Loneliness is a privilege：Interview with Wim Wenders
孤独是一种特权——专访维姆·文德斯
During Wim Wenders’ first visit to China, a week-long retrospective at the China Film Archive drew an unexpectedly young audience. In a tightly scheduled conversation, Wenders spoke about how cinema shaped him, how “being on the road” became a method, and why loneliness can be a kind of privilege.
Editor’s note
编辑说明
This piece begins with a scene: a tightly scheduled interview during Wim Wenders’ first visit to China. From there, it follows his own account of how cinema shaped him—travel as instinct, “being on the road” as a method, and loneliness as something that can be hard, necessary, and even beautiful.
Key questions
核心问题框架
- How does Wenders define “loneliness,” and why does he call it a privilege?
- How did postwar Germany and an imagined “America” shape his sensibility as a filmmaker?
- What does “being on the road” mean as a working method—not just a motif?
- How do new technologies change the way we watch, remember, and relate to images?
Selected excerpts
文章节选
Excerpt 1
The interview with Wim Wenders was arranged at the Goethe-Institut in Beijing’s 798 Art District. It was the 73-year-old director’s first visit to China, and his schedule was packed from morning to night. I was told the interview would be conducted while he sat on a high stool: after each event in recent days, he never refused a fan who came onstage for an autograph or a photo, which strained his back again. He could not sit for long, nor lean against a chair. “Six hundred people each time—he signs them all,” a staff member said to me, asking that we finish in half an hour so he could stand up and rest before the next interview. “His back hurts too much.”
Excerpt 2
In the screenings at the China Film Archive over those days, some viewers fell asleep partway through. But more striking was how much he was loved by young Chinese fans. Wenders said he was surprised: at events in China most of the audience were under 30, while in Germany his fans might be in their forties or fifties. Their enthusiasm was unforgettable. To win a chance to ask him a question, people went from tossing a jersey to shaking a wine bottle, even wrapping themselves like a mummy— all kinds of ingenuity.
Excerpt 3
“From childhood, I wanted to travel. I just wanted to leave—to go as far away as possible.” Born in Düsseldorf, Germany, in 1945, Wenders once said this when talking about how World War II influenced his work. When he was born, Düsseldorf had almost been reduced to rubble by the war. From books, music, and films, he learned there was a promised land completely different from Germany as he knew it, called America. This deeply shaped him on a subconscious level, and made his exploration of American cultural colonization an important thread in many of his films.
What this demonstrates
它能证明什么
- On-the-spot interview writing: turning time pressure and physical details into a readable narrative lead.
- Cultural translation for general readers: explaining Wenders’ method and ideas through concrete scenes and plain language.