Based on the Wilhelm Meister novels of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, updated and adapted to the screen by Peter Handke, and directed by Wim Wenders. Just sorting out whose input is whose, among these three towering artists, would be a term-paper-sized project. Curiously, the chemistry of this threesome seems to have resulted in something as redolent of Rainer Werner Fassbinder as of Wim Wenders, and one suspects that the hand of Handke may be uppermost in the collaboration. The absurdist storyline, having to do with the existential dilemma of a would-be writer who is interested only in writing and not at all in living, follows a typically Wenders nomadic course, but the movement of his characters has never seemed quite so compulsive nor the characters themselves quite so pretentious. Well worth seeing, but not nearly as self-assured in its tone or its footwork as Wenders's other work. With Rudiger Vogler, Hanna Schygulla, and Peter Kern. (1975) — Duncan Shepherd
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