Texas Watch: Paris, Texas (1984)

Watched:  07/04/2026

Format:  Criterion

Viewing:  First

Director:  Wim Wenders

As a forewarning, I really don't have anything new or novel to say about this movie.  It won Cannes in 1984 and is one of those movies that gets discussed *a lot*, I guess.  But I've avoided those discussions because I'd never seen the movie and was fundamentally avoiding spoilers.  

I haven't seen that many Wim Wenders movies, but of what I've seen - I've been a fan.  Paris, Texas (1984) should have been a slam-dunk for me, but I just never got to it until after our mid-day Fourth of July activities ended and before we put on fireworks from New York.  A couple of years ago,  I'd watched the beginning  - just the first 45 minutes of a lengthy runtime as Wenders movies tend to go, and had no idea where it was going.  Which - fair.  

Starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell and Natassja Kinski - it's a movie that reminds you that a deeply compelling movie doesn't need FX, a cut every two seconds, a needle-drop every ten minutes or fifteen subplots.  That's not to say Paris, Texas is representative of movies in 1984 - one of the years that defined the modern movie.  I'm not really sure it points to much more than what was happening in independent film in the 1980's that would inform indie movies for the next fifteen or twenty years.  Character driven, mood driven, and trying to show something about the human condition.

Maybe the thing I found most interesting about the movie was that, while Harry Dean Stanton is the central figure, the movie shifts to who the movie is about a few times within the small cast.  It leaves a lot of questions on the table and moves on.  We learn *something* about Stanton's character in each section by how the others react to him.

Stanton plays Travis, a man who appears on the Texas/ Mexico border in the town of Terlingua, a dot on the map outside of Big Bend and maybe most famous by having a hamburger named after it at Chili's.  He is mute, and seems to have no memory.  But there's a name and phone number in his wallet, and the doctor living at the edge of the world calls his brother (Dean Stockwell) to come get him.

In simple terms, it's Will (Dean Stockwell( trying to sort out where his brother has been for four years and what is wrong with him.  But he takes Travis back to Los Angeles.  Along the way, Travis begins to speak and to remember - beginning with a memory of his childhood and stories of his parents, and how he believes he was conceived.

It seems he disappeared four years ago, and doesn't know where is wife is, or that his brother has his son, Hunter.

In LA, Travis is welcomed in, and Hunter is informed that Travis is his father.  Anne (Aurore Clement), Will's wife, both becomes concerned what it means that Travis is back and what that means for the boy staying with them - but she's also clearly remembering something passed between Travis and herself.  That they are otherwise childless begs some questions.

Travis learns from Anne where his wife, Jane (Kinski), is, and heads to Houston to go find her - taking Hunter with him.  And here the story passes to Hunter.  And, eventually, in Houston, to Jane.

It's an interesting way to break things up - the continuity of Travis and his journey, and his relationships with the other characters.  I can't even say "main" characters, because of the slim casting of the film.  Each person shows something more about Travis in how they relate to him, and how Travis emerges from his near catatonia of the opening sequences to full on monologuing in the film's last 25 minutes.  And it works.

As I say, the movie also leaves questions unanswered - leaving the viewer in the dark as all we get is the throughline of Travis fixing an error from long ago.  What *was* the relationship between Will and Travis - and why does Will seem okay with letting Hunter go, including just giving him what sounds like a lot of money to go?  Was Anne in love with Travis at some point?   Did something happen with them in the past?  What does Hunter see in Travis that makes him run with him?  

To say the obvious - there's a world of difference between a movie that is trying for narrative simplicity and *fails* to make the necessary story/ narrative connections to hold the plot and arcs together and a story that *intentionally* leaves gaps.  You're allowed to/ supposed to poke at those holes - make some intuitive leaps, but you aren't getting any answers.  But I kind of feel the need to plainly make the distinction given the discussion about movies I feel I see here in 2026 AD.

On a personal note, the movie was shot in Houston during a period in which I lived there as a kid and teenager (81-84 and again in 1990-1993).  This is very much a Houston I remember from both when I was a kid and then as a teenager and going into town.  It was a strange city to navigate, the downtown could be really lovely, and the sunsets were - thanks to the petroleum plants leaking waste into the air - oddly beautiful.  

And while the movie takes place in West Texas, Los Angeles, on what I assume is the I-10 West to East route to Houston and then in Houston itself, in some ways not the most photogenic of places, that outsider's eye finds the beauty in Houston's skyscrapers and geometry - as well as the rundown storefront bars in small towns.  And even the view of airports and burnt out emptiness of West Texas east of the mountains.

I was not surprised at how well the ending worked - just based on the movie's reputation.  But it feels like it shouldn't have worked.  But there it is.  Kinski is given something other to do than be beautiful and Stanton is given more to do than be interesting to look at.  Set dressing, lighting, sound - it all comes together to make a long, drawn out scene we didn't know we were waiting for - work.  

Anyway - I liked it.  

Curious what my Houston people think of it.