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Paris, Texas (1984)
Ever seen a person harmonize with a guitar using only their eyes? That’s what Harry Dean Stanton does in Paris, Texas. Stanton—playing mute for the first act of Wim Wenders’ revered neo-Western—effectively authors the movie’s tone and pathos with his sorrowful, bottomless irises, right alongside Ry Cooder’s soul-quivering slide guitar score.
Stanton plays Travis, a man found traipsing through the West Texas desert, seemingly with no memory of his former life. What follows is a quiet odyssey of uneasy reunions with Travis’ brother Walt (Dean Stockwell), Walt’s young son (Hunter Henderson), and Travis’ elusive wife (Nastassja Kinski).
In the present tense, the film is a character study, but Wenders cares more deeply about shared memories that must be dredged—not in twists or melodrama, but in a dreamlike lament for the lone wanderer’s past. Cinema 21, April 13.
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