• Paris, Texas from Page to Screen

    The following is from the first page of Sam Shepard’s script for Paris, Texas.

    (1) DESERT LANDSCAPE – EXTERIOR, DAY

    

A fissured, empty, almost lunar landscape—seen from a bird’s-eye view. The camera hovers over it. In the distance, a lone man appears; he is crossing this desert.

    A hawk lands on a boulder.

    The man stops, looks at the bird.
    Then he drinks the last drops of water from a large plastic bottle. He is wearing a cheap Mexican suit, a red baseball cap
, and sandals with bandages wrapped around them. His clothes are covered with dust and soaked with sweat. He has been walking for a long time.

    

This is Travis.

    Travis throws away the empty plastic bottle, and continues on his way across the bleak, hot plains that lie before him.

    Video

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6 comments

  • By Tim Gow
    April 30, 2012
    05:46 PM

    How I love this film - sad, sublime. Best film WW made.
    Reply

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  • By Sidney
    April 30, 2012
    05:51 PM

    This film is so poetic, so haunting, that it just boggles the mind. Films like this one don't come around too often, and that's a shame.
    Reply

  • By sam
    April 30, 2012
    07:07 PM

    great written
    Reply

  • By Raheem Miah
    May 01, 2012
    08:44 AM

    It takes a great screenwriter and a great actor to tell and not show, and the climactic scene really brings that home beautifully. Interesting, since the rest of the movie is just the opposite, a quiet love letter to family, near and far.
    Reply

  • By pete howell
    May 01, 2012
    09:11 AM

    I've always looked at this scene as taking place in a confessional.
    Reply

  • By Krasna
    May 11, 2012
    05:12 PM

    Too bad the middle of the film deviates from Sam Shepard's vision since he was not there to finish the script. That middle section bogs down the movie for me and throws it into another place. In the end it recovers, but not well enough after the great set-up.
    Reply

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