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DON'T COME KNOCKING
Directed by: Wim Wenders.
Produced by: Peter Schwartzkopff, Karsten Brünig & In-Ah Lee.
Written by: Sam Shepard, from a story by Shepard & Wim Wenders.
Director of Photography: Franz Lustig.
Edited by: Peter Przygodda & Oli Weiss.
Music by: T-Bone Burnett.
Released by: Sony.
Country of Origin: France/Germany/USA. 111 min. Rated R.
With: Sam Shepard, Jessica Lange, Tim Roth, Gabriel Mann, Sarah Polley, Fairuza Balk & Eva Marie Saint.
DVD Features: Audio commentary by director Wenders. New York premiere featurette. Sundance featurette. Interview with Wim Wenders & Eva Marie Saint. French subtitles.

While the plot of this gripping and subtle comedy may sound clichéd – a washed-up Western movie actor in a late-midlife crisis rides on a horse off a film set, journeying to pivotal locales in his past to redeem himself – the film cannily gives it an off-center spin, an achievement due to screenwriter/actor Sam Shepard and director Wim Wenders’ collaboration.

The film transcends potential staginess most particularly via its painterly cinematic style. This attribute, intrinsic in Wenders’ work – such as 1987’s Wings of Desire – sets the mood through beautifully-framed images. Additionally, there is an otherworldly fluid motion to Knocking’s cinematography (by Franz Lustig) in shots where the camera floats past fading-film star Howard Spence (a suitably taciturn Shepard) looking out, or sitting on, his window ledge.

This conveys a sense of going through life without really living it and enhances the story of Howard – a combination of Clint Eastwood and Nick Nolte – who, because of all his carousing and drinking, missed out on what is most important. While visiting his mother (a game Eva Marie Saint) for the first time in over 30 years, he discovers he has a child, conceived in a long-ago love affair in Montana with Doreen (the incomparable Jessica Lange). In Butte, he runs into his now-grown son Earl (the great Gabriel Mann), shadowed by a daughter that he also hadn’t known he fathered, Sky (Sarah Polley, entrancingly fleshing out a conscience-raising role that could have been hokey). While attempting to reconcile with his belligerent son, Howard’s hunted by a menacingly deadpan investigator (Tim Roth), sent by the studio to retrieve him.

Knocking’s understated moments are the most enjoyable, whether it be the characters’ poker faces at turbulent revelations or the way some downplay what they’re saying. In a surreal and evocative sequence consisting of a tracking shot circling around Howard, he sits on a sofa on the side of a ghost-town-like street as life moves on, precisely embodying his daughter’s question: “Why’d you let so much time go by?”

DVD Extras: The Sundance and New York premiere featurettes are short and interesting only insofar as they detail, to some extent, how the film was meant to deal with the themes of family and the West. As for the Saint and Wenders interview, they notably protest at the interviewer’s suggestion that the film deals with the cinema itself. Could it be it was decided to market Knocking less as a self-referential meditation on movies, specifically the Western, than as a character-driven piece? (After all, it would seem to be deliberately calculated on the part of film connoisseur Wenders to cast as iconic an actress as Saint, star of such landmarks as On the Waterfront and North by Northwest.) Additionally, Wenders discusses on the commentary how, oddly, writer/actor Shepard wondered if he could handle his own script’s comedic aspects. Remarkably, the film’s most effective moments were practically accidental; during the filming, Roth asked Shepard to write him in a scene opposite Saint and Lange, resulting in hilarious moments with each actress, respectively.

Wenders confirms the film is, indeed, a meditation on the fantasy of movies, referring to the influence of such films as West Side Story and High Noon, as well as citing Joan Crawford’s line from Johnny Guitar to the effect of “Home is where you get when you run out of places,” as being an inspiration. Moreover, he mentions Knocking started off as a road movie and evolved into a Western deconstruction. Mostly though, Wenders confesses the entire film can be looked at as an homage to artist Edward Hopper. Hugely enlightening to understanding his career, Wenders also states he works with a specific location in mind, while Shepard is concerned with only character. Finally, sounding much like the savvy industry player that even (or especially) an independent-minded filmmaker like him is (or has to be), Wenders proclaims, regarding having a low budget: “The more money you have these days, the less you can actually say with it.” (One flaw: though the director keeps referring to deleted scenes, weirdly there are actually none to be found on this DVD.) Reymond Levy
August 8, 2006