Paris, Texas Reviews (original) (raw)
Summary Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
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Summary Travis Henderson, an aimless drifter who has been missing for four years, wanders out of the desert and must reconnect with society, himself, his life, and his family.
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It is an eerie, sad story whose meaning disappears over the vast horizon as if on a highway heading away through the desert.
Wim Wenders’ heartbreaking, profoundly American masterpiece...The climactic scene – set in a peep-show booth – features a stunning autographical monologue that’s one of the most mesmerizing pieces of screen acting ever filmed.
So many mood pieces sustain their mood only as far as the closing credits; the blissful melancholy of Paris, Texas endures with recall and association, however distant from one’s last viewing. Cannes has rewarded many a great film, but none that is quite so permanently, ever-retrievably embedded in my sense memory.
It’s indeed a beautiful film, one that will surely convince doubters that Muller is one of the cinema’s best cameramen. He gives the story a surface polish that hints of Edward Hopper and Georgia O’Keefe Americana paintings. Some images are positively breathtaking.
Like Wenders's other road movies, this is largely about the spaces between people and the words they speak—Antonioni updated and infused with German romanticism; the various means of indirection through which the hero communicates with his son (Hunter Carson) and wife (Nastassja Kinski) constitute a striking motif.
It's no shameless Hollywood weepie, mind you, but an overestheticized, coolly abstracted weepie, which is not necessarily better. [19 Nov 1984, p.132]
Paris, Texas is thus a curiosity. On balance it seems overblown and rickety, as substantial as tumbleweed. And it seems to be less than the sum of its two major parts, the script by Shepard and the images by Wenders. Still, it's an essential entry into the Wenders file, full of hollow portents and signs signifying little. And it would be worth seeing for Stanton's performance alone. [8 Feb 1985, p.8]
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Production Company Road Movies Filmproduktion, Argos Films, Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR), Channel Four Films, Pro-ject Filmproduktion, Wim Wenders Stiftung
Release Date Nov 2, 1984
Duration 2 h 25 m
Rating R
Tagline A place for dreams. A place for heartbreak. A place to pick up the pieces.
BAFTA Awards
• 1 Win & 4 Nominations
Cannes Film Festival
• 3 Wins & 3 Nominations