Kings of the Road
Wim Wenders
1976 | 168 min | B/W | 35mm
Introduced by David Ellis
"What's not to adore about this film. Almost entirely unscripted, black & white, minimum chit-chat etc. And vehicular ecstasies." – David Ellis
"Wenders’ ultimate road movie follows an itinerant cinema mechanic (Vogler) and his partner (Zischler) as they drive through marginal towns along the border of the former East and West Germanies. Episodic in structure and leisurely in tempo, Kings of the Road blends scenes of highways and towns with references to the movies of Godard, Ozu, Lang, and others – all the while creating a subtle rite of passage for its road-bound protagonists. As the film tracks the motions of these figures in a landscape, states of mind and senses of place emerge powerfully." – Harvard Film Archive