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James Mottram

There aren’t many films that truly merit being celebrated 40 years on, but Paris, Texas is surely one.
Overhauled with a new 4K restoration for a cinematic re-release this month, Wim Wenders’ masterpiece, led by a craggy-faced Harry Dean Stanton, and driven by that unforgettable Ry Cooder slide-guitar score, still feels utterly timeless.
For the German filmmaker it remains a high point, along with the later Berlin-set Wings of Desire, that would come to define his career. Moreover, after earlier works like Hammett and The American Friend, it was the film that finally came to define his thoughts about the United States.
“I made several films to try and understand what it [America] was,” Wenders told this writer, “[but only Paris, Texas] did. The others sort of circled around it …


“Hammett and The American Friend, even Alice In The Cities, went to America. Kings of the Road was shot in Germany but it dealt with America. The only film that came to a certain conclusion was Paris, Texas. That at least allowed me to come back home.
“At the time, I wouldn’t have dared to move back to Germany if I hadn’t somehow accomplished my American mission.”
I grew up with a father who was always there for me, and a mother who was always there for me. And the older I got, the more I realised how much of an exception that has become.
Wim Wenders on the universality of the film’s story
For those who still have it on their “must see” lists, the film casts Stanton as Travis, initially found wandering the West Texas desert in a bewildered state.
In a story of estrangements and reunions, where rivers of emotional pain flow just under the surface, Travis is eventually reacquainted with Hunter, his son who he abandoned years earlier.
It leads them on a journey to find Hunter’s mother, Jane (Nastassja Kinski), now working in a peep show but still making monthly deposits in her son’s account from a bank in Houston.

Wenders felt that the story of familial breakdown – co-scripted by Sam Shepard, the esteemed playwright who so often made the American West his playground – is universal.
“I grew up with a father who was always there for me, and a mother who was always there for me. And the older I got, the more I realised how much of an exception that has become.”
In particular, he felt it’s a story so apt for the States. “America is so endless and this sense of rootlessness is so much bigger and the sense of loss is so much bigger – you can’t imagine.”
For Wenders, the story was significant for so many others reasons too, not least helping him realise he had a gift for depicting women. “I didn’t even dare to touch female characters for a long time,” he said.

“I think it was Nastassja in Paris, Texas that made me realise I was a director who could also direct a woman and could also bring out something in a woman that I just didn’t dare before.
“I always admired these directors, like [Michelangelo] Antonioni for instance, who had an incredible touch to direct women, and [until then] I didn’t have it.”
Arriving in the same year as films like the Coen brothers’ Sundance-winning debut Blood Simple and Jim Jarmusch’s seminal Stranger Than Paradise, Paris, Texas was also adjacent to the burgeoning American independent film scene.
After the screening, they told me it went really well. People liked it. And I was relieved.
Wim Wenders on the film’s premiere at the Cannes festival
“It was guerilla filmmaking,” Wenders recalled. “We shot clandestinely. False schedules and daily production notes in case we were found by the unions or immigration – we had no work permits for the cameraman. We barely survived.
“Ten years later, that approach became an everyday thing. It was called ‘Independent cinema’. Not that I invented it, but films like Paris, Texas were considered to be a part of that hallowed form of filmmaking that now exists next to the studio system.”
Even Wenders’ next stages with the film showed an independent streak, as well as his own maverick tendencies. Accepted into competition in the 1984 Cannes Film Festival, it was a rush to get the movie ready in time.

When the festival started, Wenders was watching the televised opening ceremony in Paris, where they were still mixing the sound. The day before his film was due to premiere, they were still printing the French subtitles onto the print.
Then he took an overnight train down to Cannes, literally carrying the film in canisters ready to be projected to the press.
“Seven reels of films are heavy,” said Wenders, who had to carry those heavy cans by himself because he did not have an assistant.
He gave me a big hug and he had tears in his eyes. And he said, ‘We loved the film’. He said not ‘I’, but ‘we’. ‘And we decided unanimously.’ And I thought that was beautiful.
Wim Wenders on receiving the Golden Palm from Dirk Bogarde
“I came and I made it to the screening. And I got little sleep because I hadn’t slept on the train. After the screening, they told me it went really well. People liked it. And I was relieved.
“In the evening we had the public screening and that was really beautiful. It was a beautiful day.”
Reviews for the film were ecstatic, with trade paper Variety calling it “one of the most beautifully lensed films in Cannes” and “odds-on favourite to walk away with a top prize at this year’s fest”. It was a prescient comment, with the film taking Cannes’ coveted Palme d’Or.

“When I got the Golden Palm from [the actor and that year’s jury president] Dirk Bogarde, he gave me a big hug and he had tears in his eyes. And he said, ‘We loved the film’. He said not ‘I’, but ‘we’. ‘And we decided unanimously.’ And I thought that was beautiful.”
Wenders would later be Oscar-nominated for three documentary projects, but there can be no doubt that Paris, Texas was a singular moment in time, arguably the last time Wenders conquered America so completely.
He never quite escaped the film’s shadow. For the 2020 documentary, Wim Wenders, Desperado, he was asked to go to the very spot in Texas where the film opens.

“When the camera finds this lonely man in the desert, that’s where Desperado starts, and I’m standing in the place where Harry Dean [was]. It took us days to find it. It took us a whole day to get there because there’s no road that gets there. It’s called the Devil’s Playground.”
With the crew hidden far away, the plan was to shoot the footage with a drone camera.
“They were all behind – way behind – the mountain looking at their drones. And then the drone went kaput. And I didn’t hear and the walkie talkie didn’t work. So I was there in the desert for hours, hoping that eventually I would hear a sound and the camera would come to me.
“And I felt like Harry Dean and all of a sudden, I thought, ‘Wow Harry, what a hero’. Actors have to be so humble and have to give themselves so much to people who then disappear. It was a great experience and I was in Harry Dean’s footsteps for a whole day.”
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Nastassja Kinski as Jane in a still from Paris, Texas, directed by Wim Wenders.

Harry Dean Stanton as Travis in a still from Paris, Texas, directed by Wim Wenders. A restored 4K print of the film is being re-released. Photo: Wim Wenders Stiftung

From left: Harry Dean Stanton, Nastassja Kinski and director Wim Wenders on the set of Paris, Texas. Photo: Wim Wenders Stiftung

Nastassja Kinski as Jane in a still from Paris, Texas.

A still from Paris, Texas, which won the Palme d’Or at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival. 

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Director Wim Wenders recalls the shoot for his 1984 American masterpiece, which is being re-released in cinemas in 4K in October 2024


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