[Mini Theater Revisited] No. 16: Recovering from the movie town of Ginza...Part 5: Shante's big hit "Wings of Desire"

Some of the films that have become huge hits at mini-theaters are ones that we don't really understand why they were so successful. Wim Wenders's `` Wings of Desire '' (1987) is one such film.

From today's box office perspective, the film is full of elements that seem to struggle no matter how you look at it, such as the black-and-white screen, difficult dialogue, and the starring role of a middle-aged German actor. However, in Tokyo in 1988, when the mini-theater culture was booming, the atmosphere of this movie strangely clicked with me.

France Films, the most powerful distribution company at the time, purchased the film and displayed it at Chantecine, Toho's first mini-theater. This was six months after Chante opened. As a result, the film set a record of 30 weeks of continuous screening (approximately 8 months) and attracted 140,000 viewers. It became the number one hit in Chante's history.

The deputy manager at the time looks back on the release of the work that caused such a social phenomenon.

Coincidentally, German writer Peter Handke, who wrote the screenplay for this film, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2019.

*The following articles were serialized on the website operated by Geijutsu Shimbun between 2013 and 2014. This time, we have received permission from Sawako Omori and Geijutsu Shinbunsha Co., Ltd. to reprint this work.

Index

• bought a great movie
• View of the Berlin Wall before it fell
• Follow newspaper ads
• A long run of about 8 months
• Literature is also becoming a commodity

bought a great movie

Many mini-theaters open their theaters in a state of groping, and through repeated trial and error, they come across a movie that changes the fate of the theater. For Hibiya's Chante Cinema (currently TOHO Cinemas Chanter), ``Wings of Desire'' (1987) became a work that determined the future of theater.

Toho's Managing Director Shoji Takahashi (at the time), who worked as assistant manager and then assistant manager when Chante opened, looks back on the time when this movie was released.

``When half a year had passed since Chante opened, it seems that there was an opinion within Toho about what to do about the future of the theater, because it's good if the box office is good, but if it's difficult, it's difficult. There are two theaters, and there was a voice that one theater could be made into a regular roadshow hall rather than a mini theater.Originally, there were political programs that were included as part of company relations, so two mini theaters were created. Instead, it felt like 1.5 theaters, but it was about to become 1.0."

However, with the success of ``Wings of Desire'', the tide changed.

``Since this movie was a big hit, people started thinking, ``Okay, maybe 2 or 1.5,'' and I think that's what's happening now.With the success of this movie, I feel like theaters are finally getting back on track. was there at that time.”

The director of ``Wings of Desire'' is Wim Wenders, who has been attracting worldwide attention as the standard-bearer of Germany's ``New German Cinema.'' In Japan, his representative work `` An American Friend '' (1977) was screened at the German Film Festival held at a hall in Tokyo in the 1970s. In the mid-1980s, an even larger German film festival was held at the Tokyu Theater, and the director himself came to Japan with his latest film, Kotono no Shima (1981).

In 1985, `` Paris, Texas '' (winner of the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984) was screened at the Miyukiza, and the number of fans further increased. The first German film he made in 10 years after returning to his home country was ``Wings of Desire,'' which won the director's award at the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.

``I heard from Shun Shibata, the president of French Film Company, who had seen this film at the Cannes Film Festival, that he had bought such a wonderful film because he knew it would be a hit.' '・Wings of Desire.''

"However, when I got the prints and the script afterward, I realized that although the visuals were wonderful, the content was difficult, so I decided to decide what to do with it...Actually, it wasn't a simple movie."

View of the Berlin Wall before it fell