It’s just impressive the clarity of Wim Wenders. He frames his images in the camera as well his black eyeglass frame does with him.

In this short sequences taken from Pina (Bausch), 2011, Wim Wenders plays with daylight and the built environment as if he were an architect of light.

With this, I mean that he uses a camera cart on a very still background, which seems to be only a postcard or a theatre upstage, it is absolutely surreal and binds so powerfully cinema and theatre together.

In this melting-pot, there is a very sculptural natural light which frames even more the space, leaving at times deep shadows from the actor only (the curly-haired ballet dancer), at times sculptural and sharp architectural shadows (the tango duo) and at times frame the “stage” with a linear shadow pattern (the dance duo in the winter garden).

The choice of very urban, minimalistic and framed spaces, the contrast between the dance and the uninhabited city, helps the architecture to detach from its role of scene container and brings it again on the status of an image. Once more the architecture is a oneiric and Magrittian presence in the cinema.

This use of daylight, architecture, background and foreground (upstage and apron) within the dance filming, has been extremely inspirational for all the professional of my field.

All Wim Wenders estimators will be once more grateful for this special contribution to cinema photography.

 
 

Michele Bruno lighting designer