Kings of the Road [Im Lauf der Zeit] **** (1976, Rüdiger Vogler, Hanns Zischler, Lisa Kreuzer) – Classic Movie Review 8923

Wim Wenders’s ace 1976 road movie Kings of the Road [Im Lauf der Zeit] is about two men – film projector engineer Bruno Winter (Rüdiger Vogler) and escapee from his family Robert Lander (Hanns Zischler) – listening to rock music as they travel in a van along the barren East-West German border.

Kings of the Road [Im Lauf der Zeit] is long (it runs 176 minutes) and leisurely but nevertheless riveting. It is basically an improvised dialogue whose main themes are the decline of German films, travel, and American cultural domination.

Wenders reaches parts other directors do not in terms of intellectual truth and visual style, and he uses his actors and music (scored by Axel Linstädt) superbly. It is one of the gems of the New German Cinema of the Seventies.

Also in the cast are Lisa Kreuzer as cashier Pauline, Rudolf Schündler, Marquard Böhm, Hans Dieter Trayer, Franziska Stömmer and Patric Kreuzer.

Wenders has a director cameo as spectator at Pauline’s theatre.

Kings of the Road [Im Lauf der Zeit] is directed by Wim Wenders, runs 176 minutes, is made by  Westdeutscher Rundfunk and Wim Wenders Produktion, is released by Filmverlag der Autoren, Cinegate (1976) (UK) and Bauer International (1977) (US), is written by Wim Wenders, shot by Robby Müller and Martin Shäfer, is edited by Peter Przygodda, produced by Wim Wenders, and scored by Axel Linstädt, with Production Design by Bernd Hirskorn.

There was no script for the movie, with everything improvised or developed on set except for the first scene after the opening credits when the two main characters meet.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8923

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