Io scrivo ciò che vedo. Einmal di Wim Wenders tra immagini autocelebrative e priorità del racconto

Like many of Wenders’ films, the book Una volta (Einmal. Bilder und Geschichten, 1994; Once: Pictures and Stories) is the result of a fruitful encounter between different arts. Wenders now takes on the role of photographer and narrator, while never completely abandoning the more usual role of director. The beginning of every short composition in Einmal, associated with one or more images, is the usual one of fairy tales. However, the word “once” that precedes as a title most of the compositions is not just an intertextual reference to the genre of children’s literature. It is more a sort of declaration of poetics, the choice of a specific stylistic register, as well as an attempt to adhere to a certain way of knowing and experiencing existence. It is the same way of knowing characteristic of children, says Wenders, connected—like the photographer’s shot—to the moment, without any care or regard for the past or the future. The stories that follow one another do not, at least not always, serve as captions for the images, nor do they necessarily offer the reader clarifications regarding the photographs placed next to them or the circumstances in which the they were shot. In this book Wenders works “spontaneously,” choosing for each shot the first story that “comes to his mind.” The point of connection between writing and image, as well as the fulcrum of the aesthetics of Wenders’ phototext, is undoubtedly the concept of Disposition (Einstellung), which is a privileged place of observation from which the photographer’s eye chooses to look, but also the narrative engine of the whole story, as well as, again, the centre from which the different threads of the story radiate and then return to converge. The object of my contribution will be precisely this idea of Einstellung, with the aim of highlighting its implications and potential.