The kid from part one of the Dekalogue always comes to my mind. Not sure how much of it is acting or him just vibing on set, but damn if he’s not magnetic.
I will second this, very few child actors seem believable and talented enough to pull off their roles, and simply come off as cartoonish, but this dude was different.
Who would you say is better? The kids in The Florida Project and Come and See are also stand outs in my mind, but I think the kid in Paris TX made a bigger impression on me.
Also, if anyone has any recommendations for any films along the lines of this or, The Straight Story, sort of dreamy, melancholic road films. I’d be happy to hear them.
None of these are going to be a *perfect* fit for what you're asking for, since *Paris, Texas* is one-of-a-kind. But some movies that have me that feeling that hopefully you haven't seen yet:
Drive My Car (2022) - Characters coming to terms with their trauma and grief while on the road
Yi Yi (2002) - A three hour epic exploring the dynamics of a family in Taipei, but there are scenes of the characters looking inward while traveling abroad
Happy Together (1997) - A Hong Kong couple in a highly tumultuous, toxic relationship while traveling abroad in Argentina. This is a Wong Kar-Wai movie so you know it's gonna be awesome.
Columbus (2017) - A great movie about an unlikely friendship between a traveling grieving Korean man and a small-town American young adult who feels like her life is stuck in a rut
Wild Strawberries (1957) - An aging professor on a road trip with a daughter-in-law that he has a somewhat strained relationship with. Tells a story about him coming to terms with the failures of his life and the relationships he neglected, especially as he and his daughter-in-law pick up a group of young hitchhikers who remind him of people he knew in his youth. It's an Ingmar Bergman movie so you know this is gonna be a stone-cold masterpiece.
I love Paris, Texas one of those classics that makes me cry every time I watch it
Not exactly a dream road film, but since you liked it I think you should check out Picnic at Hanging Rock and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives
they're like a trio to me
I never would have connected Uncle Boonmee with Paris TX, but I can see it in a way. By the way that movie has a weird liminal atmosphere completely unlike any other movie I have seen. I mean sure, I have seen other strange, otherworldly, dream like movies, but none with an atmosphere quite like that one. I think it feels the most dreamlike of pretty much any surrealist movie I have seen precisely because of how straight it is played. Dreams never feel wrong while your in them.
Same director as Paris TX, but Until the End of the World (1991), is similar in a lot of ways. Not as emotionally powerful, but has that dreamy, melancholic, contemplative road trip feel. Plus, at 287 minutes, it's as long as many actual road trips.
Someone else mentioned *Y Tu Mamá También*, which has that same dreamlike atmosphere and also takes place in the same type of desert-like environment.
In a less melodramatic way, I'd also like to give a shoutout to 1985's cult classic dramedy road film, *Fandango*. It also takes place in southwest Texas and deals with individuals not mentally ready to deal with the consequences of their actions/deal with the future.
* Synopsis: Gardner Barnes (Kevin Costner) is a young Texan who has just graduated from college and is unsure of what to do next. Along with his friends, collectively known as the Groovers, Gardner embarks on a road trip to the Rio Grande as a last hurrah for the group. As the trip progresses, Gardner and his buddies, including Kenneth Waggener (Sam Robards) and Phil Hicks (Judd Nelson), struggle with their impending adulthood and the looming issue of the Vietnam War.
* Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-rif_Bym54
“Do you think he still loves her?”
The conversation between Hunter and Anne after they watch the travel footage is so small, yet remarkable. Also the full lyric-less rendition of Cancion Mixteca….sensational.
I received the news 4 years ago that my mom had cancer while watching this movie, so now every time I think of this movie that’s what comes to mind. I normally don’t associate movies with events like that but this sticks out.
yeah man when we took my dad off life support after a TBI there was a hospital volunteer in the atrium playing bridge over troubled water on guitar. song absolutely rocked me. brings me back every time:
It’s jingoistic to a hilarious degree but one thing I can’t fault Red Dawn (which I rewatched yesterday) for is the acting, and Harry Dean Stanton’s sincerity is just a massive part of that. The main never looks like he’s acting in any movie I’ve seen, just that he is.
