"On the contrary, a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever, but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world"
About this Quote
The subtext is a defense of form as persuasion. Film “language” doesn’t just depict agency; it trains audiences to recognize it. A story that refuses neat closure can make viewers less dependent on authority. A narrative that follows ordinary gestures with serious attention can restore dignity to lives usually treated as background noise. Even the pacing matters: slowing down in a culture of speed is a small resistance, an invitation to think rather than react.
Contextually, this fits the postwar European art-cinema tradition and the New German Cinema moment Wenders emerged from, where politics was unavoidable but propaganda felt suspect. After fascism, after the Cold War’s binary scripts, “message” can sound like manipulation. Wenders offers another route: let the film’s structure model freedom. The intent isn’t to smuggle politics past censors; it’s to insist that how we see is already a civic question. If viewers can imagine a life edited differently, they may start believing it’s editable.
Quote Details
| Topic | Change |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: Wim Wenders talks with WSWS (Wim Wenders, 2000)
Evidence: Any film that supports the idea that things can be changed is a great film in my eyes. It doesn’t have to be overtly political. On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world. Any movie that has that spirit and says things can be changed is worth making.. This wording appears in an interview Q&A on the World Socialist Web Site, in a section where interviewer Richard Phillips asks whether film can expand viewers’ imagination and create a longing for a different reality. The page is dated January 10, 2000, and contains the quote verbatim as part of Wenders’s answer (marked “WW:”). This is a primary-source publication in the sense that it is presented as Wenders’s spoken words in an interview transcript; it is not a quote-compilation site. I did not find evidence (in accessible sources) of an earlier publication/speech containing the exact same sentence; many quote-aggregation sites attribute it back to this WSWS interview. Other candidates (1) Wim Wenders (Olivier Delers, Martin Sulzer-Reichel, 2020) compilation99.7% ... On the contrary a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever but in its form an... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Wenders, Wim. (2026, February 22). On the contrary, a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever, but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-contrary-a-film-can-promote-the-idea-of-106914/
Chicago Style
Wenders, Wim. "On the contrary, a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever, but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world." FixQuotes. February 22, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-contrary-a-film-can-promote-the-idea-of-106914/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"On the contrary, a film can promote the idea of change without any political message whatsoever, but in its form and language can tell people that they can change their lives and contribute to progressive changes in the world." FixQuotes, 22 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/on-the-contrary-a-film-can-promote-the-idea-of-106914/. Accessed 24 Feb. 2026.
