The State of Things

Der Stand der Dinge

During the troubled production of Hammett(1981), Wenders’s first American film, made under the aegis of Francis Ford Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios, a break was taken in order to decide a way forward after Coppola was extremely unhappy with the finished film. Wenders used this time to reflect on the filmmaking process, and perhaps exorcise some demons, in The State Of Things, one of many such ruminations on the process dotted throughout his career. A film crew under director Friedrich Munro (Patrick Bauchau) is abandoned by its producer, their sci-fi film grinding to a halt, leading to a period of reflection.