Paris, Texas
(1984)
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Winner of the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1984, Wim Wenders's PARIS, TEXAS tells the haunting story of an amnesiac (Harry Dean Stanton) and his struggle to rebuild his shattered life. Featuring a story by Sam Shepard and a renowned score by Ry Cooder, the film also stars Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell. |
Character actor Harry Dean Stanton enjoys a rare leading role in German director Wim Wenders's emotionally charged road movie, based on a story by American playwright Sam Shepard. The odyssey begins as restless drifter Travis Anderson (Stanton) walks out of the desert after a four-year absence and is reunited with his small son (Hunter Carson), who's being cared for by Travis's brother (Dean Stockwell). Travis then sets out to reclaim his family life by seeking out his estranged wife and the boy's mother (Nastassja Kinski), now a peep-show stripper. Ry Cooder's haunting guitar score gives the film an immediacy that makes it seems as though it's being ad-libbed — a heart-rending confrontation between Stanton and Kinski does, indeed, sound as though it's being made up on the spot — while Wenders brings a refreshing outsider's eye to bear on this metaphor about rootless America.
Halliwell's Film Guide
Long, enigmatic but generally fascinating puzzle-without-a-solution, about people who never find what they want.