Paris, Texas
Wenders, 1984
What is a road film? I used to believe it had something to do with travel visuals; after watching Wenders' Paris Texas, I now believe it has nothing to do with travel and everything to do with the investigation of stasis. Travel is only the most obvious way to conduct the inquiry.
There are many movies that show lots of road images. I am thinking of films like Easy Rider, films that linger lovingly on bumpers, exult in the sound of big motors, and hope a jittery in-situ camera will emulate the shaky realities of life in the sedan. In general, these movies are low budget, boring, and bad, and almost never road films, au sense plus grand du terme. The real road film is casually, carefully, and obsessively indifferent to the road, allowing it to appear and disappear in its own space and with its own natural sense of timing. The road enters the Road Film like hope enters the heart: inexplicably, necessarily, a natural transformation.
A good half of Paris, Texas takes place high in the Henderson flat, static, fixed, domestic. There are only two major voyages in the film, one the trip Walt makes from LA to Texas to round up Travis, the other the trip Travis and his son make from LA to Houston in search of Jane. Of course the actual road is never far from the screen: even in the Beverly Hills apartment, the roar of the traffic sets a tone that never softens. But there is none of the engine gunning testosterone of a Dennis Hopper. Indeed, these voyages are drenched in the slow, grinding rhythms of a great return, the grandeur of a spiritual movement.
The strength of this road film is that it points to a different road film: it is in constant, disfunctional relation to the Film of Arrivals. On the surface, the action advances through travel: the two voyages, Travis' mad wandering in the desert, the small but critical journey Travis and Hunter take from school to home. But each movement hungers to be unfelt; a simple, ordinary act, bereft of consequence, infused with love. Perhaps a common rest stop is the ultimate achievement for this community of wounded wanderers.
The peep-show scene at the end is masterly. Love of Self in conversation with Love of Other, a slow, brutal showdow between the inward and the outward gazes. The conversation fails, as it must: rent flesh remembers. Connection is only through the child, a thin bit of insulation in a shorted obsession.
The film ends where it began: a determined lack of direction, a heroic heading for disorientation. It offers us the hope that this in time will offer its own structure, its own small destinations.
What is a road film? I used to believe it had something to do with travel visuals; after watching Wenders' Paris Texas, I now believe it has nothing to do with travel and everything to do with the investigation of stasis. Travel is only the most obvious way to conduct the inquiry.
There are many movies that show lots of road images. I am thinking of films like Easy Rider, films that linger lovingly on bumpers, exult in the sound of big motors, and hope a jittery in-situ camera will emulate the shaky realities of life in the sedan. In general, these movies are low budget, boring, and bad, and almost never road films, au sense plus grand du terme. The real road film is casually, carefully, and obsessively indifferent to the road, allowing it to appear and disappear in its own space and with its own natural sense of timing. The road enters the Road Film like hope enters the heart: inexplicably, necessarily, a natural transformation.
A good half of Paris, Texas takes place high in the Henderson flat, static, fixed, domestic. There are only two major voyages in the film, one the trip Walt makes from LA to Texas to round up Travis, the other the trip Travis and his son make from LA to Houston in search of Jane. Of course the actual road is never far from the screen: even in the Beverly Hills apartment, the roar of the traffic sets a tone that never softens. But there is none of the engine gunning testosterone of a Dennis Hopper. Indeed, these voyages are drenched in the slow, grinding rhythms of a great return, the grandeur of a spiritual movement.
The strength of this road film is that it points to a different road film: it is in constant, disfunctional relation to the Film of Arrivals. On the surface, the action advances through travel: the two voyages, Travis' mad wandering in the desert, the small but critical journey Travis and Hunter take from school to home. But each movement hungers to be unfelt; a simple, ordinary act, bereft of consequence, infused with love. Perhaps a common rest stop is the ultimate achievement for this community of wounded wanderers.
The peep-show scene at the end is masterly. Love of Self in conversation with Love of Other, a slow, brutal showdow between the inward and the outward gazes. The conversation fails, as it must: rent flesh remembers. Connection is only through the child, a thin bit of insulation in a shorted obsession.
The film ends where it began: a determined lack of direction, a heroic heading for disorientation. It offers us the hope that this in time will offer its own structure, its own small destinations.
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