Quotes from Wim Wenders

Many of the critics today get airline tickets, hotel accommodation, bags, beautiful photographs, gifts and other expenses paid by the distributors, and then are supposed to write serious articles about the movie.

Cinema is a worldwide phenomenon.

The culture of independent film criticism has totally gone down the drain and this seems to come with the territory of the consumer age that we are now living in.

In the late 1980s the amount of German films was down to four or five percent of the market, and the remaining 95 percent were American. It is now 20 to 30 percent German productions.

Filmmakers and critics wrote about each other and sometimes very harshly. This no longer exists.

I'm getting a little bored by the juxtaposition of American and other cinema. I no longer think this division is as true as it might have been in the 1980s, or the early part of the 90s.

So I am getting a little bored with defining one type of film as American and the other European or from somewhere else because the division is no longer true.

The Cuban people have an amazingly strong and unbroken spirit.

Movies are something people see all over the world because there is a certain need for it.

Many French directors, having now realised there was no more real criticism, that the standards of the past have gone, are very offended about the quality of film criticism.

Entertainment today constantly emphasises the message that things are wonderful the way they are. But there is another kind of cinema, which says that change is possible and necessary and it's up to you.

The more opinions you have, the less you see.

I think seeing happens partly through the eyes, but not entirely.

What is it in the human condition that tries to impose our own view onto others, without the ability, capacity, propensity, to receive somebody else's openly?

the more opinions you have, the less you see

Every film is political. Most political of all are those that pretend not to be: 'entertainment' movies. They are the most political films there are because they dismiss the possibility of change. In every frame they tell you everything's fine the way it is. They are a continual advertisement for things as they are.

That's how it begins, making a film, writing a book, painting a picture, composing a tune, generally creating something. You have a wish. You wish that something might exist, and then you work on it until it does.

Più che d'intelligenza abbiamo bisogno di dolcezza e di bontà.

For me, black and white is more realistic than colour. Black and white can be colourful, and colour can be very black and white.

PENSARE ALLA PACE senza PENSARE ALLA POVERTÀ è oggi certamente impossibile.

Stories give people the feeling that there is meaning, that there is ultimately an order lurking behind the incredible confusion of appearances and phenomena that surrounds them. This order is what people require more than anything else.

Il terrorismo fondamentalista, di cui ormai abbiamo esperienza da vari anni, cerca di trascinarci nel suo baratro medievale. Aver permesso loro di trascinarci laggiù e di fronteggiarci sul LORO terreno, significa aver già perso la battaglia. Hanno vinto semplicemente facendoci accettare la loro regola: la PAURA. L'inclinazione ad aver paura implica la disposizione a trasmetterla agli altri.

What is generally referred to as American-style films are, in fact, studio productions.

Without dreams, there can be no courage. And without courage, there can be no action.