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Paris, Texas (film)

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This article is about the film. For the town, see Paris, Texas.
Paris, Texas
File:Paris texas moviep.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWim Wenders
Written byL.M. Kit Carson
Sam Shepard
Produced byAnatole Dauman
Don Guest
StarringHarry Dean Stanton
Nastassja Kinski
Dean Stockwell
CinematographyRobby Müller
Edited byPeter Przygodda
Music byRy Cooder
Production
company
Distributed byTobis (West Germany)
Argos Films (France)
20th Century Fox (US)
Release dates
  • May 19, 1984 (1984-05-19) (Cannes)
  • September 19, 1984 (1984-09-19) (France)
  • November 9, 1984 (1984-11-09) (US)
  • January 11, 1985 (1985-01-11) (West Germany)
Running time
147 minutes
CountriesWest Germany
France
United Kingdom
United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget£1,162,000
Box office$2,181,987

Paris, Texas is a 1984 drama film directed by Wim Wenders and starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski, and Hunter Carson. The screenplay was written by L.M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard, and the distinctive musical score was composed by Ry Cooder. The cinematography was by Robby Müller. The film was a co-production between companies in France and West Germany, and was filmed in the United States.

The plot focuses on an amnesiac (Stanton) who, after mysteriously wandering out of the desert, attempts to revive his life with his brother (Stockwell) and seven-year-old son (Carson), and to track down his former wife (Kinski). At the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, the film unanimously won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) from the official jury, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.[1] The film has been released on DVD and Blu-ray by the Criterion Collection.

Plot

Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) is walking alone across a vast South Texas desert landscape. Looking for water, he enters a saloon and collapses. He is treated by a doctor, but does not speak or respond to questions. The doctor finds a phone number on Travis, calls the Los Angeles number, and reaches his brother, Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell), who agrees to pick him up. When Walt arrives in Texas, he discovers that Travis is gone. When he finds him wandering alone, Walt tells his silent brother that he will take him back to Los Angeles.

When Travis refuses to fly, Walt rents a car, and the brothers begin a two-day road trip back to Los Angeles. They stop at a motel, but Travis wanders off again. Walt finds him, and the two drive to a diner, where Walt begins to question the still silent Travis more forcefully about his disappearance. Walt and his wife, Anne (Aurore Clément), have not heard from Travis in four years. After Travis abandoned his son Hunter (Hunter Carson), Walt and Anne took care of him for four years. Travis is visibly moved by the mention of his son, and tears flow from his eyes. The next day, as the two brothers continue their journey, Travis finally speaks in the car, showing Walt a weathered photograph of a vacant lot. He explains that he purchased the property in Paris, Texas—a town he believes is the place where he was conceived, based on the stories told by their mother.

When they arrive in Los Angeles, Travis meets Anne and the son whom he abandoned four years earlier. Hunter is uncomfortable around this stranger who is his father. Walt shows some old home movies, hoping to evoke good memories and help break the ice between the father and son. The movies show Travis with his wife, Jane (Nastassja Kinski), and their young son, sharing a day at the beach.

In the coming days, the relationship between Travis and his son slowly grows, and a bond of trust between the two starts to develop. Anne tells Travis that although she has not heard from Hunter's mother in a year, Jane still deposits money into a bank account for her son on the same day each month. She reveals the name of the bank in Houston, Texas, where the deposits are made. Travis becomes determined to find his lost wife, and when he tells his son that he plans to travel to Houston to find his mother, the boy says he will accompany him.

Travis and Hunter leave for Texas without telling Walt and Anne. During their journey, Travis and Hunter grow closer, with Hunter sharing things he learned in school, and Travis sharing his memories. When they arrive in Houston on the expected day of deposit, Hunter spots his mother leaving the bank. They follow her to a parking lot of a striptease club. Telling Hunter to wait in the car, Travis enters the club, containing rooms where customers sit behind one-way mirrors and tell the strippers what they want to see via telephone. The women cannot see the customers. Travis is shocked, but ends up in a room opposite Jane. After several minutes of awkward silence, Travis walks out, returns to the car, and drives to a bar, where he begins to drink.

