Alice in the Cities (1974)

Edda Köchl: Angela - Friend in New York

Photos 

Quotes 

• Philip 'Phil' Winter : I got completely lost. It was a horrible journey. Once you leave New York City nothing changes anymore. It all looks the same. You can't imagine anything anymore. Above all, you can't imagine any change. I became estranged from myself. All I could imagine was going on and on like this forever. Some nights, I was sure I would go back the next morning. But then I'd keep on driving, listening to that vulgar radio and every night in a motel that looked just like all the others before. I'd watch that barbarous television. I didn't know what hit me.

  Angela - Friend in New York : You haven't known that for a long time now. You don't have to travel across America for that. That happens when you lose all sense of your own self. And you lost that long ago. That's why you always need proof, proof you still exist. Your stories and your experiences - you treat them like raw eggs. As if you were the only one to experience things. And that's why you keep taking pictures. They're something you can hold on to, more evidence that it was you who saw these things.

• Philip 'Phil' Winter : Taking pictures is a way of proving things. Waiting for the image to develop, I was often filled with a strange unease. I could hardly wait to compare the picture with reality. But comparing them wouldn't reassure me either. As the still images were always overtaken by reality...

  Angela - Friend in New York : You can't stay here.

  Philip 'Phil' Winter : I photographed even more obsessively.

  Angela - Friend in New York : You're really beside yourself!

  Philip 'Phil' Winter : That's why I only took Polaroids...

  Angela - Friend in New York : I don't want you to stay here, understand?

  Philip 'Phil' Winter : What? Are you serious?

  Angela - Friend in New York : Yes, my friend. I can't help you.