Paris, Texas. These two words stick in your head after watching. What is it, a city and a state? Just words? What is the meaning of life?
A young man in a red baseball cap and a worn suit walks through the desert. His eyes are empty. He is a doll with a precise direction given to him. Someone meets him, puts him in a car - he doesn't care which one. His mind hovers over the desert like a mirage. A vision of everything he has experienced.
He introduces himself as Travis. Silent, exhausted to the limit. Takes a photo from the inner pocket of the jacket. A piece of land in the desert, a tablet stuck in the soil. This place is his most precious. That's all Travis has left.
In my opinion, this is a melancholy and hopeless road movie about the limit of loneliness. Travis is the limit. He's hopelessly sorry. From the first to the last moments of the film. The more you learn his story, the more confident you are that you can not expect a good ending. However, in Travis, confidence is growing every minute. Think about it: maybe he will sell this nightmare of his life, will be able to return everything as it was? He believes that much, doesn't he? Travis keeps his way through the desert, which director Wim Wenders has made suspiciously lifelike.
The visuals of "Paris, Texas" are absolutely in the mood. Each scene is endowed with such a calibrated color that any screenshot from the film can be issued as an independent photo work. This beauty is intertwined with the characters of the film in one chain: Travis, with eyes for a thousand yards, his brother with his happy (?) family, a spectacular, half-forgotten blonde with a caret - Travis's once wife ... and Paris, Texas. Happiness was supposed to be built there, and Travis is doing everything he can to revive a drop of what everyone in the world deserves. Love and understanding.
A legendary film about loneliness, achieving the unattainable and, paradoxically, love. Travis takes all the pain to free us. Letting us know that it may never be too late to reverse some things, but impossible to reverse them.
Wenders is generally a big fan of travelogues. And they're very different. Even in 'Fear of the goalkeeper...' the principle of travel is already felt, and then this design he will spin endlessly. The journey for him is like a pyramid: each time it turns into another facet, another twist of the route-the plot. And the journey is convenient for its nonlinearity. Already sentimentalists have guessed that it is carried out not even at the tip of the pen, but at the tip of the tongue. Yes, it is completely located in style, it is in the journey that the narrator is born, the subject of the text, whose connection with the text is indissoluble, who cannot take a third-party didactic position, but to build into the text, make it part of what is deeply frank for himself, he does it easily.
The ideal travelog Wenders even on 'Paris, Texas' and certainly not 'Alice in the cities', and ' Over time'. Fogler there is impeccable ' blotting' Director, through him literally comes calligraphy of the director's style. And in general, he is a film mechanic, which is important, since a trip to the cinema is a trip to the cinema. Its space is not divided into thisworldly and otherworldly, it is two-dimensional, like the screen itself. And what will appear on this screen, it depends on the movie mechanic. He did not create this world, but he allowed it to be a dazzling illusion.
'Paris, Texas' quite different. First of all, it's not about Europe. In principle, Wenders has never been a continental director. He made a lot of feature and documentaries outside of it, he as the heir of all romanticism and around him is important figure and category of the Other, and in this interest he will always rhyme with Herzog and even meet with him inside his film text, as happens in & #39;Tokyo-ha'. The American landscape, unlike the European, is almost uninhabited ' cute ghosts' literature. Wherever we spit, St. Petersburg Dostoevsky, Venice Manna. Even in Baranovichi. Absolutely in Bobruisk. And Texas Paris is just a name, as in any trip you can find Odyssey, but why look for her here? The hero’s unconsciousness is the perfect formula for a film landscape divorced from its literary origins.
Second, it's all about Europe. Not because Texas also has Paris, but because Europe cannot forget that its horror blossomed in the twentieth century. That is why we need America as a completely different continuation / variant of the eternal European history of tragedy. And this is not a comedy, this is melodrama as a genre that has long escaped from literature and moved overseas to Hollywood. He's also a travellist. And this is the crosshairs doing 'Paris. Texas' similar at once to Antonioni, and to some standard Hollywood, tribal producer of melodramas against the background of the landscape.
Paris, Texas is a very personal movie. A filmmaker for myself and I'll explain why.
Hero does not change
Any storytelling is a journey. In this film, a beautiful allegory of a man lost in himself, who does not even know where he is going and does not remember his family. But this journey always has an end goal, a reward, a test. This is a mission in which the GG changes, overcomes itself, its crises. Has Travis changed? He wanted to be a good father, but eventually left his son. He wanted to find his wife to justify himself and to her, but there was no redemption. He wanted to come to the place, ' where it began' Paris and did not reach. He wanted to change from a wild, impulsive person, but we weren't shown the change. We see the blissful with obsessive ideas, as in sleepy delirium, following subconscious impulses. Travis doesn't know what he wants or what he lives for. I never found out.
Problems are not solved.
It is logical that problems are not solved. Yeah, he reunited Jane with his son. But will that solve their problems? Did we see that Jane was ready this time ' something to give him'? We weren't shown her growth, her change. Even her desires in action, only in words. At the beginning of their conflict, Jane and her child ran away from Travis, now Travis has escaped from them. Obviously, Hunter would have been better off with Travis' brother and brother's wife. He quenched the boy’s thirst to see his mother, to be reunited with her, but it does not promise him a good life, judging by what we have seen in history. Hunter's clearly the victim. A child should not make the decisions that Travis allowed him to make.
No crisis, apogee, exaltation
The whole movie is a slurred trip. He is beautiful in places, meditative, in some ways allegorical. But the film doesn't show us any problems. He doesn't goosebump it, he doesn't throw us into those feelings of anger, fear, outrage that Travis feels. What the hell does he feel, think, want? We don't see that. It just goes conditionally from one point to another. Why? The movie doesn't show us that. We are not shown the enormity of Travis’ past actions, we are not shown the edge of his desperation. Where is the conflict?
We don't see conflict, we hear about it
15 minutes of dialogue is something. A half-minute silence with a static camera. Hell, I almost yawned when I watched Travis and Jane talk. He's not hooking, I don't believe him. It's just soap. Such good actors and I don't believe this story at all. It sounds like some kind of anecdote, not a real story, because we don’t see the conflict.