The next day, Travis drops Hunter off at a downtown Houston hotel (Meridien), and heads back to the striptease club. Travis enters a room with Jane on the other side of the one-way mirror. He picks up the phone, turns his chair away from her, and tells her a story of a man and a young girl who fell in love, married, and had a child—probably before they were ready. At first, Jane is confused by the story, but she soon understands who is on the other side of the glass telling the true story of their relationship. Travis describes how this couple's love turned from being joyful to stifling, explains how the drunken man suffocated the young girl with his jealousy and control, and tells how he came to loathe himself and why he disappeared to a place with "no language" and "no roads"—never wanting to see anyone again.

When Travis prepares to leave, Jane urges him to stay. She tells how hard it was to leave him—that for years she thought of him often. Travis finally faces the glass, turns a lamp on his face so Jane can see him, and tells her where she can find Hunter, asking her to go there and reunite with her son. Jane agrees and Travis leaves the room. Later that day, Jane enters the hotel room where Hunter is waiting, and the mother and child embrace each other. Travis leaves Houston behind him, driving alone.

Cast

Title

The film is named for the Texas town of Paris, but no footage was shot there: filming largely took place in Fort Stockton, Texas; Marathon, Texas; and Nordheim, Texas, in the south and western parts of the state, respectively. Instead, Paris is referred to as the location of a vacant lot owned by Travis that is seen in a photograph. His obsession with the town appears based on the notion that his parents indicated to him that he was probably conceived there. The photograph shows a desert landscape, although in reality Paris, Texas, rests on the edge of the forests of East Texas and the flat to gently-rolling humid farmland of the north-central part of that state, far from any desert.

Style

Paris, Texas is notable for its images of the Texas landscape and climate. The first shot is a bird's eye-view of the desert, a bleak, dry, alien landscape. Shots follow of old advertisement billboards, placards, graffiti, rusty iron carcasses, old railway lines, neon signs, motels, seemingly never-ending roads, and Los Angeles, finally culminating in some famous scenes shot outside a drive-through bank in Downtown Houston. The film was production designed by Kate Altman. The cinematography is typical of Robby Müller's work, a long-time collaborator of Wim Wenders.

The film is accompanied by a slide-guitar score by Ry Cooder, based on Blind Willie Johnson's "Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground".

Reception

After its premiere at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, the film went on to sweep the top prizes from all three juries at Cannes: the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) from the official jury, the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.[1] It was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1985 and again in 2006 as part of the Sundance Collection category.[2]

The film also won the BAFTA Awards for Best Director and was nominated for Best Film and other categories.

Newsweek referred to the film as "a story of the United States, a grim portrait of a land where people like Travis and Jane cannot put down roots, a story of a sprawling, powerful, richly endowed land where people can get desperately lost."[3]

  • Irish rock group U2 cite Paris, Texas as an inspiration for their album The Joshua Tree.[4]
  • Scottish bands Travis and Texas both took their names from this film.[5][6]
  • Travis Touchdown, lead character of the No More Heroes video game franchise took his name from the film.
  • Musicians Kurt Cobain and Elliott Smith claimed this was their favorite movie of all time.
  • Defunct instrumental rock band The Six Parts Seven used samples from the film at the beginning of the song "From California to Houston, on Lightspeed". The song's title is also an homage to the film.
  • Jane Henderson's line "Yep, I know that feeling" is sampled on Primal Scream's 1991 album Screamadelica, at the end of the song "I'm Comin' Down"; it is also repeated in the song "Space Angel Station" on the 1994 Drum Club album Drums Are Dangerous.
  • Dialogue from the film is sampled during the song "O.O.B.E." on the album Live 93 by The Orb.
  • Dialogue "Do you think he still loves her? How would I know that Hunter?" is sampled during the song "She Stands Up" on M83 by the band M83.

References

  1. ^ a b "Festival de Cannes: Paris, Texas". Festival de Cannes. Retrieved 2009-06-23. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  2. ^ "2006 Sundance Film Festival Announces Films From the Sundance Collection" (PDF). Sundance Film Festival. 2006-01-23. Retrieved 2007-12-20. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  3. ^ "Paris, Texas Official Site". Wim-wenders.com. Retrieved 2010-01-24. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  4. ^ Kelly, Nick (2009-04-25). "From the Lone Star State to outer space". The Independent. Retrieved 2010-01-24. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  5. ^ Levine, Nick (2010-03-12). "Sharleen Spiteri". Digital Spy. Retrieved 2010-03-12. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
  6. ^ Graham, Polly (2007-09-21). "Paper, Scissors, Rock: The return of Travis". Daily Mail. Retrieved 2010-03-12. {{cite web}}: Italic or bold markup not allowed in: |publisher= (help)
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