The current article analyzes the film Der Himmel über Berlin (1987) with regard
to its intermediality with literary texts. It has been suggested that Wenders’ film
creates a stylistic world, both unique and provocative in its depiction of the
relationship between words and images and between literature and media. More
than twenty years after its first screening it continues to defy simple analysis. As
a consequence, this article supports the employment of various studies to
explain the aforementioned relationships, first by reviewing German theories of
medial and historical transformations and then by detailing a multifaceted
analysis of the film.
