Ex-Angel: Falk As Himself In Wim Wenders' Wings Of Desire (1987)
(Photo: The Unstoppable dvdBeaver: Sing 'O Canada'. Right Now.)
He's on the other side of the fence, now, and for real. Those writing his obituary can fill in details of his career. I'll remember Falk for Columbo (which made him a household name, after nearly twenty years of paying his dues as an actor). But I also remember him for cameos, like the grandfather in The Princess Bride; and, particularly since he appears in one of my favorite films, Wings Of Desire.
Falk's appearance was a bit like Columbo's, an Everyman conjured up out of clay as common as yours or mine. He always seemed to pay his audiences the best compliment through characters that reminded us of our humanity -- that we face the same struggles in a world we don't know the meaning of; rumpled and preoccupied, but in a self-mocking, genial way.
Spazieren; that's what grandma would've said; 'Go spazieren'...
And, frankly: In a film, who else would you cast to portray a former angel but someone who seemed to have knocked about (and been knocked around) a bit; trustworthy, streetwise, but not cynical: Look, pal; we're all just tryin' to get by, here; so don't worry. We'll take care of it, whatever it is. Now, where did I put -- oh, it's here ; ah, good. Yeah. Now; where were we? Oh, right...
So another Mensch leaves us. And as I've observed before, the world has a limited supply of Mensches.
“This is, perhaps, the most thoroughgoing satisfaction ‘Columbo’ offers us,” Jeff Greenfield wrote in The New York Times in 1973: “the assurance that those who dwell in marble and satin, those whose clothes, food, cars and mates are the very best, do not deserve it.”
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