Wim Wenders on how Europeans installed abuses in America

On the set of Paris, Texas , 1983

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Wim Wenders on filmmaking as intuition

On the set of Paris, Texas , 1983

"When I think of a movie, I don't initially think much of actors. I think I work much more from a certain flow of images or a certain connection of ideas and images. And then the actors come in and they're always a big disturbance in this beautiful unity of ideas that existed before. And usually it turns out that they just disturb this order enough to make it interesting. So, usually in the course of a movie I get very interested in the actors. Usually they help me to forget the ideas that I had before. And if they don't, something is wrong. If I find myself sticking to preconceived ideas, then it's because the actors just didn't interest me enough."

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Wim Wenders on what men expect of women

On the set of Paris, Texas, 1983

Melinda Camber Porter asked Wim Wenders: “When you say men have certain expectations of women, what exactly do you mean? Wenders explains, “We still have to find out what we mean by that, because ‘the character’ hasn’t really understood that yet [in shooting the film, Paris Texas]. The character is getting ready to confront the issue. I do not work so a film is laid out and people can spell it out. I work much more on intuition … Sometimes film making is very much based on very subconscious choices or intuitions.”

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Melinda in conversation with Michael Lonsdale

Michael Lonsdale (1931 - ) is a French actor.

"Michael Lonsdale, one of the most protean and familiar French actors of the screen and stage, had  just completed working in English on Joseph Losey's latest film, Mr. Klein, when I met him in London."

So begins Melinda Camber Porter's reflection on her conversation, one of over 30 included in her book Through Parisian Eyes, with Mr. Lonsdale.

Excerpt from Through Parisian Eyes [PDF]

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Melinda speaks with Peter Metthiessen

Peter Matthiessen (1927 - 2014) was an America novelist, naturalist, nature writer, and CIA agent.

"The wilderness itself is full of beauty and also a great mystery and a great silence, a very healing silence. I find it exhilarating, and sometimes it pushes me to the edge of depression. But most of us don't know what to do with it, so we build roads and airstrips into it," said Peter Matthiessen, whose life-long attraction to wilderness has led him on expeditions to South America, Africa, New Guinea, Nepal, and the Sudan, and has brought him into contact with peoples whose way of life precariously awaits the encroachment of modern life, and the threat of annihilation. 

Matthiessen sees the frontier as the place where the American way was forged, and feels that the weaknesses and qualities of the frontier character operate long after the wilderness has been cleared. Matthiessen was keen to talk of the novel he is currently writing on this theme. "I'm interested in the violence of the American frontier and how the frontier developed. I hope the novel is a kind of reflection of ...the frontier mind, how it works, where it goes wrong and why this country goes so easily into violence. For we have a lot of violence."

Read the full interview here.  |  MelindaCamberPorter.com

Melinda talks to Jean-Francois Revel

Jean-François Revel (1924 - 2006) was a French journalist, author, and philosopher.

Revel does not confine his analysis to France. And he also gives warning to the West about the fragility of democracies. Nor does he feel that living in France has made him more sensitive to these issues. He speaks as a European. "I have always said that democracy is an abnormal political system. It's an exception. In Europe, people have always found it difficult to maintain a democracy."

Excerpt from Through Parisian Eye [PDF]

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Jean-Paul Aron interview from 1976

Jean-Paul Aron (27 May 1925 - 20 August 1988) was a French writer, philosopher and journalist.

In 1976 Melinda sat down with Mr. Aron in Paris. Their conversation was included in her book Through Parisian Eyes, in which in the French writer, journalist, and philosopher had a lot to say:

On the search for novelty that has invaded art and literature: "I am not against modernity, and I know that each epoch produces its own new truth. But I am against these impostures of modernity, that's to say, these 'new' systems of thought, which become like commodities...People say that America produces literary works like commodities. But it's true of France. At the moment we have new products, or books, that glut the market, each one destorying the validity of the previous 'new' book."

On structuralism: "People take to these systems of thought when they want to avoid living, meaning, and feelings. There's a curious taste for objectivity...What I mean is that people are under the illusion that you can transcribe a so-called objective view of the world...so you don't have to actually experience life."

Read the full text from Through Parisian Eyes [PDF]

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