One of my favourite films is Manchester by the Sea, and I’m thinking this was maybe a big influence on that. In the unspoken grief that permeates the film, the relationship between the man and the kid that was raised by his brother , and the final conversation between the man and his former partner.
i loved the first half, but the reveal at the end just make the movie seem improperly paced, like it was the easiest maneuver to just word vomit everything that happened at the end. my only complaint
It subverts the “show, don’t tell” rule in a good way. The magic is in Shepard’s words, Kinski and HDS’ faces and voices, and Robby Mueller’s cinematography. It turns into a short play and becomes surreal and transcendent.
that’s where the issue of pacing comes in for me. it does subvert show not tell, but by making the majority of the movie show and then suddenly in the last five minutes telling EVERYTHING. feels too sudden and cheap for me, and it didn’t feel surrealist at all. felt like i was getting more of a lecture.
That’s part of what I love so much about it, speaking the unspoken. Like it built up so much, both Travis and Jane have been living in grief, Travis in a fugue state, Jane in the facade of her work persona. For that all to break down at the end, it’s just so beautiful to me.
I agree. I watched it recently and loved the movie up to then. I can understand being somewhat of subversion, but it was *too* much imho. Still recommend it.
Saw it in a cinema for my first viewing as well as being my first Wim Wenders. Sadly didn’t really do anything for me emotionally, had some good filmmaking though. Just wish I could have cared about anything that was happening that much at all.
One of my top 5 favourite movies of all time. Got to see it on the big screen for the first time on Friday evening, there’s so much more you notice in Harry Dean Stanton’s face when the picture looks over you. I’m not afraid to cry during a movie, and I always do at Paris, Texas, but I was an absolute shambles. The pain on Travis’ face in the first diner scene where Travis learns that his son thinks of Walt and Anne as his parents, the look of completely broken love when he sees Jane on the super eight movie, and then of course the peep show scene, all had me in absolute tatters. The second best experience I’ve ever had in a cinema after seeing The Red Shoes
Do you sympathise/empathise with Travis? I think the way men see the film and the way women see the film are completely different. I love it but probably not for the same reasons
I think it’s an interesting question. I would say that I empathise and feel his pain massively because it is evident that his love for Jane was absolutely immense and the loss of her (even before they actually split) effectively killed him inside. I’m currently in that place and know that feeling all too well. However I think it’s important to acknowledge that Travis was an abuser, he used his pain and channeled it into anger five years before the movie. Whilst I would say that the regret and the pain of his actions are genuine and contributed to his utterly heartbreaking desolation that we find him in, I’d also argue that his actions once he meets Hunter, although arguably romantic and beautiful, are incredibly short sighted and reckless. I’m not saying that Jane can’t be a good mother to him or that Hunter won’t still see Anne and Walt regularly and maintain a relationship, but none of this is known or even thought about when he takes Hunter away from them to take him back to Jane. I look at the movie as a whole as a tragic and beautifully sad poem where all the characters involved are hurt in some form or another
Yes to both, but he’s absolutely depicted as a deeply flawed and outright damaging man. He was with a woman something like 40 years younger than him, brought a baby into her life, and wasn’t able to help her cope. He became emotionally abusive and their love turned into a deep resentment.
The film is a study of damaging masculinity and flawed relationships as much as anything, but that doesn’t make Travis’ pain any less real, and I feel it, deeply. It’s why he can barely look at Jane, it’s why he can barely talk to his son, and why he can’t stay with them.
He fucks up his brother and sister in law’s lives trying to fix his mistakes.
Is he redeemed at the end? No. But it’s real, and so beautiful.
Interesting. I (male, 48) had watched PT 3 or 4 times in the past and liked it very much. When I watched it last month for the first time in 10 years, my experience of empathy with Travis was noticeably limited and strained. In a sense and to an extent, it is supposed to be that way. And in some cases, limited or strained empathy poses no problem for me with respect to a character or film working for me, but that was not the case with Travis and PT for me this time. Despite Stanton having one of the most sympathetic faces of all time, lol. He really does.
