Jonathan Zimmermann, a picture framer in Hamburg is diagnosed as having leukemia. Ripley, an American art dealer who deals in forgeries, uses this fact to arrange for a mob associate of his to recruit Zimmermann as a hit man. Zimmermann agrees to this to ensure his family's financial future. Zimmermann descends into a nightmare world of deceit and double dealing. The narrative acts as a metaphor for the relationship between American (Hollywood) and post-war German culture. The appearance of several Hollywood directors in cameo roles underlines this.

Wim Wenders

Wim Wenders was born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders on 1945 in Düsseldorf, which then was located in the British Occupation Zone of what became the Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Federal Republic of Germany, known colloquially as West Germany until reunification).

During school's time he fell in love with cinema and in 1967 he was employed by United Artists at its Düsseldorf office before he was accepted by the University of Television and Film Munich school for its autumn 1967 semester, where he remained until 1970. While attending film school, he worked as a newspaper film critic. In addition to shorts, he made a feature film as part of his studies, Summer in the City (1970).

Wenders gained recognition as part of the German New Wave of the 1970s. His second feature, a film made from The Goalkeeper's Fear of the Penalty (1972), brought him acclaim, as did Alice in the Cities (1974) and Kings of the Road (1976). It was his 1977 feature The American Friend (1977) that represented his international breakthrough. He was nominated for the Palme d'Or at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival for The American Friend, which was cited as Best Foreign Film by the National Board of Review in the USA.

In 1984 his feature Paris, Texas received critical hosannas, winning three awards at Cannes, including the Palme d'Or, and Wenders won a BAFTA for best director. Paris, Texas was a prelude to his greatest success, Wings of Desire (1987), which he made back in Germany. The film brought him the best director award at Cannes and was a solid hit, even spawning an egregious Hollywood remake.

Wenders followed it, in 1993, with Faraway, So Close!  that won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes. Since the mid-1990s, Wenders has distinguished himself as a non-fiction filmmaker, directing several highly acclaimed documentaries, most notably Buena Vista Social Club (1999) and Pina (2011), both of which brought him Oscar nominations.