German director Wim Wenders (Paris, Texas, Perfect Days) has pulled his 1975 film Wrong Move (Falsche Bewegung) out of circulation, citing a controversial nude scene with the then 13-year-old actress Nastassja Kinski.
Kinski has been trying for years to get Wenders to edit the film to cut out the controversial scene, in which she is shown lying on her bed, wearing only panties. In the scene, her 30-something co-star Rüdiger Vogler comes into the room, strips down to his underwear and lies on top of her, slapping her and then caressing her face.
“Although I didn’t know much at the age of 13, I could already tell that it wasn’t right,” Kinski said, in a recent interview with German newspaper the Süddeutsche Zeitung.
On Wednesday, the The Wim Wenders Foundation, which controls rights to the film, announced that it has withdrawn Wrong Move from circulation. “Streaming partners, television broadcasters and distribution partners will be instructed to cease public access to the film,” the non-profit group said in a statement.
Wenders has not said whether he plans to re-edit the film to remove the scene.
Wenders addressed the controversy surrounding the film at the German Film Awards last Friday, where he received a lifetime achievement award. In his acceptance speech, Wenders said he would not shoot the scene today, and said he knew keeping it in the film continues to cause pain to Kinski, an actress, he said, “whom I deeply admired, and still do.” After Wrong Move, Wenders and Kinski would go on to collaborate on the acclaimed, Palme d’Or winner Paris, Texas (1984) and on Faraway, So Close! (1993).
But Wenders stopped short of pledging to remove the scene, questioning whether he had the right to alter film history.
“I can’t blame the 29-year-old young man I was then, 50 years ago, who made a film of his time; wanting, in a way, to capture the zeitgeist,” said Wenders.
Wenders called on the members of the German Film Academy, particularly younger filmmakers, to debate and help him resolve the issue.
In his speech, Wenders cited Steven Spielberg’s regret in digitally re-editing ET: The Extra Terrestrial for the film’s 20th anniversary reissue. In the film’s famous bicycle chase scene, Spielberg replaced the guns held by government agents with walkie-talkies. Spielberg later said it was a mistake and restored the original firearms for subsequent editions of the movie.
In the case of Wrong Move, however, the issue is not simply one of freedom of expression or changing cultural norms. Kinski’s lawyer, Christian Schertz, criticized Wenders’ speech an attempt to evade personal responsibility for his actions and has said he will file suit if Wenders does not remove the scene.
Another observer noted that even though Kinski has always respectfully expressed her wish to have the images removed, in his speech, Wenders made her request sound like she was posing “a threat to the very freedom of cinema itself: the freedom of every single artist in the room. Anyone watching and listening to his words could only feel stunned,” states an editorial piece in Süddeutsche Zeitung.
Another opinion piece in German daily Welt also agreed that it “would be symbolically right to remove the scene.”