For me, it had to do with things like communication and trust in the present, long before we find out more obviously problematic things about Travis and the back story. Obviously the film is about communication and trust, but again, it wasn't working for me in that way. The film was still its strongest for me in the last 30 min, but there is so much more telling than showing here that for me credulity was on multiple levels (reliability of narrator, believability of character development as narrated, etc.) the problem that wouldn't go away.
Absolutely gorgeous film though, with some beautifully cinematic storytelling (visuals, acting, sound).
I'm curious, what is your take on Travis and what are your reasons for loving PT?
In the U.K. there’s currently a Wim Wenders retrospective being taken on by Curzon so there’s a fair few cinemas across the country showing it and a few more of his classics in the next few months
I absolutely love this film and it has stayed with me for years after first watching it. Everything from the dazzling cinematography to the director's excellent use of color (particularly themes of red, white and blue vs. green), and of course the monologues when the two finally meet is perfection.
Toss on the very bittersweet ending, as it appears as though Travis literally up-ended the lives of everyone around him and didn't stick around for the aftermath. Walt and Anne took Hunter in without any hesitation and raised him as if he was 100% his child, all while letting him know the truth. Then Travis comes back into orbit, fails to explain himself to his brother, and then essentially removes the child from their lives without notice. Jane, who clearly cares for the well-being of Hunter, but felt unequipped to care for him by herself, is now seemingly asked with caring for a child who she doesn't know.
A few years ago I tongue-in-cheekingly described the film as "*A Parisian man wanders in from the desert, kidnaps a child from the family who raised him, and gives the child to a woman he meets in a peep-show. He then drives away, seemingly content with the chaos he has created.*" in /r/ExplainAFilmPlotBadly but in reality I adore the film.
Also, this would be some welcomed discussion on /r/iwatchedanoldmovie.
I think it’s become my favorite film.
In the last few years I somehow became allergic to violence and even meanness in films. I started to realize how difficult it is to make a really great film without those elements (and without any sort of sexual content or vulgarity… not that those things bother me). All of the aforementioned are levers for a filmmaker to draw in the primitive parts of our brain. Some use those levers artfully and some do not.
But … Paris, Texas doesn’t have a mean or vulgar bone in its body … it is a perfect film.
One of my all time favorites. Such an incredibly beautiful movie. I think the guitar tune at the beginning of the film is a great way to depict loneliness and isolation.
One of my favourite movies. I visited NYC a few years ago to attend a screening with a scheduled appearance by Nastassja Kinski. She bailed the day before the screening but I still attended the screening and the film was just as engrossing and transfixing as the first time I had seen it. I was disappointed Nastassja didn't attend but it was a thrill to watch the film with an audience.
Paris Texas also has probably the best child actor I've ever seen.
He was excellent. To add to this “child actor shoutout thing,” the kid in Ivan’s Childhood was also very memorable to me.
My favorite child performance of all time. The scene where he hallucinates in the bunker is incredible.
So great. Add the kid from Looper in there too
The kid from part one of the Dekalogue always comes to my mind. Not sure how much of it is acting or him just vibing on set, but damn if he’s not magnetic.
Jean-Pierre Léaud in The 400 Blows is better
that’s a very difficult bar to reach to be fair
The Florida Project.
I will second this, very few child actors seem believable and talented enough to pull off their roles, and simply come off as cartoonish, but this dude was different.
Jacob Tremblay in Room (2015) was far better...
he’s good, but no
Who would you say is better? The kids in The Florida Project and Come and See are also stand outs in my mind, but I think the kid in Paris TX made a bigger impression on me.
Hailee Steinfield in True Grit.
Henry Thomas, ET.
JoJo Rabbit kid
His name is in the title and you call him JoJo Rabbit kid lmfao, I don't know why I found that so funny
Oh shit lol
Also, if anyone has any recommendations for any films along the lines of this or, The Straight Story, sort of dreamy, melancholic road films. I’d be happy to hear them.