The conflict is disappointing
And of course, the conflict itself. The beginning is fascinating, it seems surreal. I thought it was a cross between Twin Peaks and a jacket (2004). And the film all its 2.5 hours exhausts us with this mystery, which the other characters paradoxically do not pay attention. 39: Where have you been for 4 years? Where's your wife? What happened then? You don't want to answer that? All right, pick up Hunter after school, plz' what?! The movie is just disappointing. It leaves a flood of questions that no longer even want to be answered. Because, judging by the director's handwriting, I'm sure Travis was just silently walking around Texas. I don't understand heroes. I refuse to understand them. Not because it's an uninteresting story. Because we were not shown how and in what they could sympathize.
There is a feeling that the film is a story of his grandfather falling asleep about his youth, sitting on a rocking chair. And you don't know if he's half asleep and delirious or if he's just confused and just wants someone to listen to something he says. I believe that any creativity has the right to be and teaches something that tells. But I also believe that any work, especially public, can be criticized and misunderstood, especially if it claims to be a palm branch. Wim Wenders made a film for himself, about his experiences. Inspired by the book, he saw himself in this story, perhaps he was close to throwing the hero. But damn it, I didn't expect such disappointment. It was as if he was afraid to reveal the film completely. It was as if I felt a fear that emotions would break out and that this story could get some sort of resolution. He decided to leave it as it is. I'm sorry.
The desert at the beginning of the film, the silence, the man in a rag chaotically crossing it in all directions - this is an endless emptiness in the soul of this wanderer, lost in landmarks, the lack of a point of support. His material world is in a little cellophane bag, everything he has from a past life.
And now the water in the canister runs out, (spiritual forces are all exhausted to the bottom), he is ready to die from the emptiness that overflowed him, and accidentally (is it accidental?) he gets the last chance. And he was able to use it. . .
in order to find, including themselves, more whole; to restore relations with the abandoned son (very clumsy at first, then adultly, both, like conspirators, leave the usual and too correct way of life of the brother's family in search of the one that both remember and with whom they were happy 4 years ago) and return joy and sincere feelings from the communication of the son with the real mother. . .
What will happen to the main character next? The director leaves us to think. The roads of life (car tracks in the film) are long, many random exits - two identical red cars drive at high speeds, and in which of them luck, happiness. In any case, the hero of the film, I think, is waiting for something new. He found himself.
The narration of the film is viscously slow, diluted with the same unhurried beautiful music, the conversations are quiet and leisurely, all sustained in one rhythm, which sets up for thoughtful viewing, leaves a pleasant aftertaste and a desire to reflect on quality cinema.
Movies that use the tool of simplicity too mutually usually do not make sense to disassemble. Texas Paris is one of those places. Choosing between beauty and simplicity, the film chose simplicity as the basis. But there is a gap where the choice fell on beauty.
This film is more like the genre where no one is looking for meaning, but everyone watches it. Although not everyone watches this movie, the essence is the same. Finding a deeper meaning where there is none. A flower in the desert, and is characterized by this film.
There are some movies that we’re talking about, ‘Hmm, how did they put it together so that it worked and didn’t get dizzy.’ (There could be examples.) Rather, it would be appropriate to define the structure of the film not by mixing, but by disconnecting. As well as boredom and one-time alluring attractiveness. The film can be easily divided into two parts, if only because the character Travis (yes, he is the main one) does not return after the events of the first part to the second. And I would like to describe my own experience with this film and speculate about it. The film is divided into two parts.
The first viewing was boring and only approaching the second part of the film to the character appeared interest. After a while, I kept coming back to the second part. And here the main thing - the film in my head was thoroughly cut off from the first part, and I began to talk about the hero, considering only the second. My mind has completely omitted the introduction by this time. When I became interested in the film, I returned to it. And I can tell for sure, it was like a new movie, and boredom was there. If after the first viewing I talked about the main character as thinking about others, then taking into account the first part, this can be refuted. The film lives two lives for me. The stump of the film, where Travis is more sacrificed, i.e. the second part. And full viewing, where the hero is not just lost, but he is sown and has already taken root. That’s the core of Texas, Paris. It's split exactly into two parts, two different movies, and at the end you wonder, how did they split it so that it would work?
This is the end. No matter how much I use the word “boring”, this film is unlikely to be boring in the near future. Because Hollywood has no competitors for a long time. And they're investing less in movies now. And today’s audience is more hungry than ever for really interesting movies. Remember the same “Logan”, the film categorically missed in 3 main things, but the viewer is more satisfied than ever. I am satisfied with the premise of good and interesting.
I say it doesn’t make sense to make a movie, but I will. I might even say why.
The movie starts, it comes. I like heroes who find the strength to do something when they don’t have to do anything at all. But they're moving, they're kicking, and it's very close to me, here. I'm going to talk about the hero because I forgot what the first part was about. Travis is very gradual, with great caution, doing anything at all. It's only 20 minutes before he says the first word, and that's how we watch him cornered trying to share. And especially this desire reveals the scene in the second part of the film. Wherever he trusts Jane's girlfriend, he can only do it from a distance. From this side, the most powerful action is the release of light on your face, on which there is no emphasis. A hero who has nothing left but is willing to give everything. It’s the hero we deserve.
Oh, and yes, this interval in the movie. I have a separate love for him. He's sitting, she's sitting. She can't see, he can see. This is the only environment where a hero can share something. If he knew the secret of the universe, I think he would.
This is the end and the credits are coming.
The movie starts, it comes. Here's the question. Why did the hero take the credit cards, take the child, as if he were torn away from all our values? And in general, it seems that it is all alien to him. He's from our planet. He knows his apologies and his problems. Who would like such a hero? He acts only in his own interests, only where he is interested. Selfish is nothing else. I understand, but I don't understand one thing. How can you not be so dependent on the opinions of others? Perhaps with this question I have some sympathy for him. But in general, this is bypassing.
This is the end and the credits are coming.
The movie starts, it comes. So let's put it all together. Anger, denial, trading, depression and acceptance. Um, where am I? And the interval is still great.
The neon redness of the letters cutting through the darkness of the screen. Harry Dean Stanton. A Wim Wenders movie. The rattling of the string of the guitar of Paradise Cooder, conveying to the viewer like an echo, reflected by the emptiness and silence of the Mojava desert in the title shots. The passage of the chamber, covering sand, rocks, boulders, ruts of dried streams of wind. It seems that there should be nothing but silence, when suddenly from a ringing “out of nowhere” a man appears in a red cap, as if in a hat removed from Cousteau, in a chic, really dusty and shabby double-breast suit. On the thin, hungry feet of his prosaic slippers, containing every mile of his long, if not eternal, path. The viewer meets Travis in the state of primitive man in complete unity with the surrounding world. A world where there is no place for another person, a memory, or just a word, a thought. This overgrown, dirty man with a winded face and the shine of sad dark eyes is silence. All he wants to do is go, maybe someday go to heaven. Paradise in a place called Paris, Texas.
