Hearty congratulations to Bill for successfully defending in April!

“Melancholy and the Photo-Historical Approach in the Films of Wim Wenders” provides what has been long awaited in scholarship on this prolific filmmaker: a template for understanding the more recent works in light of his overall oeuvre. This thesis uses precepts of “redemptive realism” to trace a melancholic arc in individual films throughout his career as “film” moves away from its original base in analog photographic media. Above all, this dissertation shows a more thoroughgoing knowledge of Wenders’ creative output than any work to date, which adds power to close readings of films from the film-school period to the experiments with 3-D.

Advisor: Prof. John E. Davidson
Committee members: Prof. Robert C. Holub, Prof. Jesse E. Schotter (English)
And a special thank you to Prof. Ioanna Papandreou