WHITE STAR is about the future of sound in 1983. “The Future, that’s where it’s at.” How will the squatter punk scene in Berlin sit alongside a clean-cut keyboard rockstar in a white suit pumping out synth-space-pop? It’s a strange German film shot in English, and one of cult auteur director Roland Klick’s last features before retiring to teach at film schools.

Both the plot and the central character, Ken Barlow (Dennis Hopper), are crazy and twisted.  On one level WHITE STAR follows Ken Barlow’s desperate attempt to make a comeback in the music business. As a former tour manager of the Rolling Stones, Barlow wants to show ‘them’ that he still has what it takes. He wants to find the new sound speaking to a new generation. He lands on Moody, a quiet keyboard player launching his solo synth career. For some reason Barlow launches Moody’s low key sounds at a hardcore punk club downtown, and naturally things go from bad to worse from there. As he seeks to control the brand of the mythical White Star album, Barlow’s management approach becomes more and more bonkers and irrational.

[Dennis Hopper is] off the rails but he’s utterly engaging – you can’t take your eyes off him.

Dennis Hopper was utterly out of control at this point in his career; no one would touch him. “I haven’t changed, man, the times have changed”. He looks a mess throughout the film and there is a nervous tension to every scene in which he seems to guide the action. But he is a force of energy: a force of desperate and unpredictable energy. At times you can’t follow what he is saying, he’s off the rails but he’s utterly engaging – you can’t take your eyes off him. The film has a pulse; we don’t know which way it’s going to go. Will Moody be destroyed? Is Barlow’s manic behaviour the kiss of death to his career? Will Moody keep his girlfriend Mascha (played by Ramona Sweeny)? Can Barlow hold it together? Can Dennis Hopper hold it together?

“With your face, I could take you to the top” Barlow tells Moody, but he is out of touch. He wants to show the world that he can do it again, but it’s not his world anymore. The rock ‘n’ roll anecdotes of Keith Richards ring hollow against the Berlin punk scene and Moody’s own distrust in his mentor. The future, the future, the future.  By the time we are 40 minutes into the film Barlow has become manic, and chaos has taken over the dream for “The Future!”. Klick remembers that Hopper was completely strung out, and could only shoot for a few hours a day between cocaine fixes. Unknown to Klick, the bad boy of Hollywood was for hire to a West German independent film-maker because he was in a bad way, completely cocked up and mean. The edgy Hopper no doubt created tension on set and darkened Klick’s vision of WHITE STAR. Some of Barlow’s monologues are incomprehensible, and we don’t know where Barlow starts and Hopper takes over.  From staging a riot to selling off Moody’s gear in order to pay for studio time, Barlow wants to succeed by any means necessary.

You can feel the potency of Klick, Hopper, and the changing world of music culture at this time in Berlin.

The world of Berlin just doesn’t seem ready for Moody or the White Star sound: ‘He’d burn your songs if he could: he’s f***ing primitive’ Mascha tells Moody of the club owner. Things are getting nasty and the vibe is volatile, mentally unstable and aggressive. Hopper’s performance is more than convincing, it’s borderline burnout. It gets heavy for Barlow but what of Moody? He’s the new sound, the future, he doesn’t need an old fart like Barlow to bring him down… unless he destroys himself first.

On another level WHITE STAR is a product of where Roland Klick was at in the early 1980s. Like Barlow, he was low himself. After years of success that had never quite radiated to international distribution,  he missed out on making the cult film CHRISTIANE F. – WE THE CHILDREN FROM BAHNHOF ZOO’ in 1981, a real blow to his confidence, and he knew he had to make a film quickly or never make one again. WHITE STAR is about success and failure, wanting something so badly that you destroy it. The pace jumps all over the place, and minor characters appear and disappear with equal abruptness; but despite the inconsistency and stilted script, the film is exciting, raw, and intense. You can feel the potency of Klick, Hopper, and the changing world of music culture at this time in Berlin. It’s exactly the wild combination of Hopper and Klick’s energy that gives WHITE STAR something to talk about, even 30 years after it was made.

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