Wings of Desire Program - American Repertory Theater

A Klee painting named Angelus Novus (right)
shows an angel looking as though he is about
to move away from something he is fixedly
contemplating. His eyes are staring, his mouth
is open, his wings are spread. This is how one
pictures the angel of history. His face is turned
toward the past. Where we perceive a chain of
events, he sees one single catastrophe which
keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of
his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken
the dead, and make whole what has been
smashed. But a storm is blowing in from
Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with
such a violence that the angel can no longer
close them. The storm irresistibly propels him
into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him
grows skyward. This storm is what we call progress.
–– Walter Benjamin, “On the Concept of History”
And we, spectators always, everywhere,
looking at, never out of, everything!
–– Rainer Maria Rilke, Duino Elegies, trans. Leishman and Spender
Even though the angels have been watching and listening to people for such a
long time, there are still many things they don’t understand. For example, they
don’t know and can’t imagine what colors are. Or tastes and smells. They can
guess what feelings are, but they can’t experience them directly. As our angels
are basically loving and good, they can’t imagine things like fear, jealousy, envy
or hatred. They are familiar with their
expression, but not with the things
themselves. They are naturally curious
and would like to learn more, and
from time to time they feel a pang of
regret at missing out on all these
things, not knowing what it’s like throwing
a stone, or what water or fire are
like, or picking up some object in your
hand, let alone touching or kissing a
fellow human being. All these things
escape the angels. They are pure
CONSCIOUSNESS, fuller and more
comprehending than mankind, but also
poorer. The physical and sensual
world is reserved for human beings. It
is the privilege of mortality, and death
is its price.
Aerialist Mam Smith
— Wim Wenders, from the first
treatment for Wings of Desire