Thursday, May 11, 2006
Reel Question: Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders on being yesterday’s news
It took three years for filmmaker Wim Wenders and actor/playwright Sam Shephard to secure financing for their melancholy Western ‘Don’t Come Knocking’ despite their track record as the pair responsible for the landmark film ‘Paris, Texas’.
“We were dealing with financiers who never heard of ‘Paris, Texas,’” Shepard says, speaking after the film’s U.S. premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. “People don’t remember anything from last week more or less years ago.”
In the film, Shepard plays an aging cowboy movie actor who leaves a film shoot in order to return home and find some sanity in his life. He ends up reuniting with the son he never knew.
Wenders takes the struggles in stride. He’s been making movies long enough to experience his share of ups and downs. Still, at a filmmakers’ oasis like Sundance, the two artists expect slightly more recognition than what they’ve been getting.
“A woman came up to me after last night’s screening,” Shepard says, sitting down next to his friend and collaborator. “She asked me, ‘Have you and Wim Wenders ever worked before?’ She was nice but I couldn’t believe it. I told her, well, we made this film some time ago called Paris, Texas. She hadn’t heard of it.”
Don’t Come Knocking made its U.S. premiere at the Sundance Film Festival and is currently playing in theaters via Sony Pictures Classics
