Daily Nebraskan
page 9
Director explores fantasy, reality in documentary
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Wednesday, March 3, 1982
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David Thompson
"We are all novelists, (hat is, we have a habit of
writing fictional futures for ourselves, although
perhaps today we incline more to nut ourselves into
a film."
John Fowles
The line between fiction and reality is a thin one, and
German film maker Wim Wcndcrs hops back and forth
across it in liis film Lightning Over Water. The film is a
creative jumbling of reality and fiction that is, if not
always clear, fascinating in its incoherence.
Wenders, along with Raincr Werner Fassbinder and a
few others, has nudged German cinema into the eyes of
American viewers. He lives in New York City, and he will
be visting Lincoln Thursday through Saturday.
While he is here he will be participating in the Sheldon
Film Theater's FilmVideo Showcase of his work. A dif
ferent film of his will be shown each night, and Wenders
will speak at the evening screenings. Saturday's screening
will be of Lightning Over Water, Wenders' most recent
film.
The film is sure to be the crowning point of the series,
because in it Wenders brilliantly examines the delicate
point at which fictional situations become true stories.
The film is about the death of American film director
Nicholas Ray, known for such classics as Rebel Without
a Cause and The Lusty Men.
Documentary film
Lightning Over Water could be called a documentary
because Ray plays himself in the film, living his own death
from cancer for the camera. Wenders, a friend of Ray's,
also plays himself in the film, jumping back and forth
between a man who must watch his friend die and an
Movie
Review
artist who wants to catch the death of another artist on
film, making it live on its own as a work of art. Wenders is
unsure of his two roles and expresses apprehension to
Ray about making the film. "I was worried I might be
attracted by your weakness. If I were I would have to
leave you. That would be betraying you," he says.
The separation between Wenders the friend and Wen
ders the director is made clear through Wender's juxta
positioning of film and video. When his relationship with
Ray changes, the quality of the picture changes and the
viewer sees the switch.
But when Ray and Wenders begin giving each other
suggestions on how they should say their lines, the picture
flashes to the grainy unreality of video. The video camera
takes in everything that was pushed out of the film cam
era's viewfinder, and we see that Wenders and Ray were
not alone after all. The cameramen, director's assistants
and gaffers all stand around them. We may have thought
the friendly bedside discussion was real, but we didn't
see the microphone that hovered just out of our view.
Shares directing
This confusion of realities is not the only point of the
film, however. It is also about "a man who wants to bring
himself all together before he dies, a regaining of self-esteem,"
says Ray. Ray shares directorial credit with Wen
ders for Lightning Over Water. The film is his attempt to
regain liis self respect by working with the art form that
he loved.
One gets an inkling of what Ray means in one scene
where he stands next to the screen on which a film of
himself is being shown. On the screen is a well-built active
man chatting with a student, while the silhouette of the
bystander is a gaunt, balding man, staring at who he once
was and can never be again.
In another scene Ray is directing an actor in a play.
"Freedom was not what I wanted, but a way out," the
actor says, Ray's eyes glisten with the hint of tears.
The scene is made especially poignant wtien one reau
SKOAL, COPENHAGEN
& HAPPY DAYS
ANNOUNCE THE
U.N.L BATGIRLS HUMAN
PYRAMID BUILDING CONTEST
SUNDAY, MARCH 7TH
AT 1:00 IN THE COLISEUM
2 BIG EVENTS
PRIZES, SAMPLES AND GOOD TIMES
FOR INFORMATION CALL:
KAREN AT 435-5233 OR -LI
LA AT 474-9238
A PINCH
IS ALL IT TAKES
if
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Courtesy of Sheldon Film Theater
Wim Wenders and Nicholas Ray confer as friends and artists in Lightning Over Water.
zes that Ray is a film maker. His life has been an attempt
to represent reality on film, and now he is fading into the
unknown expanses beyond space and screen. Wenders
feels this on finishing the film. "Let me go on making the
film in my dreams," he says. "The camera will always be
there."
Reality confusing
For some viewers the haphazard jumbling of the video
camera around the room may seem bothersome, they may
feel at times as if they are watching someone making a
home movie while they trip over the furniture. They may
also be annoyed by the jumps from film to video, from
dream to waking, from acted scene to natural situation.
But Wenders is making a point about the confusion of
reality. He says in the film that attempts to make reality
seem sharp, clear and simple are "the result of pure fear."
Lightning Over Water carries into the fifth dimension
the idea of juxtapositioning reality with unreality, an idea
first introduced to American audiences in The French
Lieutenant's Woman. If the other films in the series are
of this caliber of originality, spending four days in the
Sheldon Film Theater may not be a bad idea. "Are there
times when representation is art or is not art, when reality
is fantasy or not fantasy?" Ray asks in the film. Lightning
Over Water is an intriguing exploration of that question,
and shows us that no one really knows the answer.
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JACK NICHOLSON
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DORD5R
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American Film Classics
Presents
Elizabeth Taylor and
Richard Burton in
"Who's Afraid of
Virginia Woolf "
in the
Nebraska Union Rostrum
March 4, 7:00 & 9:15p.m.
Admission with UNL I.D.
$1.50
.General $2.50
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