Wings of Desire (Der Himmel über Berlin)

Best Director Cannes Film Festival

When the child was a child...

it walked with its arms swinging.

It wanted the stream to be a river...

the river a torrent...

and this puddle to be the sea.

When the child was a child...

it didn't know it was a child.

Everything was full of life...

and all life was one.

When the child was a child...

it had no opinion about anything.

It had no habits.

It often sat cross-legged, took off running...

had a cowlick in its hair...

and didn't pull a face when photographed.

Look!

The consolation of lifting one's head out here in the open...

the consolation of seeing the color...

enlightened through the sun in all men's eyes.

At last mad, at last no longer alone!

At last mad, at last redeemed!

At last mad, at last at peace!

There's a little house...

with two floors and a terrace.

And every day we go bathing.

And the man who lives there....

I don't even understand this character.

It's amazing how little I know about this part.

maybe we'll discover it during the shoot.

I'll get a good costume, That's half the battle.

Berlin.

Emil Jannings.

Kennedy.

Von Stauffenberg.

Hell of a guy.

What a pretty picture!

That wasn't in Berlin.

What difference does it make? It happened.

If grandma was here, she'd say "spazier."

"Go spazieren."

Tokyo, Kyoto...

Paris, London, Trieste...

Berlin.

Nothing to see on TV.

You stumble over your colors and are never punctual.

I'll think of something.

It's still the same smell. But dustier.

She collected everything.

...even U-Bahn tickets.

She never threw anything away.

Mother, my mother...

she never was.

My father....

My father was my father.

She is dead.

No tears, no grief.

Maybe later.

She doesn't love you, she has never loved you.

And you too are only pretending.

You should be glad they've forgotten you.

At last you're free.

My God, what will become of the boy?

He's only got music in his head.

What does he want now?

I already bought him a guitar.

Now he wants drums.

In the end, I'm getting fed up with it.

Won't he ever grow up?

I'm getting fed up.

I can't help him anymore.

No wonder. He only learned rock n' roll.

Maybe he'll grow up one day.

When the child was a child...

it was the time of these questions.

Why am I me...

and why not you?

Why am I here, and why not there?

When did time begin, and where does space end?

Isn't life under the sun just a dream?

Isn't what I see, hear, and smell...

just the mirage of a world before the world?

Does evil actually exist...

and are there people who are really evil?

How can it be that I, who am I...

wasn't before I was...

and that sometime I, the one I am...

no longer will be the one I am?

The child needs oxygen.

Breathe deep down.

If I could only suffer in her place.

It hurts! But it'll be over soon.

It's almost over.

Poor little mite, I'm anxious to see you. I just wonder what you'll look like.

Bastard!

Women will fuck up your life.

Blackie, I've lost my way. We wanted to go to the cemetery.

Well?

Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:28.

Moonrise at 7:04, moonset....

Water level of the Havel and the Spree.

Twenty years ago today...

a Soviet jet fighter crashed in Spandau Lake.

Fifty years ago there were--

The Olympic Games.

Two hundred years ago, Blanchard flew over the city in a balloon.

Like the fugitives the other day.

And today...

on the Lilienthaler Chaussee, a man walks slowly...

and looks over his shoulder into space.

At Post Office 44, someone who wants to put an end to it today...

has stuck collectors' stamps on his farewell letters.

A different one on each.

Then he spoke English with an American soldier...

for the first time since his schooldays, very fluently.

A prisoner at Plötzensee...

just before dashing his head against the wall...

said, "Now!"

At the Zoo U-Bahn station, the guard, instead of the station's name...

suddenly shouted, "Tierra del Fuego!"

In the hills, an old man was reading The Odyssey to a child...

and the young listener stopped blinking his eyes.

And what do you have to tell?

A passer-by, in the rain, folded her umbrella...

and was drenched.

A schoolboy...

who described to his teacher...

how a fern grows out of the earth, and astounded the teacher.

A blind woman who groped for her watch...

feeling my presence.

It's great to live by the spirit, to testify day by day...

for eternity, only what's spiritual in people's minds.

But sometimes I'm fed up with my spiritual existence.

Instead of forever hovering above...

I'd like to feel a weight grow in me...

to end the infinity and to tie me to earth.

I'd like, at each step, each gust of wind, to be able to say "now."

"Now and now"...

and no longer "forever" and "for eternity."

To sit at the empty place at a card table...

and be greeted, even by a nod.

Every time we participated, it was a pretense.

Wrestling with one...

allowing a hip to be put out in pretense...

catching a fish in pretense...

in pretense sitting at tables...

drinking and eating in pretense.

Having lambs roasted and wine...

served in the tents out there in the desert, only in pretense.

No, I don't have to beget a child or plant a tree...

but it would be rather nice...

coming home after a long day...

to feed the cat, like Philip Marlowe...

to have a fever...

and blackened fingers from the newspaper...

to be excited not only by the mind...

but, at last, by a meal...

by the line of a neck...

by an ear.

To lie!

Through one's teeth.

As you're walking, to feel your bones moving along.

At last to guess, instead of always knowing.

To be able to say "ah" and "oh" and "hey"...

instead of "yea" and "amen."

To be able, once in a while, to enthuse for evil.

To draw all the demons of the earth from passers-by...

and to chase them out into the world!

To be a savage.

Or at last to feel how it is...

to take off shoes under a table...

to wriggle your toes barefoot, like that.

Stay alone!

Let things happen!

Keep serious!

We can only be savages in as much as we keep serious.

Do no more than look! Assemble, testify, preserve!

Remain spirit!

Keep your distance. Keep your word.

Look, a convertible!

You don't buy that!

You steal it, if not it's stolen from you.

Just imagine...

open the roof, leave the smog behind....

In a pimp's jalopy.

Tell me, muse, of the storyteller...

who has been thrust to the edge of the world...

both an infant and an ancient...

and through him reveal everyman.

With time...

those who listened to me became my readers.

They no longer sit in a circle...

but rather sit apart...

and one doesn't know anything about the other.

I'm an old man...

with a broken voice...

but the tale...

still rises from the depths...

and the mouth, slightly opened, repeats it...

as clearly, as powerfully.