Torn by the intervention of his brother, a man from an external, already alien world, he is forced to get acquainted with him again. He's a kid who's afraid of planes and looking for support in familiar things. He's gone. Disappeared for 4 years, half the life of a boy. He will become a father again, for the child he has forgotten, who has forgotten him. It's worth remembering. In this he is helped by his son, becoming for him a mentor on fatherhood, indicating that they have to take on the road and supporting barely overfooted drunk Travis. The main character, on the contrary, with his walkie-talkie and binoculars, fitting on the “father’s suit”, a cute misunderstanding and asking smile on his wrinkled face, turns into a baby who needs support and understanding, and also love.
The most memorable parts of the film take place on the road: the way home to Los Angeles Travis and Walt and the way to Houston to the mother (which is essentially the same) Travis and Hunter. With these two roads rhymes and an episode of dialogue between Jane and Travis in the booth, where each of the characters seems to communicate with their past, through a thick glass of oblivion. Each of these scenes opens the main character to the viewer from a new side. Coming out of the desert as an empty, blank slate, at the end he returns to the same page, written with pathetic words of a tragic story. Typical melodramatic story of domestic separation of loving people, the impossibility of joint happiness in Wenders acquires an epic scope, where the hero of the story appears from nowhere and goes nowhere, in order to disappear and forever get lost in the sands of the American desert, leaving the gloss of advertising posters, the impersonality of diners, the emptiness of motels, and find peace and silence and unconsciousness in the boundless expanses of Texas.
Paris ... a long pause, so that everyone can imagine the Eiffel Tower, the Mona Lisa, Notre Dame Cathedral and everything else so strongly associated with France ... Texas
A wasteland, a bare wasteland with nothing but a “For Sale” sign, is the perfect place to start a new life if the old one is so destroyed that even the foundation has crumbled into crumbs and mixed with the mud of the boots that trampled it. On such a wasteland is built the history of the film. Gradually it is filled with life, events and characters, the main character of the film, after only two minutes of the film begins to talk, before that only looks somewhere beyond the horizon. Wim Wenders envelops the film with the romantics of a vast desert and a man who has lost meaning in life so much that he no longer needs to talk, eat or sleep. All he can do is go forward to Paris, Texas, where he can build a new movie.
The film is both a subtle family drama and a story of loneliness, which is combined into a bumpy storyline that for 2 hours can keep the viewer waiting for the denouement. History is rocking for a long time, akin to landscapes against the background of which it occurs, landscapes change and history too. One could say that the plot is simple, nothing special, etc., but the presentation, the presentation takes its toll and probably any story can show itself from the best side if it is correctly presented, and as a result, you can not say a single unflattering word about the script.
Talk to the movies still write music. In the case of Paris. “Texas” is absolutely inseparable from the film, so they merge together. The music from Ray Cooder, the picture from Robbie Mueller, the cameraman, is perfect. Landscapes of endless deserts, planes flying in the distance, the lights of a larger city, two people who have long been in love talking after a long separation - turn out insanely sensual and soulful. The production of the scenes is critical for the film - swap two characters and everything would go to dust, the magic dissolved, but Robbie Mueller and Wim Wenders succeeded.
None of the actors of this film I can not remember in any of the other roles, so much they are now associated in memory only with the characters of this film. There are no high-profile moments in the film, the characters do not shout, do not swear, do not show off, but in every movement, every look, in every uncertain change from foot to foot, there is a quality acting work in which the actors feel what they are playing. Characters are the main component of each of the films of Wim Vanders, and here they are conveyed in a way that they want to believe, these are live people, live emotions.
Special thanks for Nastasas Kinski. Appearing somewhere in the middle of the film, the actress fills the whole story with her incredibly wide smile, Julia Roberts is still far from it. The actress is very beautiful and expressive, and like no other fits her character.
The film is ideal for those who like the slightly monotonous, long-swinging “road-movie” in the style of Jim Jarmusch and of course in the style of Wim Wenders himself.
Paris ... sand dunes stretching as far as the eye can see, dusty, old shoes, water as the main value, standing away from each other one-story houses, and a road stretching in the middle of the world, going from nowhere to nowhere ... Texas.
In "Paris-Texas" Wenders found a beautiful metaphor for interpersonal alienation: Harry Dan Stanton and Nastasia Kinsky talk through glass in a brothel using a phone so he sees her and she doesn’t. The tragedy of the situation is aggravated by the fact that the characters used to love each other, were married, had a common child, and then everything collapsed at once, and now there is an insurmountable barrier between them, both physical and ontological.
In the film “Paris-Texas” Travis, the hero of Stanton, painfully overcomes a kind of existential amnesia, trying to remember not only real events that happened in his life, but also to find lost connections, however, he is not destined to do this – too great a sense of guilt. In contrast, the main character of Enter without knocking is more ridiculous than tragic, although there is, in principle, a similar path of identification with his past.
Imagine the following situation: take a respected doctor, the savior of hundreds and hundreds of souls and bodies, who has an indisputable authority, which is called “praised by many, respected by all”, from the series of ophthalmologist Fedorov, and ask him to write an essay on the topic “How coke helped me get rid of stress”. And then we look at how alcohol consumption falls in individual well-off and not so families.
If such a story happened (there are examples of Bulgakov, Hemingway and other brilliant doping enthusiasts), it would be an uncompromising argument for all abusers. And try something after this essay justify to people who are absolutely sure that a couple of tracks of high-quality “stafa” is sometimes very useful, or at least not more harmful than a hundred whiskey. And none of the most obscene examples from life and photos from the chronicles will help.
The same with Wim Wenders, the heir to Antonioni and the current president of the European Film Academy and his road Movie “Paris, Texas”, shot so high that “the palm branch is not enough” that you can not tear your eyes off and ears not to peel (the list of awards and positive reviews of the most respectable film critics is off the charts).
So, the main character, Travis (Gary Stanton), like his wife Jane (Nastasia Kinsky), disappear for 4 years inexplicably where, leaving his 4-year-old son brother Travis Walt with his wife.
