Report from Hollywood

“It may be worse than Portugal,” observes cinematographer Henri Alekan about a Los Angeles film lab while on the set of Wim Wenders’ The State of Things (1984). A legendary production and a transitional work for the New German Cinema director as his work became increasingly international, Wenders set out to make a film about filmmaking as funding stalled on the American production of Hammett. The State of Things deals with American and European sensibilities about cinema, and he enlisted Lachman to film and document the film being made in Los Angeles. Made for German television, completed in 1985 and unseen outside of Germany, Lachman’s portrait of Wenders at work features striking filmmaking and location photography of Los Angeles in the 1980s, and serves as a candid glimpse into European encounters with American culture at the time.

Wim Wenders

Samuel Fuller

Allen Garfield

Patrick Bauchau

• Edward LachmanDirector

Release date

January 1, 1985

Status

Released

Original language

English

Runtime

47m

Genres

Documentary