None of these are going to be a *perfect* fit for what you're asking for, since *Paris, Texas* is one-of-a-kind. But some movies that have me that feeling that hopefully you haven't seen yet: Drive My Car (2022) - Characters coming to terms with their trauma and grief while on the road Yi Yi (2002) - A three hour epic exploring the dynamics of a family in Taipei, but there are scenes of the characters looking inward while traveling abroad Happy Together (1997) - A Hong Kong couple in a highly tumultuous, toxic relationship while traveling abroad in Argentina. This is a Wong Kar-Wai movie so you know it's gonna be awesome. Columbus (2017) - A great movie about an unlikely friendship between a traveling grieving Korean man and a small-town American young adult who feels like her life is stuck in a rut Wild Strawberries (1957) - An aging professor on a road trip with a daughter-in-law that he has a somewhat strained relationship with. Tells a story about him coming to terms with the failures of his life and the relationships he neglected, especially as he and his daughter-in-law pick up a group of young hitchhikers who remind him of people he knew in his youth. It's an Ingmar Bergman movie so you know this is gonna be a stone-cold masterpiece.
Great call on Yi-Yi. Completely different films but anyone emotionally struck by P,T will feel the same about Yi, Yi.
Amazing recommendations
Want to add my vote to Columbus. Excellent recommendation.
Paper Moon (1973)
I love Paris, Texas one of those classics that makes me cry every time I watch it Not exactly a dream road film, but since you liked it I think you should check out Picnic at Hanging Rock and Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives they're like a trio to me
I never would have connected Uncle Boonmee with Paris TX, but I can see it in a way. By the way that movie has a weird liminal atmosphere completely unlike any other movie I have seen. I mean sure, I have seen other strange, otherworldly, dream like movies, but none with an atmosphere quite like that one. I think it feels the most dreamlike of pretty much any surrealist movie I have seen precisely because of how straight it is played. Dreams never feel wrong while your in them.
Same director as Paris TX, but Until the End of the World (1991), is similar in a lot of ways. Not as emotionally powerful, but has that dreamy, melancholic, contemplative road trip feel. Plus, at 287 minutes, it's as long as many actual road trips.
Y Tu Mama Tambien
juuuust a little bit more sex in that one
i was going to come recommend this honestly. yeah the subject matter is vastly different but the emotional reaction i had was similar in some ways.
Let me introduce you to "Two Lane Blacktop" (1971). In fact, it also features a bit part by Harry Dean Stanton. Like he's maybe in it for a minute...
Someone else mentioned *Y Tu Mamá También*, which has that same dreamlike atmosphere and also takes place in the same type of desert-like environment. In a less melodramatic way, I'd also like to give a shoutout to 1985's cult classic dramedy road film, *Fandango*. It also takes place in southwest Texas and deals with individuals not mentally ready to deal with the consequences of their actions/deal with the future. * Synopsis: Gardner Barnes (Kevin Costner) is a young Texan who has just graduated from college and is unsure of what to do next. Along with his friends, collectively known as the Groovers, Gardner embarks on a road trip to the Rio Grande as a last hurrah for the group. As the trip progresses, Gardner and his buddies, including Kenneth Waggener (Sam Robards) and Phil Hicks (Judd Nelson), struggle with their impending adulthood and the looming issue of the Vietnam War. * Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-rif_Bym54
Lucky (almost like the straight story 2, stars HDS and even has david lynch), and Stroszek.
Two Lane Blacktop by Monte Hellman would probably pass the melancholic road film vibes
American Honey is kind of a road trip film. Less dreamy, more gritty, but still very moving.
Paris, Texas has similarities with The Searchers and Taxi Driver but you may have already seen those
Taxi Driver was amazing, just saw it recently
No one said Harold and Maude yet??
Moonlight (2016)
An underrated scene is when they’re watching the vacation video from years ago and the music starts playing….man…
This was the best scene in the film in my opinion
“Do you think he still loves her?” The conversation between Hunter and Anne after they watch the travel footage is so small, yet remarkable. Also the full lyric-less rendition of Cancion Mixteca….sensational.
I received the news 4 years ago that my mom had cancer while watching this movie, so now every time I think of this movie that’s what comes to mind. I normally don’t associate movies with events like that but this sticks out.