Walt accidentally finds Travis in complete neuminosis somewhere in the middle of the American nowhere, washes, dresses, tolerates his whims, brings home, gives money, allows him to wear his clothes - in general, gives out Christian brotherly love for a hundred. Meanwhile, Walt’s wife gives Travis hope of finding Jane, revealing in secret that she periodically appears on the horizon in the form of a cash deposit on his son’s account. And Travis, who, out of boredom, has cleaned all the shoes in his brother's house and measured all his clothes without blinking an eye, goes in search of his ex-wife. At the same time, he takes his son with him, who for the past 4 years calls his brother Walt’s father, and his wife, respectively, his mother. Travis, just like that, in Texas, says: “Son, I’m going to get my mom, good luck, son!” (i.e., I merged once, so you won’t be upset if I do it a second time), to which the son (which is natural for an 8-year-old boy who still remembers his mother) says: “I’m with you, Dad!” “No problem, let’s go!” replied Travis.
And, fearfully, the story enters a new twist, which promises even more beautiful than in the first part of the American Wild West, but brings no less juicy concrete jungle in the form of Houston from the eighties, as well as a meeting with the beautiful Nastasia Kinsky, playing the wife of Travis.
I have a simple question: how do you understand this? The main character is so much in love with the drum that with a single movement of his hand crosses out the family life of his brother and wife, who have long considered Travis’ son their child. And he does this with their own money, and, most likely, will do the same with his son (so you hear his thoughts: “Son, there is nothing to do in school when you need to look for a mother who does not care about us!”) .
And for dessert, in the finale, Travis leaves his 7-year-old son alone in the hotel along with a recorder, on which he recorded his farewell message to him, with the finale: “I love you, Hunter, I love more than anything in the world” – in fact, the apotheosis of a lie, taking which, the child will not be able to use it further in his own life.
Wim Wenders and Co. show all this bacchanalia of pseudo-love and misunderstandings so beautifully, as if it is not tin as it is, but living water; the wisdom of the series “Do not believe, do not fear, do not ask!”
And under the curtain, a feligree development of the theme, in fact, a biblical justification for the innocence of a woman who abandoned her child: the husband is a psychopath, a loser and an alcoholic, so it happened: “I couldn’t give my son what he needed...” I didn’t want to use it, I didn’t want it to fill my inner void! – says the heroine of Nastasia Kinski in his defense.
Bravo, Wim! Vivi, Wenders!
Oh, the eternal silence of the deserts, you have long shared one language with men. Now you are oppressed by the roaring choir of cars, where each person is essentially nothing.
What is Paris? Long the cultural center of Europe, the main supplier of great politicians, thinkers, artists and writers, it could rightly be considered the heart of the Old World. This is the kind of heart that America has never had and will never have. It is boundless prairies, rocky landscapes and mountains, deserts in which time has died, eternal, endless expanses that sneer at all imaginary ultimate human goals. It was this landscape that was conquered by the Americans through the construction of megacities, large gambling centers right in the middle of the desert (Las Vegas), transport networks, of which the main is the pride (and probably the symbol of America) of the highway. It serves as the background in the film in 70% of all screen time. What is its secret, why is it so important and what is it?
There is little talk of how dramatically American society changed with the advent of the automobile and the road. Wenders is primarily interested in its impact on family life. The family as such, i.e., rootedness, tradition, constancy (widely practised in Europe) has been shaken. After all, now the mobility of life has increased hundreds of times, freedom of movement has appeared (note, Stanton’s hero lived with his family in the trailer), and many families chose an unbounded lifestyle (this applies not only to hippies, and today many continue to wander).
The trouble with Travis, the protagonist of the film, is that he is conservative and delusional about Europe (where his father came from). Trying to find the heart (Paris) where it is not and cannot be (Texas), he suffers a crushing defeat at the hands of his family, not realizing that a return to the origins, ancestral roots is already impossible. However, it is impossible to say about the plot in order not to spoiler the whole film, so it is better to return to what other global aspects are affected in it.
Highway as a means of communication, transformed all reality to the root, is not the only one that appears in the film. Being a big fan of Antonioni (and even created several films with the maestro), Wenders brilliantly plays the theme of replacing authentic communication (in live, through real presence) with artificial. Mobile devices at the time of creation have not yet appeared, so the director replaces them with radios, voice recorders, landlines, etc. This technique allows him to dig deep into the human psyche, with its fantasies, memories and perception of reality (between it turns out that the latter still has to be reached (a scene where the boy does not perceive his own father until he begins to play the role of the father). Wenders begins his research with a clean slate.
Namely, a person who has completely renounced all social roles, social systems and means of communication as such (he does not even use language, let alone aircraft, credit cards, etc.). The whole film is actually the way (road, highway?) of his reincarnation, reconciliation of the present with the past, his dreams (return to the ancestral roots, hearth) with reality (eternal movement, search, constant mobility). He has a long journey through the world of eternal illusion. Well. I just wish him “Have a good trip!”
Before the film about the actor G. D. Stanton, I only knew that in the book "Hollywood" Charles Bukowski speaks of him in the most positive way, recognizing as "a great guy." Judging by his description, the actor was a little crazy, not of this world, liked to have a drink and start a philosophical conversation (to quote Stanton's speech: "We all have a hole in our ass, right? Right here in the middle, right? Shit is coming out of here, right? At least every time we wait for it to happen. What are we without shit? No us! How much do we waste our lives, huh? And everything goes to the ground! Rivers and seas are saturated with our shit! We're filthy filthy creatures! I hate it! Every time I wipe my ass, I hate humanity. In this role, he's infused. But Dean Stockwell, who we used to see in the second roles or in TV shows, is also very good. Almost the opposite of the "natural" brother - he quite successfully lives in the realm of simulation (Hollywood), himself producing it (advertising agent), and even all the roles he succeeds in hurrah (for example, fictitious father). But he will have to pay dearly for that.
As for the audiovisual component of the picture, then just end the words. The endless deserts, sharply contrasting with the skyscrapers, the juiciness of colors, the blinding rays of the sun and the immortal emptiness, the loneliness that soaked every grain of sand and the metropolis with its reflected stained glass windows, the simulated sun, where people are perhaps even more lonely.
