Alice in the Cities

Infobox Film
name = Alice in the Cities


caption =
director = Wim Wenders
producer = Peter Genée
Joachim von Mengershausen
writer = Wim Wenders Veith von Fürstenberg
narrator =
starring = Rüdiger Vogler
Yella Rottländer
music =
cinematography = Robby Müller
editing = Peter Przygodda
distributor =
released = 1974
runtime = 110 min.
country = West Germany
language = German
English
Dutch
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website = http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/aliceinthecities/aliceinthecities.htm
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0069687

"Alice in the Cities" ( _de. Alice in den Städten) is a 1974 German road movie directed by Wim Wenders. This was the first part of Wenders' "Road Movie Trilogy" which included "The Wrong Move" (1975) and "Kings of the Road" (1976). German, English and Dutch. Shot in haunting black and white by Robby Müller with several long scenes without dialogue.

Plot

By an unlikely twist of fate, reporter Phil Winter finds himself stuck with a little girl, Alice, searching the cities of Germany for her grandmother, whose name and address Alice can't remember. The only clue they have is a photograph of her grandmother's front door with no house number and no one in the shot. The film's theme closely foreshadows Wenders' later film "Paris Texas". The scenario of a young girl and a writer thrown together was inspired by his long time collaborator Peter Handke's experience as a single parent [ [http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,2235451,00.html King of the Road by Chris Petit in the Guardian Saturday January 5, 2008] ] . The influence also of "Short Letter, Long Farewell", Handke's 1972 novel, featuring an alienated German-speaker travelling across the United States, can be inferred from the film's use of clips from John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln", itself heavily referenced in the novel.

Cast

* Rüdiger Vogler as Phil Winter
* Yella Rottländer as Alice
* Lisa Kreuzer as Alice's Mother

References

External links

* [http://www.wim-wenders.com/movies/movies_spec/aliceinthecities/aliceinthecities.htm Official website]
*

Andreas Weiland, "Adventure trips for the eyes" (on Alice in the Cities/Alice in den Staedten, by Wim Wenders), in: Andreas Weiland, Day for Night in Taipei. Notes of A Cinéaste. (A copy is available in the Aachen University library)