Celebrated German filmmaker Wim Wenders, currently on his maiden trip to India, raised a thought-provoking concern about the evolution of cinema in an age dominated by digital content consumption. Speaking at a masterclass at GD Birla Sabhaghar in Kolkata on Monday, Wenders lamented the shift from storytelling to what he called “story-selling”.

“We live in an era of enormous changes. Storytelling is disappearing. Instead of storytelling, we now have story-selling. We are used to dealing with every image as information. Movies have also become information. We have handed our memories to phone or computer. Cinema, of course, is part of that change. For a whole new generation, movies are a form of information and no longer a form of storytelling,” he said, responding to an audience question about the future of the big screen in an age of OTT platforms and TikTok.

The 79-year-old filmmaker further highlighted how the medium of viewing alters the very essence of film. “If you see a film on your mobile phone, you see something else. Movies no longer have the innocence of storytelling. We are all losing patience for storytelling. Because a story needs time. We start looking at movies as just another source of information. That changes the entire ball game.”

Wenders expressed admiration for India’s continued love for the theatrical experience despite the digital boom. “I am amazed at how many people in India still go to see movies in theatres. That is almost a dream come true for somebody who lives in Europe where theatres are facing a very hard time. The pandemic has helped propel audiences away, out of theatres.”

Touching on the dominance of web series, he noted that while they are another form of storytelling, their consumption fosters a different mindset. “OTT is another form of storytelling. In the way it is consumed, it reinforces the idea that images are meant to be consumed. Storytelling or giving yourself into stories is a different attitude than consuming. Consuming is the enemy of storytelling.”

Wenders remained optimistic about cinema’s enduring impact despite the challenges. “I think cinema has a lot of power. It has proven so in its 130 years. Cinema also has a healing power. Sometimes, I feel, we have to rely on the healing power of theatre experience and movies as a form of storytelling to take us back into a different realm than the overload of information that we are exposed to.”

As the audience listened intently, Wenders reflected on how relationships and social interactions have changed, cautioning against what he termed “digital loneliness”.

“Today, there is a whole new form of loneliness, a very sick form. Even if instruments tell us they provide us with social media, we become more and more asocial, more and more estranged from first-hand experiences. I think even films have to start addressing this subject in a different form. There is a new disease, a deadly form of loneliness, which is digital loneliness,” the Perfect Days helmer remarked.

“The meaning of friendship has changed. Now, people have a million friends but when they need one, there is nobody left because they are all on the mobile phone,” he added.

Wenders is on a five-city retrospective tour in India organised by the Film Heritage Foundation in association with the Wim Wenders Stiftung, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan. Titled ‘King of the Road — The India Tour’, the retrospective kicked off in Mumbai on February 5 and travelled to Thiruvananthapuram before coming to India. Wenders will next visit New Delhi and Pune, where the tour will culminate on February 23.