transmission seventy-two: "paris, texas"

oh how this unchanging man changes in front of me

i find wim wenders’ career to be really interesting. recently, he directed a documentary about pope francis for hbo. in spite of being a german man, he directed the japanese film “perfect days”, which was up for oscar consideration, back in 2023. if you look at his filmography, we can sort of create an idea of a man who has not really been content making the same type of movie over and over again, but rather, a man who enjoys variety. from a “buena vista social club” concert film to an adaptation of the ripley story “the american friend”, wenders i think displays a fairly interesting hunger to make movies. he’s interested in directing anything and everything. these latest wenders films have had me reflect on the film that first got me interested in him: “paris, texas”.

it’s been about six years since i saw “paris, texas”.

i watched it at the time because a friend recommended i do so. i didn’t know anything about its premise, its cast or its director. it’s sort of a silly thing to say, but watching this movie was a pretty important moment in my journey to get deeper into film. at times it can be unfair to put this all upon a single film, but it really felt like a threshold moment of a movie, a realization that you can do a movie like this. that you’re allowed to. having rewatched “paris, texas” last week, as it was airing at my beloved local arthouse theater, i realized happily that its even better than i remembered it being, and that aging has helped me connect and understand it more.

the film opens with a man wandering the desert. we don’t know where he is (though, of course, it’s no surprise that he turns out to be in texas). we also don’t know in these opening minutes that the man, played by legendary actor harry dean stanton, is called travis. travis collapses at a clinic, and is picked up a day later by his brother walt, who hasn’t seen him in four years. travis disappeared, leaving his son with walt and walt’s wife, anne. as the brother road trip back, travis slowly starts speaking again.

movies are usually about their protagonists. not always, but a lot of the time. “paris, texas” is about travis, yes, but it’s about travis in a very interesting and elegant way. the movie’s plot feels almost archaeological: we are slowly uncovering travis’ past, we are discovering his personality, his likes, his dislikes. every scene in the movie revealing a new layer to the man. our opinion of who this man is varies throughout the movie based on the information that we have on him. simulating what we may go through with real people we know, you start off thinking one thing, but end up thinking another thing entirely.

this is a very atmosphere movie. you sit down to watch it and you’re committing to watching maybe the bluest blues that have ever been put to film. you’re watching the intense, arid orange heat of the texas desert. and hell, when the movie’s plot relocates to los angeles, even that city’s grayness is beautifully rendered, capturing something about the californian city that i think few movies have ever genuinely been able to capture. to sit down with “paris, texas” is to relax for a while, to take in the beautiful atmosphere, and to contemplate the melancholy of travis. to think about his circumstances, and why things ended up the way that they did. the movie’s conclusion is deeply moving - certainly far too emotionally touching for me to ruin it in some two-bit column, but suffice to say that it successfully delivers on what the movie is attempting to do. harry dean stanton gives a legendary performance, of course, but natassja kinsk (daughter of the legendarily evil klaus kinski)i is also necessary to mention - she gets a handful of scenes near the end of the movie, and they could comfortably the best part of it all. i find it pretty easy to recommend “paris, texas”. if you haven’t already seen it, you’d be doing yourself a favor by finally checking it out. please do so.

i’ll see you next week.