One look at how fast the tickets for the screening of Nick Cave’s recent movie are selling is enough to say that at least part of Berlin adores this guy and the proof of Cave’s devotion to the Hauptstadt is an indubitable part of its history.
After the screening of last year’s music documentary “B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin 1979 – 1989” at the Mobile Kino over at Grießmühle, people actually started to applaud as the lights went on. It seemed like the film could provide anyone with a reason to shed a tear or two; it caused some to reflect on their youth, and others to wonder how the fuck did techno eventually prevail.
What I found most moving though is a short footage of Nick Cave doing a little room tour, almost as if he anticipated Youtube and its current vlog trends. “This is my bedroom”, he says, sliding off a black thick curtain separating his bed from the rest of the room, which is today a standard design for many a dwelling of a Berlin artist.
Nick Cave’s time in West Berlin might be less glorified in the popular culture than the joint venture of David and Iggy, but is nevertheless worth mentioning. Blixa Bargeld, a prominent West Berlin musician, also featured in “B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West Berlin 1979 – 1989”, ended up becoming a long-time member of the Bad Seeds.
Blixa Bargeld, photo: Ilsa Ruppert
Another footage immortalizing Nick’s time in Berlin is a 1987 film by Wim Wenders, “Wings of Desire”, featuring a cameo appearance of the young Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, the band that truly became a household name and remains one to this day. The film with the original title “Himmel über Berlin” (“Sky over Berlin”) is a must-see for any Berlin aficionado, regardless of how little regard for Cave himself they may have. The movie is a melancholy tale of invisible angels looking over divided Berlin.
When I first arrived here, I used to think of Nick Cave’s ingenious Berlin adventure with a subtle pang of bitterness. But as time went by, it turned out that I did live in the same enlivening city of eccentric artists and invisible but sympathetic angels that he left all those years ago.