Road adventure is a genre extremely interesting for cinema. After all, it has a place not only for luxurious views, but also, most importantly, the very essence of stylistic orientation - an endless journey. German master of directing Wim Wenders resorted to road-movie on numerous occasions, especially in his earliest and most famous works, Alice in the Cities (1973) and False Movement (1975). Almost ten years later, the film “Paris, Texas” became for the director not only the last and final stage in this genre, but also symbolized a certain goodbye to the American influence in his work.
Wenders, as a European, perfectly manages to convey from the first shots the cult and romance of the big road that Americans so revered in the romantic 70-80s not only in cinema, but also in life. Incessant movement, constant dynamics - expressions that seem to symbolize a certain character of the nation. However, the director places in this reality the seemingly invisible and rejected theme of loneliness. Such an un-American trait is felt in the local life by Wenders even in a densely populated region like San Francisco. Therefore, the landscapes created by him of exceptional beauty are always deserted, and the photo in the hands of the protagonist with the image of a sandy area in the city of Paris, Texas - as the main symbol of loneliness.
And the character played by Harry Dean Stanton continues to express this essence. After all, he is a Western character, and such a person is always lonely and often asocial, avoids society. Four years of wandering in an unknown direction, an accidental return to the family, a new finding of yourself and the apparent meaning of life – it seems that there is everything to make the dream become material again. But the lean cowboy, according to the laws of the genre, is an eternal wanderer, the eternal ghost of himself in the vast expanses of sunny California. A fine thread to the "poet of alienation" is caught Michelangelo Antonioni.
The magical soundtrack from Paradise Cooder creates an even greater vacuum. The sounds of his slide guitars throw such tense and, at the same time, full of anguish notes. Anticipating the phrase of the next in his biography of the film “Crossroads”, Cooder emphasizes the tone of the painting by Wenders, because “the blues is when you were abandoned by a woman.” Such meditative sparse music is very precisely combined with the brightly saturated color of the landscapes. Robbie Muller, the dedicated cameraman of Wenders and the next successor to Jarmusch’s iconic “road-movie,” lends an infinite scale, at first glance, to the local family melodrama through a masterful combination of frames, where majestic hills, rising from desert plains, reign first, with views of “concrete jungle” Houston.
"Paris, Texas" is a somewhat atypical representative of the genre of road adventure. There is no usual drive and dynamics. Alien European Wim Wenders (as critics in the states called the director) showed a kind of romantic sadness of his continent in the far American South. A deliberately emphasized sense of loneliness hovers in every detail of this picture and creates near-utopian moods towards the end in the spirit of “Woman in the Sands” by Japanese playwright Kobo Abe. But still the hero of Wenders, an American, is a true character of the California western, and, as a faithfulness to tradition, he is not destined to lead a sedentary lifestyle, because the soul is eager to continue wandering, and wandering is akin to a pilgrimage, a pilgrimage long in life.
9 out of 10
This is one of those films when watching which you want to end as soon as possible, while you understand that there are no obvious failures, and in the absence of efforts to reproach the producers and actors is impossible. It irritates and disturbs the soul at the same time. The process is certainly useful. But the result is zero. Nothing new has been said about the relationship between people. Just diligently declared problematic points in the contact of brother and brother, man and woman, parents and child. Why all this? As a reminder that there are problems? Well, maybe it's good for someone. But whether the film contributes even a drop to less problems, I do not think. In general, 95% of ordinary viewers will not watch this for sure: people want the tension to have a tendency to unload, and not vice versa – it was a stone on the neck from which you want to howl. The remaining 5% are all those who manage to recognize themselves or their loved ones in the characters of the film, and therefore continue to torture themselves by watching. The audience watching this film can get some benefits even from communicating with mentally retarded and crazy people. Although this "benefit" is very specific ...
Can you rejoice that before your eyes the disabled person is trying to solve the problem for a long time and after a few hours finally realizes that twice two is four, and the sunlight casts a shadow? If you are able to enjoy this, then watch the film, if not, then be careful: so you can gradually move to a decrease in results in family life and professional activity. In general, I like the formula: in a person (his product, film) everything should be fine. And the script, and acting, and directorial decisions, and camera work, and dynamics, and a wise ending. Here you are shown initially “ugly” things: the characters of people, their actions, “half-hour” stops in the development of the plot on thoughts in the style: “Imagine, if water drips, then over time you can dig it up a whole pool!”. Why show "ugly" things? Personally, I don't know...
Tarkovsky achieved this by compensating for his inner beauty. Here with internal beauty is as weak as with external, in my opinion. In order not to offend the efforts of the film crew in the process of creating a film, showing charity to a film engaged in humanitarian and charitable activities to draw the attention of society to the fact that “all people are different”, I bet:
7 out of 10
Wim Wenders in Paris, Texas creates a special atmosphere of unreality and unreality. Despite the fact that the story takes place with ordinary people, in an ordinary place, each frame carries a sense of breaking thread. Feeling that you don’t understand or see right now. Fear of the next scene, fear that the movie will end. The director charged his film with such electricity that it is impossible to take off the screen.
Fear is filled with fear throughout the film. A man in a red cap wanders alone on the endless shores of the desert of Texas. Fear of not understanding what happened to him. But his brother finds him, puts him in a car, and the fear does not go away - the person is silent. Something happened to him, but what? Huge doomed landscapes of silence, and the twitching of the strings of a lonely guitar. A dramatic beginning slowly leads us to a detective story. Photography of Paris suggests that not always what we see is true. This means that Travis’ first words, “Paris,” do not mean Paris in France. They mean so much more, they are the gateway to the boundless universe of two people that we are eager to dive into now. And then comes the next fear - Jane.
Children are small creators, they can destroy and create. They know how to forgive and love sincerely and directly. Little Hunter wants to find his mom. He remembers it only because of the film with a chronicle of four years ago. He does not even believe that there, on the screen of his past life, for him there is no reality on the wall. The child lives with feelings: I felt that you were not dead, that you were doing something. I feel like she lives somewhere.” The elusive and mysterious image of a beautiful girl appears before us on film, and in the rhythm of the plot we begin to chase her. Fear of losing sight of it, inadvertently frightening, not to find dark numbered rooms in the nooks.
