Release CalendarTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV News
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsABFFPride MonthOutfest OutfrontsSTARmeter AwardsAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
Sign In
New Customer? Create account
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

The State of Things

Original title: Der Stand der Dinge
  • 1982
  • 2h 1m
IMDb RATING
6.9/10
3.4K
YOUR RATING
The State of Things (1982)
Drama

The crew is running out of money to finish their film.The crew is running out of money to finish their film.The crew is running out of money to finish their film.

  • Director
    • Wim Wenders
  • Writers
    • Robert Kramer
    • Wim Wenders
    • Joshua Wallace
  • Stars
    • Allen Garfield
    • Samuel Fuller
    • Isabelle Weingarten
  • See production, box office & company info
  • IMDb RATING
    6.9/10
    3.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Wim Wenders
    • Writers
      • Robert Kramer
      • Wim Wenders
      • Joshua Wallace
    • Stars
      • Allen Garfield
      • Samuel Fuller
      • Isabelle Weingarten
    • 21User reviews
    • 25Critic reviews
  • See production, box office & company info
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 4 wins & 1 nomination

    Photos71

    The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    Patrick Bauchau in The State of Things (1982)
    Patrick Bauchau in The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    Patrick Bauchau in The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    The State of Things (1982)
    Isabelle Weingarten in The State of Things (1982)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Allen Garfield
    Allen Garfield
    • Gordon
    Samuel Fuller
    Samuel Fuller
    • Joe
    Isabelle Weingarten
    • Anna
    Rebecca Pauly
    • Joan
    Jeffrey Kime
    • Mark
    Geoffrey Carey
    • Robert
    Camila Mora-Scheihing
    • Julia
    • (as Camila Mora)
    Alexandra Auder
    • Jane
    Patrick Bauchau
    Patrick Bauchau
    • Friedrich Munro
    John Paul Getty III
    • Dennis
    • (as J. Paul Getty III)
    Viva
    Viva
    • Kate
    Artur Semedo
    • Production Manager
    Francisco Baião
    • Soundman
    Robert Kramer
    • Camera Operator
    Roger Corman
    Roger Corman
    • The Lawyer
    Gisela Getty
    • Secretary
    • (as Martina Getty)
    Monty Bane
    Monty Bane
    • Herbert
    Janet Graham
    • Karen
    • (as Janet Rasak)
    • Director
      • Wim Wenders
    • Writers
      • Robert Kramer
      • Wim Wenders
      • Joshua Wallace
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    More like this

    Kings of the Road
    7.7
    Kings of the Road
    The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
    6.6
    The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
    Tokyo-Ga
    7.3
    Tokyo-Ga
    Wrong Move
    6.9
    Wrong Move
    Lisbon Story
    7.1
    Lisbon Story
    Faraway, So Close!
    7.2
    Faraway, So Close!
    Alice in the Cities
    7.9
    Alice in the Cities
    The American Friend
    7.4
    The American Friend
    Lightning Over Water
    6.7
    Lightning Over Water
    Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky
    6.8
    Die Gebrüder Skladanowsky
    Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Städten
    6.4
    Aufzeichnungen zu Kleidern und Städten
    Chambre 666
    6.6
    Chambre 666

    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      Samuel Fuller's character is a cameraman named Joe. Fuller named him in honor of his friend and longtime cinematographer, Joseph F. Biroc.
    • Goofs
      All entries contain spoilers
    • Quotes

      Mark: You know, I take pictures, photographs, but I never really thought in black and white before I saw our rushes. Do you know what I mean? You can see the shape of things.

      Joe: Life is in colour, but black and white is more realistic.

    • Crazy credits
      When the opening credits finally appear(about 10 minutes into the film), they appear letter by letter as if typed by a typewriter. When the credits completely fill the screen, the camera pans to the left, wiping the credits off the screen.
    • Alternate versions
      The sci-fi introduction of the German edit is tainted in brown. This edit is also 12 seconds shorter. At 37'03", the Cornelita song has only one verse.
    • Connections
      Featured in Reverse Angle: Ein Brief aus New York (1982)
    • Soundtracks
      Standin' at the Big Hotel
      By Joe Ely

      Courtesy of MCA Records

    User reviews21

    Review
    Review
    Featured review
    Shooting, interrupts shooting
    In 1981, Raoul Ruiz made a little film called Territory - a group of people lost in a landscape, where without the signifiers of story or a map to guide them, we saw how they fell apart in all sorts of hierarchies and explanatory dogmas. The allegory was about us and the stories we make up. A central image was a map as a series of heads within heads, minds within minds - where the world starts. I've written a comment on IMDb.

