, the essay film has so far received little attention in theoretical discussions of film. Filmmakers themselves are rarely aware of their stylistic kinship with the essay and therefore give their films a wide variety of titles.The second chapter of this thesis will first examine the concept of the "essay" in literature and film, tracing its historical development, and ultimately distinguishing it from the documentary film.

When Wim Wenders released his film "Nick’s Movie – Lightning Over Water" in German cinemas in 1981, it was met largely with rejection and incomprehension. He was accused of exploiting Nicholas Ray’s dying process for his own purposes. The film was described as embarrassing and as an exercise in self-assertion. One reason why this film was received so negatively, especially in Germany, may be related to our relationship to death, which differs significantly from that of Americans and also from that of other European countries. Another reason may be that the essay film, like the literary essay, has had a much harder time gaining a foothold in Germany than in other countries.

The present study seeks to illuminate Nick’s Movie from various perspectives, in order to do justice to the quality of this film. It situates the work within the tradition of the essay film and within the discourse on death in cinema. Parallels will also be drawn to Wenders’ and Ray’s earlier films. On the basis of a microstructural analysis of the film (see the film protocol in Part 2 of this book), the film will be examined with respect to its narrative structure, its visual and acoustic design, and its essayistic elements.

Contents

  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. The Essay Film
    • 2.1. The Literary Essay
      • 2.1.1. Historical Development
      • 2.1.2. Form of the Essay
      • 2.1.3. Purpose of the Essay
      • 2.1.4. Subject Areas
    • 2.2. The Development of the Essay Film
    • 2.3. Differentiating the Essay Film from the Documentary
  • 3. The Discourse on Death in Filmic Narration
    • 3.1. The Concept of “Discourse”
    • 3.2. Death and Society
    • 3.3. Fear of Death
    • 3.4. The Death of the Other
      • 3.4.1. The Experience of Death
      • 3.4.2. Filmic Mediation of Death
    • 3.5. Systematization of the Representation of Death in Film
      • 3.5.1. Death in Fictional Film
      • 3.5.2. Death in Non-Fictional Film
  • 4. Wim Wenders
    • 4.1. Narrativity
    • 4.2. Characters
    • 4.3. Death
  • 5. Nick’s Movie: On the Genesis of the Film
    • 5.1. Historical Context
      • 5.1.1. Nicholas Ray
      • 5.1.2. Wim Wenders
    • 5.2. Initial Positioning of Nick’s Movie
    • 5.3. Shooting
      • 5.3.1. Part One: Early April 1979
      • 5.3.2. Part Two: Early May 1979
      • 5.3.3. Epilogue: June 1979
    • 5.4. Post-Production
  • 6. Nick’s Movie: Narrative Structure
    • 6.1. Narrative Instance
      • 6.1.1. Narrative Strategy
      • 6.1.2. Narrator
      • 6.1.3. Point of View
    • 6.2. Narrative Style
      • 6.2.1. Chronological Order
      • 6.2.2. Interior vs. Exterior
      • 6.2.3. Exploiting Ray’s Illness
      • 6.2.4. Staging vs. Documentary Realism
      • 6.2.5. Simultaneity of Product and Genesis
    • 6.3. Dramaturgy
      • 6.3.1. We Can’t Go Home Again
      • 6.3.2. The Lusty Men
      • 6.3.3. Diary
      • 6.3.4. A Report to an Academy
    • 6.4. Essayistic Elements
  • 7. The Cinematic Order of the Discourse on Death in Nick’s Movie
    • 7.1. Wenders as Subjective Instance
    • 7.2. Reflection on One’s Own Work
    • 7.3. The Dying Person as Object of the Camera
    • 7.4. Filming as Therapy
    • 7.5. Symbols and Signs of Death
  • 8. Montage
    • 8.1. The First Version
    • 8.2. The Second Version
    • 8.3. The Third Version
  • 9. Form
    • 9.1. Visual
    • 9.2. Acoustic
  • 10. Conclusion

Appendix

  • A) Filmography: Nicholas Ray
  • B) Filmography: Wim Wenders
  • C) Bibliography
    • 1. Primary Literature
    • 2. Secondary Literature
    • 3. Interviews and Letters


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