The hero of the film will not be able to cope with this force of misunderstanding and disappointment. It's cool to watch someone react when you say you bought land in Paris. My father used to say that my mother was from Paris. At the beginning of the film, Travis was silent, the silence was frightening. When he became quite sane and spoke, there was a fear that he would say too much. His revelation in the rooms of the establishment where Jane works opens a curtain of mystery and conjecture. And the story becomes clear and ordinary. But there will be no happy ending. It's not that simple. Opening up to his wife, and laying out his life on the shelves, the hero realized that everything that is happening now, he gave birth. And he made this young girl miserable, because you can't love in a cage, just as you can't hate in freedom. "Lost somewhere in the wilderness, where there is no talk and sounds," somewhere in Paris, Texas.
The endless shores of the desert, distant plans, landscapes. The cold wall of the house in contrast to the beautiful warm sunset. In such a soulless strict nature as a breath of fresh air, as the only true touch on the canvas, the image of a woman performed by Nastasia Kinski is introduced. Feminine beauty and the charm of nature, a mysterious history and an indescribable state of fear that all this will someday end, like a road that goes to an invisible distance.
Paris... The place where the narrow streets paved with cobblestone roads flow in smooth curves, just like the mouth of the river, to the main arterial cores of attractions - the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. This is a city where, after a relaxing walk along the Seine, you want to linger in one of the cozy cafeterias that envelop the warmth of the aromas of freshly baked chocolate croissants with the invigorating bitterness of strong coffee. And then, having bought a dozen trinkets at the flea market Marche-au-Pus de Montreuil, plunge into the richness of the cultural heritage of mankind in the Louvre, and then have time for the enchanting revue in Moulin Rouge. It is a city of romance and love, a living monument of human history. And this is not the Paris that in the US state of Texas, which is the clarifying stigma is the title of the film “Paris, Texas”.
In fact, such a trick you feel in the gut from the first shots. An elderly bearded man wanders aimlessly along faceless canyons near the Mexican border. He is silent like a fish and does not sleep like a soldier on watch. His carelessly protruding hair sticks out from under a bright red cap, which in combination with a dirty, like a rusty unit, the suit gives off a kind of comic. Around no soul, everywhere the remains of abandoned shacks, and the surrounding emptiness is filled with a quiet whisper of wind. Soon, the lack of water and discomfort of the pestering Sun predictably leads the vagrant to a local doctor. The only card found in his pocket leads to Walt, the brother of a silent wanderer named Travis. He also takes him to his home in a car, as Travis has aerophobia. As it turns out, Travis disappeared 4 years ago, and his family is scattered like wheat grains in a field. His son is almost eight years old, lives with Walt and his wife and hardly sees Travis as his father. The only thing known about the mother is that she transfers every month to Hunter’s account, that is the name of Travis’ son, the money.
“Paris, Texas” is a rare breed of film projects that can competently combine several mutually exclusive genres at once. In a specific case, a road movie and a family drama, in the sense that the drama is about the family and not for the whole family. For the same reason, putting the whole film into bricks is a crime like trying to present each element of The Last Day of Pompeii separately, without a common message. The beauty of “Paris, Texas” is the composition, the general conveyed mood of a particular scene, by certain actors, in certain situations. And each new mood of the scene is an evolution of the previous one.
The laconic beginning of the road home is the classic leitmotif of the lifelong path - the most difficult impetus for the development of the plot. The tandem of magnificent secondary actors Dean Stockwell and Harry Dean Stanton, respectively, Walt and Travis, is expressed in the incessant attempts of the first to talk and find out at least something about his distant brother. Each word is perceived as a gold bar, spontaneously appearing at the feet out of nowhere. It is desirable, you crave it, like a baby craves the New Year to get a well-deserved gift. And against this background, views of a single-storey American outback with cheap motels, settlements of a dozen houses and a deserted horizon. And a little later, day replaces night, the Sun gives way to small beads of wandering headlights, and night clouds curl in bizarre picture patterns against the background of a purple-orange strip of sunset above the horizon. An opening panorama with a perfect sense of color and camera angles is complemented by Ray Cooper's atmospheric slide guitar, highlighting the general stagnation of rural life. Such a meditative, unhurried rhythm is a ready-made mechanism for an hour and a half of “road cinema”.
In another movie, maybe that’s what it would be. However, for the German director Wim Wenders, these are only half-hour prologues and epilogues, like intertitles explaining the background to the main action and the afterword to the fate of the heroes. In the case of "Paris, Texas," the main action is a family separated by a multi-kilometer ordeal. Hunter’s son, who is torn between the motherly instincts of his brother’s wife and the real father. The latter patiently, and in some ways naively, wants to become the “right” father for his son, which is extremely difficult when the child has lived half of his life without a real father and now seriously believes that he has two of them. At the same time, there is no direct confrontation, only a mutually awkward feeling of confusion between father and son. And the wife, for unknown reasons, gave up her son and husband. These mysteries, like Travis’s four-year absence, do not cease to loom near the audience. In general, the director skillfully uses the inherent inquisitiveness of people, turning this property to his advantage in such a way that a spectator who is mired in thinking can easily miss the atrophied evolution of road magic in the last third of the film. But even an experienced eye, thanks to the skillful maneuvering of the film between the particles of the plot canvas, it is impossible to thoroughly predict the path of its development, and this, for a moment, is a worthy application for originality.
More than once it happened that the film on the one hand has the main awards of some large-scale film festival, on the other hand, the sense of them is no more than from the GOST badge on the package of kefir. Paris, Texas has three such awards from the influential Cannes Film Festival, and three is a lucky number. In addition, films about Paris, which in France a lot, but about Paris, which in Texas, no. Sometimes that's enough.
Our eyes immediately open the desert under the sultry rays of the sun, drying out, able to dry literally everything in a person. And it is difficult, but moves Travis, whose presence here, and in general the whole subsequent story associated with him raises only questions. And in one "beautiful" moment, not finding water, he falls down obsolescently, losing consciousness in some gatehouse. The man who owns this institution, who turned out to be a doctor, finds a business card from a lost wanderer and immediately dials the number indicated on it - on the other side of the wire is the brother of the traveler.
Who is this Travis by Harry Dean Stanton? It is unlikely that this overgrown and unshaven person will give any clear answers to questions that can hardly be caught by surprise, he will not say anything until he realizes that he is ready for conversation. Silent, has not said a word for an hour, and his brother is trying to disinhibit him, beginning to lose any hope.
The character of Stanton has a completely resigned look, he is lonely, battered by life, almost still eyes, just beginning to show a reaction to the environment. Where has he been all this time? Why did you abandon the baby? Where's his wife? He is the one who, having everything, has decided to give up his past life, turning into a vagabond who does not even need sleep, his existence will support only a sip of water.
