Finding a different sort of narrative for narrative filmmakers
Wim Wenders’s ‘Anselm’ is the latest example of a director of feature films dabbling in documentary
“If you plan something big, then you know that failure is already part of it.” That’s the view of the German artist Anselm Kiefer, whose paintings and sculptures are so big he rides an old bike inside the massive factory buildings he converted into studios in France.
Kiefer’s prodigious, provocative output is the subject of “Anselm,” a new 3-D documentary from the filmmaker Wim Wenders, opening Jan. 5 at the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema. It’s the latest feature-length documentary from the philosophical director, who is perhaps best known for his offbeat dramas “Paris, Texas” (1984) and “Wings of Desire” (1987).
Wenders’s 1999 film “Buena Vista Social Club” was a cultural happening, reviving the forgotten careers of several Cuban musicians. The Library of Congress added it to the National Film Registry in 2020. In 2014 Wenders released “The Salt of the Earth,” an expansive documentary about the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado, which, like “Buena Vista,” earned an Academy Award nomination.
“Anselm” arrives on the heels of another acclaimed feature filmmaker’s latest sortie into documentary. Steve McQueen’s “Occupied City,” which opened on Christmas Day in New York and Los Angeles, is a four-hour meditation on two moments in Amsterdam, his adopted city — the Nazi occupation during World War II and the pandemic lockdown of 2020. McQueen is best known as the director of the best picture Oscar winner “12 Years a Slave” (2013) and the 2020 anthology series “Small Axe.”
In narrative films the director is God, Alfred Hitchcock is said to have remarked. In documentary, God is the director. If you plan something big — like a visionary movie with a huge budget and awards aspirations — you must expect some failure. Here are 10 more instances where some of our best film directors handed over the reins.