All Slights Deserved

Coincidence is a strange thing. I only read about the death of John Paul Getty III this morning and was completely ignorant that he had a small role in today's film, The State of Things , until I saw his name in the closing credits. Getty, who presumably knew director Wim Wenders through his German wife Gisela Zacher, shot the part of a troubled screenwriter not long before the overdose and stroke that left him paralysed. In truth he doesn't seem entirely compos mentis and it could be little acting was required. Fortunately there's rather more to recommend Wenders' film than that, although had I been asked to draw any conclusions after the first hour it wouldn't have been nearly so favourable. It's one of the most schizophrenic films I've ever seen but so skillfully accomplished that at the end I wished I had time to sit through it all over again. Just as Fellini had 8½ and Truffaut Day For Night , The State of Things is Wenders' film about fil...