The revered director talks about his friend Rainer Fassbinder, dealing with success and failure, and how he is like the angels in Wings of Desire – as a retrospective of his work comes to cinemas
Is it bad manners to wear a Fassbinder T-shirt to an interview with Wim Wenders? Apparently not. “Ah, Rainer!” says Wenders, full of jubilation as he claps eyes on my wardrobe choice. Then he grits his teeth and snarls: “I’m still so fucking mad at him for dying.”
We are in the London offices of the distributor Curzon, which is releasing restored versions of eight of Wenders’ films in cinemas. Included is the Palme d’Or-winning 1984 masterpiece Paris, Texas and the 1987 fantasy Wings of Desire, in which angels watch over a divided Berlin. The 76-year-old director sports a silver quiff, his inquisitive eyes sparkling behind blue-framed spectacles. His own T-shirt, worn under a white shirt and braces, bears the image of a pair of red-and-blue anaglyph 3D glasses; he pulls his shirt open, like Superman showing off the “S” on his chest, so I can see it. He remains a cheerleader for 3D, having shot several of his own films in the format – most notably Pina, his ravishing 2011 documentary about the choreographer Pina Bausch, in which dance spills off the stage and on to streets, parks, public transport.
