The negative influence of Bono Vox on the career of Wim WendersJacyntho P. Aquino Rêgo (Ph.D. candidate)EHEAF (École des Hautes-Études sur la Superiorité de l'Academie Française)

This presentation aims to analyze the negative impact of the collaboration involving Bono Vox and Wim Wenders on some films directed by the latter, notably The Million Dollar Hotel (2000), Until the End of the World, (Bis ans Ende der Welt, 1991), Nanana (199?) and Nanana (198?). We suspect that not only as the author of some of Wenders's film scores, but also as a close friend and script advisor, Bono Vox has ruined an otherwise flowerish period of time in the career of this cult German director.

By influecing Wim Wenders with his bad taste and kitsch ideas, Bono Vox severely compromised films that might have had better results in terms of both box office and critic reception. Towards the end of this presentation, we will demonstrate how fruitful Wender's life might have been if he had never met Mr. Bono Vox in Europe.

Our methodology consists of film analysis (Jabor 2010) complemented by statistical data concerning both Vox's and Wenders's affairs, followed by a survey based on reception theory (Manchu 1895). This survey will be conducted in a minute tribe in the Amazon rainforest, the people known as the N'uaktii, discovered by the British anthropologist, biologist, historian, philosopher, taxidermist, gambler, gunslinger and womanizer Sir Allan Quartermain (Quartermain et al. 2014). The reason for choosing the N'uaktii lies in the fact that they have had no contact with neither white men nor Western civilization, remaining untouched by the media and unbeknownst to Sting or any other pop star until 2014.

N'uaktii individuals will therefore be exposed to films that came out of the collaboration Vox-Wenders, herein refered to as “the Vox-Wenders affair”, “Voxwendersgate” or, in German, “Die Vox Wenders Affäre”. Following the film screenings, a questionnaire designed to measure sympathy and affection will be given to the test subjects, who will then confirm or refute the thesis according to which Bono Vox ruined Wim Wenders's artistic genius. Drawing on McIver (1985) ideas about the star system, the collected data will eventually be interpreted under perspectives proposed by Pondé (2013) and Saphatle (2013). We do believe that this blind experiment, reinforced by a Marxist (from Groucho Marxism) framework and a twist of Surrealist automatism will eventually shed light on this controversial issue: then again, does Wim Wenders know how to choose his friends?

References:Bueno, Galvão. A Sina do Pé-Frio: Mick Jagger no Mineirão. Belo Horizonte: Ed. UFMG, 2014.Jabor, Arnaldo. Comme Analizzare una Película: Il metodo spaghetti. Bari: Ediziones della Sapienza, 2010.Lapin, Arnaud Caesar. La Régle est Claire: Bonheur et celebrité à l'âge du Facebook. Clermont-Férrand: Éditions du Poche, 2013.Manchu, Fu. Zen and Reception. Shanghai: HSBC Publishing Co., 1895.Marx, Groucho. How to become a member of my club. New York: J. J. Abrahams, 1969.Pondé, Louis Phillippe. Neither Bono Vox nor Gene Simmons: Masculinity in crisis after the fall of the Berlim Wall. Moscow: Nomenklatura Books, 2013.Quartermain, Allan. N'uaktii, Children from the Rain Forest. Springfield: The University of Springfield University Press, 2014.Saphatle, Dmitri. Bono Vox: Myth and Reality. Sarajevo: The Edge Books, 2013.