PARIS TEXAS (1984)
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"I knew these people," Travis begins, in one of the great monologues of movie history. "These two people. They were in love with each other. The girl was very young, about 17 or 18, I guess. And the guy was quite a bit older. He was kind of raggedy and wild. And she was very beautiful, you know?"
Paris, Texas (1984) among other things is a road movie, a modern Western, a story of the loss , film with stunning photography and incredible music by Ry Cooder (one of the best, if not the best music scored for the movie feature). It represents the peak of Wim Wenders’ career in the ’70s and early ’80s and film deservedly won the Palme d’Or 1984 at the Cannes Film Festival.
The film opens with stunning aerial footage of desert and mountains in West Texas.Emerging from the desert, Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), lost and severely hydrated, is rescued by a German doctor living in a remote village. Travis refuses to speak, but the doctor manages to track down and contact Travis’ younger brother, Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell), the hardworking owner of a billboard company in Los Angeles.
Walt and his wife Anne (Aurore Clement) live in Los Angeles with Hunter (Hunter Carson), who is Travis' son. We gradually learn pieces of the story: Hunter was left with the Hendersons by Travis' wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski), who could no longer care for him, but who sends a check every month from a bank in Houston.
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The man comes walking out of the desert like a Biblical figure, a penitent who has renounced the world. He wears jeans and a baseball cap, the universal costume of America, but the scraggly beard, the deep eye sockets and the tireless lope of his walk tell a story of wandering in the wilderness. What is he looking for? Does he remember?
Wim Wenders' "Paris, Texas" (1984) is the story of loss upon loss. This man, whose name is Travis, was once married and had a little boy. Then that all went wrong, and he lost his wife and child, and for years he wandered. Now he will find his family and lose it again, this time not through madness but through sacrifice. He will give them up out of his love for them.
Travis is not insane, not acting out his alienation. He is simply lost in grief, despairing at the way his marriage was joyous for a brief time and then was destroyed by his own drinking and jealousy. He stays for a time with the Hendersons, slowly wins Hunter's trust, walks home with him from school in a sweet little scene where they copy each other's gaits. Then he has a serious conversation with Hunter that leads to them getting into Travis's old Ford pickup and driving to Houston to find Jane.
She was born in Berlin in 1960, the daughter of infamous cinematic wild man Klaus Kinski, and, at the age of 12, so the story goes, she was discovered while dancing with friends in a club and cast in her first film, "Wrong Move" (1975), an early work from up-and-coming German director Wim Wenders.
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