Wings of Desire Program - American Repertory Theater

out of berlin by Gideon LesterWim Wenders’ Wings of Desire is probably the most famous and enduringartistic representation of the divided city of Berlin. Even as Wenders made the film in1987 that Berlin was on the verge of disappearing; two years later the Wall fell, andeverything changed. Wenders himself was aware of the temporary nature of his subject;“The fact that something is due to go is always a good reason to include it in ascene,” he later told an interviewer. “Wings of Desire is full of examples. Almost noneof our locations exists any more.” Like the angels of his film, Wenders’ task was toobserve and record a fleeting moment in the city’s life.When he made the film, Wenders had returned to Germany after almost adecade living and working abroad, and was searching for a way to express his feelingsfor his country. Wings of Desire may be a snapshot of a specific time and place — itsGerman title, Der Himmel über Berlin, reveals the central role played by the city — butWenders’ deeper subject is more lasting. As he explains in his essay ‘An attempteddescription of an indescribable film’ which is based on the first treatment for Wings ofDesire, “Of course I didn’t want just to make a film about the place, Berlin. What I wantedto make was a film about people — people here in Berlin — that considered the oneperennial question: how to live?”Almost twenty years later, when we were considering how to adapt Wings ofDesire for the theatre, that “perennial question” was foremost in our minds. We couldnever bring Berlin to the stage even if we wanted to — the city that Damiel and Cassielwandered through no longer exists, and it would be a strange act of archeological hubristo try to resurrect it, when it is already so perfectly remembered in the film. It was thehuman story, or rather the angelic story, that interested us most, and the relationshipbetween the individual characters and the world they inhabited, whatever that worldwould turn out to be. But Berlin seemed so central Wings of Desire; how could we proceedwithout it?