Subscribe to watch - 14-day free trial, then £4.99 a month
Notebook on Cities and Clothes
Wim Wenders helms this unusual but intimate documentary following pioneering fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto as he prepares for a fashion show in Paris.
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1989 81 mins
Director: Wim Wenders
Overview
In 1989, Wim Wenders was commissioned to make a film about fashion and its place in contemporary society. Initially bemused by the offer, he chose to focus on a designer whose work he was familiar with and felt comfortable in, Yohji Yamamoto. The final product is an intimate portrait of a consummate professional and an engaging exploration of the visual medium.
Notebook On Cities and Clothes gradually transforms from a meditation on our relationship with fashion to an exploration of visual representation, creating a dialogue between the language of fashion and that of film. Both are rapidly changing forms of communication, whose progressiveness is often breathtaking. As Yamamoto constantly searches for new modes of expression, Wim Wenders embraces video technology, which offers more flexibility when recording such a fast-paced world.
Related
Animation & Artists Moving Image
Lek and the Dogs
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2017 92 mins Director: Andrew Kötting
Andrew Kötting returns with an emotionally affecting and politically resonant multi-genre adaptation of Hattie Naylor’s play.
In Absentia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 2000 20 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay's powerful visualisation of a piece by Karlheinz Stockhausen. A woman alone in a room repeatedly writes a letter with tiny broken off pieces of pencil lead. Outside her window, vistas of ever-changing light register her every emotion.
This Unnameable Little Broom
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1985 11 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Brothers Quay take on the Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh, presenting the character as a childlike figure who sets a series of vicious traps to catch Enkidu, the guileless forest creature.
The Comb
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1990 18 mins Director: Brothers Quay
A woman dreams of a fairytale landscape populated by ladders and sinister puppets.
Nocturna Artificialia
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1979 21 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The debut film from the Brothers Quay follows a dreamer who's seduced by the mystery of the city at night. He leaves his room and goes into the street, where a tram-car carries him away.
Street of Crocodiles
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1986 21 mins Director: Brothers Quay
The Quays' best-known (and highest budgeted) short takes place in nightmarish netherworld populated by strange and sinister puppets.
Wim Wenders
Paris, Texas
Drama 1984 145 mins Director: Wim Wenders
The late, great Harry Dean Stanton's finest role came as the near-mute Travis, on a journey across America to reunite his family, in Wim Wenders' moving tale of loss and redemption.
Buena Vista Social Club
Documentary 1999 101 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Cuba’s rich and colourful past comes vividly to life in this legendary, Oscar-nominated documentary from director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Wings of Desire).
Alice in the Cities
Road movie 1974 113 mins Director: Wim Wenders
A German writer leaving the USA finds himself unwittingly embarking on a road trip with an eight-year-old girl.
The American Friend
Film noir 1978 121 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Acclaimed director Wim Wenders, with the help of Dennis Hopper, transforms Patricia Highsmith's novel 'Ripley's Game' into a gripping European noir.
A Trick of the Light
Drama-documentary 1996 79 mins Director: Wim Wenders
The origins of German cinema are given life in one of Wim Wenders’ most charming and playful films, focusing on pioneering inventors, the Skladanowsky brothers.
Tokyo-Ga
Documentary 1985 92 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Profiling one of the great directors of World Cinema, Wim Wenders delivers this moving portrait of Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu.
Featuring Wim Wenders
Room 666
Documentary 1984 46 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders invites a group of filmmakers at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival – including Godard, Fassbinder, Herzog and Spielberg – to discuss cinema.
Nick's Film (Lightning Over Water)
Biopic 1980 90 mins Director: Nicholas Ray
Simultaneously a love letter and a farewell, this documentary charts the last few months of acclaimed director Nicholas Ray through the eyes of Wim Wenders.
Directed by Wim Wenders
Wings of Desire
Fantasy 1987 128 mins Director: Wim Wenders
In director Wim Wenders' (Paris, Texas) most metaphysical work, a guardian angel desires nothing more than to be human. Presented in a stunning new restoration.
The Goalie's Anxiety At The Penalty Kick
Crime 1971 103 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Unavailable for three decades, Wim Wenders’ 1972 classic about an errant footballer who turns to crime; restored and remastered in stunning 4K.
A Trick of the Light
Drama-documentary 1996 79 mins Director: Wim Wenders
The origins of German cinema are given life in one of Wim Wenders’ most charming and playful films, focusing on pioneering inventors, the Skladanowsky brothers.
Tokyo-Ga
Documentary 1985 92 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Profiling one of the great directors of World Cinema, Wim Wenders delivers this moving portrait of Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu.
The Scarlet Letter
Period drama 1972 90 mins Director: Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders adapts the acclaimed novel in which a Puritan village chastises a young mother for giving birth out of wedlock.
A House for Us: From the Family of Reptiles
1974 26 mins Director: Wim Wenders
The first of a two-part TV special directed by Wim Wenders for acclaimed series A House For Us. Ute, a young girl, runs away from home to visit the crocodiles in the zoo.
New
New Queer Visions: Men from the Boys
Anthology 2017 114 mins Director: David Bonneville
A compilation of short films exploring first love, revenge, new beginnings and more are unwrapped, in this exciting collection of debut shorts from Portugal, Taiwan, Belgium, the UK and the USA.
Through a Boy's Eyes
Anthology 2018 77 mins Director: Damiá Serra Cauchetiez
In this selection of award-winning short films, witness the struggles and celebrations seen through the eyes of boys not only becoming men, but becoming attracted to them..
New Queer Visions Lust in Translation
Anthology 2015 108 mins Director: Kate Meveau
A compilation of short films exploring first love, revenge, new beginnings and more are unwrapped in the first of this exciting series of compilations, programmed by the New Queer Visions Film Festival strand.
The Propaganda Game
Documentary 2015 94 mins Director: Álvaro Longoria
Spanish documentary filmmaker Álvaro Longoria is our guide around the most secretive state on earth – North Korea.
Tetsuo II: Body Hammer
Horror 1991 81 mins Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Shinya Tsukamoto's sequel has the Iron Man transforming into a cyberkinetic gun when a gang of vicious skinheads kidnap his son.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Fantasy 1988 67 mins Director: Shinya Tsukamoto
Shinya Tsukamoto's wild cyberpunk tale of a businessman's agonising transformation into a walking scrap heap is a jaggedly dehumanised vision of the future.