Paris, Texas (1984) - The Criterion Collection

Synopsis

New German Cinema pioneer Wim Wenders (Wings of Desire) brings his keen eye for landscape to the American Southwest in Paris, Texas, a profoundly moving character study written by Pulitzer Prize–winning playwright Sam Shepard. Paris, Texas follows the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to reconnect with his young son, living with his brother (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife (Nastassja Kinski). From this simple setup, Wenders and Shepard produce a powerful statement on codes of masculinity and the myth of the American family, as well as an exquisite visual exploration of a vast, crumbling world of canyons and neon.

Cast

Travis	Harry Dean Stanton
Walt	Dean Stockwell
Jane	Nastassja Kinski
Hunter	Hunter Carson
Anne	Aurore Clément
Dr. Ulmer	Bernhard Wicki

Credits

Director	Wim Wenders
Producer	Don Guest
Written by	Sam Shepard
Adaptation by	L. M. Kit Carson
Executive producer	Chris Sievernich
Music	Ry Cooder
Director of photography	Robby Müller
Editing	Peter Przygodda
Art director	Kate Altman

Disc Features

DIRECTOR-APPROVED SPECIAL EDITION:

New, restored high-definition digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Wim Wenders (with DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack on the Blu-ray edition)
Audio commentary featuring Wenders
Video interview with Wenders by German journalist Roger Willemsen
Excerpts from a 1990 documentary on Wenders, featuring interviews with Wenders, cinematographer Robby Müller, composer Ry Cooder, actors Harry Dean Stanton, Dennis Hopper, Peter Falk, and Hanns Zischler, novelist Patricia Highsmith, and director Samuel Fuller
New video interviews with filmmakers Allison Anders and Claire Denis
“Wim Wenders Hollywood April ’84,” a segment from the French television program Cinéma cinémas, showing Wenders and Cooder at work on the score
Deleted scenes and Super 8 home movies
Gallery of Wenders’s location-scouting photos
Behind-the-scenes photos by Robin Holland
Theatrical trailer
PLUS: A booklet featuring an essay by film critic Nick Roddick, interviews with Stanton, writer Sam Shepard, and actors Nastassja Kinski and Dean Stockwell, and excerpts from Wenders’s book of photos Written in the West

From the Current

Press Notes: Paris, Texas

Feb 16, 2010

Wim Wenders’s haunting family drama Paris, Texas has always had particularly ardent admirers. And as evidenced by recent reviews of the Criterion DVD and Blu-ray editions of the film, time has done nothing to wash away their enthusiasm. For Paste magazine,

Like Flying Blind Without Instruments:
On the Turning Point in Paris, Texas

by Wim Wenders Jan 27, 2010

This piece first appeared in the 1991 Wim Wenders collection The Logic of Images: Essays and Conversation (Faber and Faber), translated by Michael Hofmann. The story’s about a man who turns up somewhere in the desert out of nowhere and returns . . .

Paris, Texas:
On the Road Again

by Nick Roddick Jan 27, 2010

I have been going to press screenings at the Cannes Film Festival for more than twenty-five years, but only twice have I been absolutely sure—blindingly, heart-racingly certain—that I have just seen . . .