In a slow move, the picture of Wim Wenders acquaints the viewer with the situations applied to this hot American still life, which seem so vague as the lapses in the memory of the main character. “Paris, Texas” is a road movie that focuses not so much on the purpose of a substantive retelling of one intricate story that will eventually open to us, but on the transmission of feelings and emotions, clarifying relationships, demonstrating life mistakes (rarely explainable) that make up the entire human being.
Trials and errors - that is what is the engine of life progress, it is read by the characters in the action in question, based on the work of Sam Shappard and implemented by Wim Wenders. Fathers and children, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives are all bricks of one big wall, if you remove one, everything will collapse. That’s how the characters of Stanton and Nastasia Kinsky diverged in different directions, leaving their son to Travis’ brother, believing that you can escape from problems. But there is such a thing as conscience, and it is present to one degree or another in everyone, which the director says, selectively answering questions that arise from the viewer.
“Paris, Texas” has some parallels with the early “Alice in the Cities” of the same Wenders, depicting a certain loneliness of the characters, their devastation, and the main detail of the films is the road, which is for everyone their own. That’s just, if in “Alice...” large-scale connected whole countries, then in “Paris...” there are only American wastelands mixed with stone cities growing like mushrooms. And as for scale, it exists in the thoughts of the characters, in the unrealized or collapsed dreams of Travis, Jane, their son Hunter, as well as in the sad eyes of Walt performed by Dean Stockwell.
A man walks down a deserted Texas road out of nowhere. His name is Travis. He doesn't remember his past, except that he has a family he left behind. It has been four years since then, no less than that. On the way, he meets his brother, who will help him restore both memory gaps and mental balance, the road to which lies in Paris - a small town in Texas.
The second widely known work of the German Wim Wenders, with which I had a great pleasure to get acquainted, continues the idea of his “Alice in the Cities” (1974) – the same wanderings, the same searches, only the plot here is complicated and attention is focused on more than two characters. “Paris, Texas”, in contrast to the undeservedly bypassed festival awards film “Alice in the cities” was a three-time winner of the Cannes Film Festival (Golden Palm, FIPRESCI prize, Christian jury prize), and, also, was nominated for other awards of international level. The narrative is also conducted in the style of a leisurely road-movie with live dialogues of living heroes, however, despite the slowness, the plot manages to take unexpected turns. Literally impatient to immediately go to the laudatory odes and celebrate the chic camera work of Robbie Mueller, in whose hands the camera gave out luxurious plans of Texas landscapes and well-built mise-en-scene – from a visual point of view, the film is flawless, and the visual side is an important element of any fine art. As in the case of “Alice in the cities” there is not a single failed acting work, all without exception actors play at a high level, and appearing in the second half of the film Nastasya Kinsky is just a joy to the eye, harmoniously refreshing the previous action, as if came as never, by the way, a sip of water in the desert. The musical accompaniment of Paradise Cooder is another separate conversation on several pages of admiration and adoration, how much it adorned the film audioly, conveying the atmosphere of those arid regions. The soundtrack for the film is so good that you can listen to it separately, outside the context of the film. As in “Alice in the cities”, only a child will be able to return the wandering protagonist taste for life and find peace of mind, humanize, and, as a result, a bright sad finale, fixing the aftertaste, which will appear only days later and translate the film into the category “unforgettable”.
In two words: An exceptionally bright, humane, and lifelike film about the reunification of family ties. Without exaggeration, the masterpiece of Wim Wenders.
The film is already quite famous and famous for the early works of Wim Wenders, I watched after his “Alice in the cities” which is quite similar to this film, but how to me it is not as good as this tape.
"Paris, Texas," in my opinion, is a brilliant work. Wenders has created an absolutely superb road movie, although I'm not a fan of the genre, but this film is really very strong. The so-called magic of cinema is present in this film and keeps you near the screen.
Sitting to watch this film, I caught myself thinking that I am high from this movie in the truest sense of the word. Just a rest of heart and soul. The film is organic in everything. Great visual, I don't want to take my eyes off. Wenders in his road movie uses a certain effect of slowing down the movie, and he does it perfectly. It doesn’t make it boring, but the way it should be.
I want to say something about music. It was chosen very correctly. This movie would not be the same without this music. This guitar game by Ray Cooder would play on the strings of the soul itself.
Also, the films are well written all images. Very interesting image of Travis. It has some mystery, mystery and detachment. He personifies in the film most likely with the name and with that place in Texas. So deserted and obscure. Nastasya Kinsky, though a little just perfectly copes with the image of the unhappy, abandoned wife Travis. The plot is such that there is something unclear in it and you can not take off the screen and wait for new turns.
The scenes on the car are absolutely gorgeous. These deserted roads that take you far into the unknown. It is like a way of life, a person chooses where to go. There's also the last long scene where Travis is dating Jane. This scene is literally saturated with drama and you really sympathize with the character of the film.
Cinema is like a rest from everything. We can immerse ourselves in this film and forget your problems and hardships. Watch and rest. This film does not need to understand the head, think about it, what problems it touched, etc. You have to feel it. Get into this story and you will understand everything.
“Paris, Texas” didn’t immediately catch my attention. It so happened that I only watched it in its entirety the third time, the first two times I fell asleep and woke up during the final credits. After the second attempt, I left this film alone for a long time, primarily because of my ambiguity about the work of Wim Wenders. From the first scenes, I had a strong feeling that I was going to see a boring road movie, that Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) would never talk, and that nothing in this movie was going to happen. But in memory settled a beautiful picture of the American South, saturated with bright colors slightly dilapidated advertising posters at gas stations. And the contrasting blue of the clear sky. The color solution of the film, consonant with the magnificent melody of the slide guitar, as if frozen in the air on one chord. This combination is the most love-filled and inspired thing the German Wenders could say about America.
"Paris!" is the first word Travis says after breaking his vow of silence. It's his birthplace, as well as the endpoint of his journey, and even his loving brother Walt (Dean Stokewell) can't take him away from the cherished route for long. Antarctic penguins wander alone to the South Pole before they die, and no one knows what drives them. So Travis goes to his metaphysical South, Paris, Texas. It is as ludicrous and sad as a penguin diagonally crossing dusty roads and railway tracks. How many memories of his past life are in Travis’ head there in the desert of Texas, what really made him end up going to Los Angeles with Walt? It’s certainly not for Jane (Nastasia Kinsky)’s sake, and it’s enough for him to see a beautiful phantom behind impenetrable glass, a border he doesn’t want to cross again. How much human remains in this wanderer of the American plains, how much love for his son remains in him.
