Description

Wim and Donata Wenders – The Heart is a Sleeping Beauty
The Million Dollar Hotel – A Film Book
Publisher: Schirmer / Mosel, 2000
Hardcover, 152 pages, German
Size: 27.5 x 26 cm
New in seal

Hot on the heels of the wildly successful collection of stills from Wim Wenders’ hit movie, “The Buena Vista Social Club” comes this volume of images from “The Million Dollar Hotel.” Wenders’ newest movie, an enigmatic, eerily beautiful masterpiece that opened the 2000 Berlin Film Festival, stars Mel Gibson and Milla Jovovich and was produced and written by Bono.
Set in a decrepit hotel in downtown Los Angeles, this story of friendship, betrayal, and the power of imagination is seen through the eyes of Tom Tom, a lovesick innocent whom we first meet as he jumps off the hotel’s roof-and dies with a smile on his face. In a compelling flashback, we learn of a strange murder and the cunning detective sent to investigate it and are introduced to a series of fascinating yet downtrodden characters living on the fringe of society, but filled with hope and wonder. From the sublime first image to its final haunting shot, the incandescent beauty of Wim and Donata Wenders’ photography fill every page of this beautifully produced companion volume that is certain to find its way onto the shelves of Wenders’ many fans, and into the collections of photography and film aficionados of all kinds.

Wim Wenders was born in 1945 in Dusseldorf. He studied at the Munich Film and Television Academy and has achieved international fame with such films as Alice In the Cities (1973), Kings of the Road (1976), Paris Texas (1984) and The Buena Vista Social Club (1999).

Donata Wenders became deeply involved in photography and camera work during her studies at the film department of the Freie Universitat, Berlin. At drama school in Stuggart she chose directing as her major subject. Since then she has worked as a camera assistant on dramatic, documentary and educational films, and as a portrait, documentary and set photographer.