Paris, Texas
Wim Wenders, Germany, 1984
Wim Wenders’ 1984 film Paris, Texas is the story of Travis Henderson (played by Harry Dean Stanton), a man who disappears and then reappears, years later, dishevelled in the desert. The film follows Travis as he is reunited with his brother Walt and son Hunter, strugging to reconcile fractured relationships and put his life back together.
Set across diverse landscapes, Paris, Texas opens in the Texan desert, desolate with dusty roads. The barren wasteland covered in scorching, oppressive sunlight is a reflection of Travis’ character at the time.
Together with Walt, he journeys from the desert to Los Angeles, crossing through well-known all-American scenes of 80s diners, motels and gas stations filled with flickering neon signs and fluorescent lighting. This journey signifies the transition back to the metropolitan life Travis had attempted to escape, nostalgic for the simplicity of the ‘old Texas’ with no roads or signage.
Eventually the pair arrive back at Walt’s modernist family home in Los Angeles, overlooking buzzing freeways and airstrips. Walt spends his days as a billboard salesman, working amongst giant steel structures housing advertisements; his lifestyle epitomises all the things Travis had sought to leave behind.
The film concludes in Houston, a city so impersonal it could be anywhere, shown as a clinical throng of concrete and glass—banks, hotels, carparks and a sea of intertwining highways and high-rise buildings. Whilst in Houston, Travis has a meaningful exchange with his estranged wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski). The conversation takes place in a small, strange room, over the phone through a one-way mirror. The two are physically divided and Jane struggles to see Travis, representative of their relationship and Travis’ convoluted means of communication.
Wenders' cinematography actively pairs the emotional and physical terrain; the landscapes and architecture poetically and subtly mimic the characters’ relationships, showing the physical distance between Travis and his son as they walk home from school on opposite sides of the road, winding highways behind them, as their complex relationship changes again.
The landscapes in Paris, Texas are frequently shown in a wide shot, displaying their vastness and shrinking the characters into inconsequentiality. As diverse and juxtaposing as the landscapes are, they share a common thread of isolation and a feeling of overwhelming emptiness devoid of human connection. Throughout the film Travis moves across landscapes of extremes, all of which emphasise his complex relationships and his fight to resolve his internal difficulties.
— Teresa Busuttil, Gallery Attendant
Paris, Texas is available to stream on Kanopy.