Unspeakable longing and some kind of forced non-participation in events is read in Travis' eyes. Playing Harry Dean Stanton is something formative in the film along with the color and music of Paradise Cooder. And Dean Stokewell is extremely convincing as Travis' brother. This brotherly love inspires confidence that Hunter will be fine, no matter how his meeting with his mother ends. The main thing is that they will meet. Now Travis can continue his lonely journey to Paris to fall silent again in memory of his past sins.
The film, which was in tune with my soul, reached my heart for a very long time and now it will remain there forever. Top ten!
In the sultry desert of Texas wanders a lonely traveler, pretty shabby, overgrown and thin. When he stumbles upon a lonely gas station, he enters a store and finds no water there, eats a handful of ice from the refrigerator and immediately falls without feeling. The doctor brings him back to life, but the patient refuses to talk. With scant personal belongings manages to find his brother, with whom they have not seen 4 years.
Harry Dean Stanton played the role of Travis, the traveler. His wanderings are caused by severe stress after breaking up with his wife, who is much younger than him. Jealousy, completely unjustified, led to the breakup of the once happy family. Traveling is an attempt to escape from yourself. The actor is fully integrated into the image.
Hunter Carson played Travis' son Hunter. Absolutely charming child, perfectly coped with his role. Hunter was left without both parents as a baby. He was replaced by his uncle and his wife. To the return of his father, he was at first wary, but gradually the ice of distrust thawed and the voice of blood took its toll.
Nastasya Kinsky, as always, is beautiful and the role of Jane – Hunter’s mother was played by her flawlessly and very heartfeltly. Having married young, loving a man much older than herself, she faced with bouts of jealousy, drunkenness and assault on the part of her husband. All this forced her to escape. Having no reliable means of livelihood, she felt that it would be better to leave her son in the strong family of her husband’s brother, who had no children of her own.
Walter (Dean Stockwell) and Anna (Aurora Clemence) became the new Hunter family. They loved him for 4 years as a native son and he answered them the same, calling mom and dad. But Walter never forgot that Hunter's nephew and father would return sooner or later. When this happened, Walter, through his judgment, did everything possible to return Travis to normal life.
Wim Wenders shot not only a great road movie, but also a wonderful life drama. It is about love in its various manifestations. Love of filial, motherly, brotherly, simply love for your neighbor and, of course, all-consuming and sometimes ruthless, leading to jealousy and madness, passionate love for the very only woman in the world. Although the film’s finale remains open, I like to believe that Travis can build his home in Texas Paris, raise a worthy son and plant trees in the desert. The first step to this he has already taken, returning his son mother.
In my opinion, all the components of the film are flawless. The master made a masterpiece.
Space and time that have become perceptible to our heart.
"Paris, Texas" in the first impression appears as a series of endless landscapes. Probably, it is impossible not to mention them in any review - it does not matter whether it is reverent or crushing. So now come to mind deserts, canyons and red cliffs of Texas, frozen and timeless. But do not fall so quickly under their charm, there is a risk of remaining among the rocks and sand. They all just hide the most important thing in the film - the person.
Wim Weders can be called a humanist director. His characters are necessarily sympathetic, yearning for sympathy, at the limit - suffering from a lack of sympathy and humanity. But, unlike the famous “Heaven over Berlin” in “Paris...” humanity is not declared in every scene, here only retroactively you realize that in essence all the characters of the film are human. Although there are not many people in the film - in addition to the main character Travis and his family, a doctor from the outback, a direct Mexican maid and a slick brothel keeper, appear in the frame for a short time. The remaining two hours of screen time are occupied by urban and desert landscapes - the beauty of sunsets, fields, transport interchanges, parking lots, big boards and a dozen other forms not always visible at first glance, erected by nature or man. Wenders’ eye is tuned to their tireless perception – what are his photo albums with hockey, specially composed for each frame. But to contemplate the decorated void, you need the same person. Harry Dean Stanton's character is heroic, and more significantly, as blissfully pure as the nature around him. Purification brought him a kind of austerity in the form of four years of wandering and forgetting the life that preceded him almost entirely. From this oblivion, only a few photos and a record of the phone number he carries around and revises have survived. One of the photos shows a piece of desert that surrounds it, with the sign “for sale”. This is Texas Paris, Travis' place, his beginning. "Civilization" Travis reappears gradually and not without difficulty. But his purity disposes, and even his son Hunter, abandoned in the care of his uncle, after the first days of distrust, quickly admits to his father’s wanderer and agrees to travel to Houston in search of his mother.
Here one should make a significant caveat: this film should be watched, freed from all everyday reasoning and “common sense” of everyday life. Wenders seems to deliberately surround the family of the main characters with contradictory moral acts: an abandoned child, Jane’s work in a “talking” brothel, the abduction (albeit by consent) of Hunter by his father from a house in which he is loved as a native. Bad “common sense” will now and then look for a loophole for snorting and sprinkling remarks, but try to close your eyes to it. Because Travis and Jane are both taller and more than anything else. Jane (Beautiful Nastasya Kinski) looks ridiculous in the cardboard room of the hotel or on the fake kitchen, but the cardboard symbolizes everyday life, which is “not in size”. From this disproportion departs the key, I think, the theme of the whole film – the impossibility of love. Jane and Travis love each other, but reach a certain point in their love, beyond which there is nowhere: ... as if I felt a stone containing the salt of prehistoric oceans or a ray of a star, I felt that I was touching the closed shell of a creature that goes to infinity with its inner side. The moment of impossibility of full possession, merging with a beloved being, is the dense core, the root that gives growth to the tree of the whole film, about the branching themes and moods of which one can talk without stopping.
We should mention Jane’s ghostlyness, she is an impeccably beautiful vision, not once near Travis, here on this side of the picture. She then smiles at him from an amateur film projected onto the wall, then looks at the photo, then answers from behind the glass. What a technically simple and ingenious way of depicting inaccessibility, elusive perfection. But perfect and Travis, compassionately patting on the shoulder of the city madman like the angels in the already mentioned picture. It is only the height of the mountains and the mountains. And even little Hunter is the last hope for the final shots.