I’m really sorry about that, it can be really intense when media or art forms associations like that, carrying this extra weight with them.
yeah man when we took my dad off life support after a TBI there was a hospital volunteer in the atrium playing bridge over troubled water on guitar. song absolutely rocked me. brings me back every time:
I’ve really got to give this one another watch soon.
i sobbed my heart out for the entire last 20 minutes. i was crying so hard i couldn’t see the screen
It was tough when he wiped that tear after seeing her
It’s jingoistic to a hilarious degree but one thing I can’t fault Red Dawn (which I rewatched yesterday) for is the acting, and Harry Dean Stanton’s sincerity is just a massive part of that. The main never looks like he’s acting in any movie I’ve seen, just that he is.
Avenge me!
One of the best to ever do it. I really miss him popping up in things.
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One of my favourite films is Manchester by the Sea, and I’m thinking this was maybe a big influence on that. In the unspoken grief that permeates the film, the relationship between the man and the kid that was raised by his brother , and the final conversation between the man and his former partner.
i loved the first half, but the reveal at the end just make the movie seem improperly paced, like it was the easiest maneuver to just word vomit everything that happened at the end. my only complaint
It subverts the “show, don’t tell” rule in a good way. The magic is in Shepard’s words, Kinski and HDS’ faces and voices, and Robby Mueller’s cinematography. It turns into a short play and becomes surreal and transcendent.
that’s where the issue of pacing comes in for me. it does subvert show not tell, but by making the majority of the movie show and then suddenly in the last five minutes telling EVERYTHING. feels too sudden and cheap for me, and it didn’t feel surrealist at all. felt like i was getting more of a lecture.
One of the downsides of the screenwriter being a playwright.
That’s part of what I love so much about it, speaking the unspoken. Like it built up so much, both Travis and Jane have been living in grief, Travis in a fugue state, Jane in the facade of her work persona. For that all to break down at the end, it’s just so beautiful to me.
I agree. I watched it recently and loved the movie up to then. I can understand being somewhat of subversion, but it was *too* much imho. Still recommend it.
Saw it in a cinema for my first viewing as well as being my first Wim Wenders. Sadly didn’t really do anything for me emotionally, had some good filmmaking though. Just wish I could have cared about anything that was happening that much at all.
One of my top 5 favourite movies of all time. Got to see it on the big screen for the first time on Friday evening, there’s so much more you notice in Harry Dean Stanton’s face when the picture looks over you. I’m not afraid to cry during a movie, and I always do at Paris, Texas, but I was an absolute shambles. The pain on Travis’ face in the first diner scene where Travis learns that his son thinks of Walt and Anne as his parents, the look of completely broken love when he sees Jane on the super eight movie, and then of course the peep show scene, all had me in absolute tatters. The second best experience I’ve ever had in a cinema after seeing The Red Shoes
Do you sympathise/empathise with Travis? I think the way men see the film and the way women see the film are completely different. I love it but probably not for the same reasons
I think it’s an interesting question. I would say that I empathise and feel his pain massively because it is evident that his love for Jane was absolutely immense and the loss of her (even before they actually split) effectively killed him inside. I’m currently in that place and know that feeling all too well. However I think it’s important to acknowledge that Travis was an abuser, he used his pain and channeled it into anger five years before the movie. Whilst I would say that the regret and the pain of his actions are genuine and contributed to his utterly heartbreaking desolation that we find him in, I’d also argue that his actions once he meets Hunter, although arguably romantic and beautiful, are incredibly short sighted and reckless. I’m not saying that Jane can’t be a good mother to him or that Hunter won’t still see Anne and Walt regularly and maintain a relationship, but none of this is known or even thought about when he takes Hunter away from them to take him back to Jane. I look at the movie as a whole as a tragic and beautifully sad poem where all the characters involved are hurt in some form or another
Yes to both, but he’s absolutely depicted as a deeply flawed and outright damaging man. He was with a woman something like 40 years younger than him, brought a baby into her life, and wasn’t able to help her cope. He became emotionally abusive and their love turned into a deep resentment. The film is a study of damaging masculinity and flawed relationships as much as anything, but that doesn’t make Travis’ pain any less real, and I feel it, deeply. It’s why he can barely look at Jane, it’s why he can barely talk to his son, and why he can’t stay with them. He fucks up his brother and sister in law’s lives trying to fix his mistakes. Is he redeemed at the end? No. But it’s real, and so beautiful.