    At that time Wenders was waiting for money to come together for the Hammett film he was going to do for Coppola, floundering. Somehow he arranged to borrow Ruiz' cast & crew from that film to make this one in Portugal about the frustration. I had in fact marked this to see soon after Territory but other things intervened, I never took much to Wenders, so it was kind of forgotten.

    As I return to it I find many of the same pros and cons of the man.

    First the spin on Ruiz, playful, referential. The same people lost in a landscape but as they find their way to an abandoned seaside resort we realize they're actors in a film. They ran out of film to shoot with and have to wait as phonecalls are being made and the American producer is sought out. This lets Wenders capture the Hammett frustration - he shows a languishing with nothing to do.

    More important though, without thesignifiers of story and images to mark time, real life opens for these people who now have to be themselves and not in a film. The German director in a speech says that 'stories are only found inside stories, real life is where there are no more stories', a banal aphorism like the French were doing years before - the obvious side of Wenders.

    With nothing to do, we see how they're all embroiled in stories of their choosing, how they keep trying to imprint meaning, it's what we all do, foisting concept on things to explain existence. A log smashes through a window and the director has to quote from a book how it's a sign of evil, it cannot be just a log brought by the wind. Another one is awed that the ocean indicated on a globe is in fact what's right out his window - the real thing has been there all this time. A woman says that she's glad they're not filming, says it to the camera as she has her picture taken.

    Ruiz would soon have all this in a magical timeflow, images of mind from inside of it, Wenders is looking for the ground beneath images that gives rise to them - the most difficult thing. So we have a second shift to now a Wenders film purely about the search, and what better place to unfold than Hollywood? We fly to the place that gives rise to images and drive around looking for the producer in ultimate control of them.

    This was a great choice - now we can have just the city, the coming and going of things through the eyes. So what real life does he find beneath the stories?

    A wandering around town looking for someone, the wandering as life. Some expertly photographed atmospheres of streets, but it numbs. Still the same lack of satisfaction so long as we depend on something out there to happen, outside of us.

    So an emptiness but emptiness for Wenders is modern monotony instead of vital in the Buddhist understanding, lucid, receptive to things. It's what he missed again in his Ozu film after this. This isn't Zen as people sometimes say, Zen would be to see mundane life as the open ground of possibility, this merely records confines of unfulfillment: aimless driving around to cheat death.

    Someone could say this all perfectly captures a malaise we know too well. But it does so as a coffee-table book about it, with cinematic time unspooled as only a style to hang around in. There's talk about Bogart films, a theater plays the Searchers - it fits nicely with that cinematic culture built by the French around reference, but it seems small stuff. And even so, what can be the use of saying life is aimless?

    The finale with trying to spot unseen gunshots with a camera is difficult to watch, filming, trying to see, where death swoops from and the last breath as image. This because it could have been powerful - I think of the end of The Passenger. But how sophomoric it looks, how film school- ish in its reach of a great matter. Still it's better to confront this and decide than never to contemplate the thing.
    helpful•4
    2
    • chaos-rampant
    • Jun 9, 2014

    Top picks

    Sign in to rate and Watchlist for personalized recommendations
    Sign in

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • February 18, 1983 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • West Germany
      • Portugal
      • France
      • Spain
      • Netherlands
      • United Kingdom
      • United States
    • Languages
      • English
      • French
      • Portuguese
    • Also known as
      • Der Stand der Dinge
    • Filming locations
      • Lisbon, Portugal(Location)
    • Production companies
      • Gray City
      • V.O. Filmes
      • Road Movies Filmproduktion
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross worldwide
      • $3,700
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 1 minute
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Sound mix
      • Mono
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.66 : 1

    Related news

    Contribute to this page

    Suggest an edit or add missing content
    The State of Things (1982)
    Top Gap
    By what name was The State of Things (1982) officially released in India in English?
    Answer
    • See more gaps
    • Learn more about contributing
    Edit page

    More to explore

    Recently viewed

    Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
    Get the IMDb App
    Sign in for more accessSign in for more access
    • Get the IMDb App
    • Help
    • Site Index
    • IMDbPro
    • Box Office Mojo
    • IMDb Developer
    • Press Room
    • Advertising
    • Jobs
    • Conditions of Use
    • Privacy Policy
    • Your Ads Privacy Choices
    IMDb, an Amazon company

    © 1990-2023 by IMDb.com, Inc.