THE SOUL OF A MAN

Overview

Directed by:

Wim WENDERS

Country:

GERMANY

Year:

2002

Duration:

100 minutes

Selection :

Hors compétition

Credits

Wim WENDERS

- Director

Wim WENDERS

- Script and Dialogue

Mathilde BONNEFOY

- Film Editor

Lisa RINZLER

- Cinematography

Liba DANIELS

- Set Designer

Actors

Keith B. BROWN

- Skip James

Chris Thomas KING

- Blind Willie Johnson

Synopsis

In "The Soul of A Man," director Wim Wenders looks at the dramatic tension in the blues between the sacred and the profane by exploring the music and lives of three of his favorite blues artists: Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson and J. B. Lenoir. Part history, part personal pilgrimage, the film tells the story of these lives in music through an extended fictional film sequence, rare archival footage, present-day documentary scenes and covers of their songs by contemporary musicians such as Shemekia Copeland, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Garland Jeffreys, Chris Thomas King, Cassandra Wilson, Nick Cave, Los Lobos, Eagle Eye Cherry, Vernon Reid, James "Blood" Ulmer, Lou Reed, Bonnie Raitt, Marc Ribot, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Lucinda Williams and T-Bone Burnett.

Says Wenders: "These songs meant the world to me. I felt there was more truth in them than in any book I had read about America, or in any movie I had ever seen. I've tried to describe, more like a poem than in a 'documentary,' what moved me so much in their songs and voices."

Contacts and useful links

Production : ROAD MOVIES FILMPRODUKTION GMBH - Clausewitzstr. 4 - D-10629 Berlin - ALLEMAGNE - T : 49 30 880 486 25 - F : 49 30 880 486 11 - www.road-movies.com

French press : AS COMMUNICATION - Alexandra Schamis - T : 33 (0)1 47 23 00 02 - F : 33 (0)1 47 23 00 01 - isabelleduvoisin@ascommunication.fr

International press: AS COMMUNICATION - F :