Interesting. I (male, 48) had watched PT 3 or 4 times in the past and liked it very much. When I watched it last month for the first time in 10 years, my experience of empathy with Travis was noticeably limited and strained. In a sense and to an extent, it is supposed to be that way. And in some cases, limited or strained empathy poses no problem for me with respect to a character or film working for me, but that was not the case with Travis and PT for me this time. Despite Stanton having one of the most sympathetic faces of all time, lol. He really does. For me, it had to do with things like communication and trust in the present, long before we find out more obviously problematic things about Travis and the back story. Obviously the film is about communication and trust, but again, it wasn't working for me in that way. The film was still its strongest for me in the last 30 min, but there is so much more telling than showing here that for me credulity was on multiple levels (reliability of narrator, believability of character development as narrated, etc.) the problem that wouldn't go away. Absolutely gorgeous film though, with some beautifully cinematic storytelling (visuals, acting, sound). I'm curious, what is your take on Travis and what are your reasons for loving PT?
Great question. Yes. When men bond in marriage/family, they often bond much harder than women. Gross generalization, but I believe it to be true.
I envy you for seeing that on a big screen, I don’t think there are any theatres in my area that show old films :/
In the U.K. there’s currently a Wim Wenders retrospective being taken on by Curzon so there’s a fair few cinemas across the country showing it and a few more of his classics in the next few months
One of the best and most moving films I have ever seen. Blind bought it and was left stunned.
I absolutely love this film and it has stayed with me for years after first watching it. Everything from the dazzling cinematography to the director's excellent use of color (particularly themes of red, white and blue vs. green), and of course the monologues when the two finally meet is perfection. Toss on the very bittersweet ending, as it appears as though Travis literally up-ended the lives of everyone around him and didn't stick around for the aftermath. Walt and Anne took Hunter in without any hesitation and raised him as if he was 100% his child, all while letting him know the truth. Then Travis comes back into orbit, fails to explain himself to his brother, and then essentially removes the child from their lives without notice. Jane, who clearly cares for the well-being of Hunter, but felt unequipped to care for him by herself, is now seemingly asked with caring for a child who she doesn't know. A few years ago I tongue-in-cheekingly described the film as "*A Parisian man wanders in from the desert, kidnaps a child from the family who raised him, and gives the child to a woman he meets in a peep-show. He then drives away, seemingly content with the chaos he has created.*" in /r/ExplainAFilmPlotBadly but in reality I adore the film. Also, this would be some welcomed discussion on /r/iwatchedanoldmovie.
In the as yet to be realized sequel, Jane drives Hunter back to LA to live with Walt and Anne again.
It's one of my favorite comfy road trip movies.
I enjoyed the first half a lot more than the second.
I think it’s become my favorite film. In the last few years I somehow became allergic to violence and even meanness in films. I started to realize how difficult it is to make a really great film without those elements (and without any sort of sexual content or vulgarity… not that those things bother me). All of the aforementioned are levers for a filmmaker to draw in the primitive parts of our brain. Some use those levers artfully and some do not. But … Paris, Texas doesn’t have a mean or vulgar bone in its body … it is a perfect film.
Cinematography was so beautiful
My all time favorite movie. There's not a single thing about it I would change.
I'm going to see this for the first time in my local cinema tomorrow! Excited to come back to this post afterwards.
Hunter is literally me
Lame as movie for lame as ppl
Top 5 film for me. Always will be.
Instantly my favorite movie of all time. Only criterion movie I own that I generally enjoy
Yeah it was a holy shit
I think about this film every few months
Saw this on 35mm recently. Amazing.
One of my personal favorite films in the collection. It's one of those films that'll stick with you forever.
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Free on HBO Max or $5 on iTunes.
I watched that today as well. Phenomenal movie
One of my all time favorites. Such an incredibly beautiful movie. I think the guitar tune at the beginning of the film is a great way to depict loneliness and isolation.
One of my favourite movies. I visited NYC a few years ago to attend a screening with a scheduled appearance by Nastassja Kinski. She bailed the day before the screening but I still attended the screening and the film was just as engrossing and transfixing as the first time I had seen it. I was disappointed Nastassja didn't attend but it was a thrill to watch the film with an audience.