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Paris, Texas (1984, US/Fr./W.Germ.)
In director Wim Wenders' road movie drama, with the
tagline: "a place for dreams, a place for heartbreak, a place
to pick up the pieces":
- the music of Ry Cooder accompanying the quest by
dazed, amnesiac wanderer Travis Clay Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton)
lost for four years - during the film's opening credits, he stumbled
through and out of the Southwestern Texas desert, and ended up
in a clinic in Terlingua, Texas
- after his brother Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell)
was contacted in Los Angeles, Walt decided to drive to Texas and
retrieve his "mute" brother; he told him about fearing
him dead over the previous four years, but Travis didn't respond:
("Would you mind telling me where you disappeared to for the
last four years? Uh, have you seen Jane? Or talk to her? Gee, Anne
and I uh, we sort of gave up on you, we actually, we thought you
were dead, boy")
- at a diner, Walt also described how he and his wife
Anne (Aurore Clément) had adopted Travis' now 7 year-old son
Hunter (Hunter Carlson), when both Travis and his estranged wife
Jane (Nastassja Kinski) went missing ("Travis, do you remember
your little boy, Hunter? Well, he's with us. He's been living with
Anne and me ever since you disappeared. We didn't know what else
to do. So, we just kept him. One day, he was just standing at the
door. All he could tell us was that someone brought him there in
a car. He didn't know what'd happened to you, or Jane. So we tried
everything we could think of to find you, or Jane. Tried to locate
her, she'd vanished too. We didn't know what else to do")
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Walt with Travis in Texas
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Travis Requesting a Trip to Paris
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Picture of Paris, TX and Travis' Vacant Lot
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- but then, suddenly after a long period of silence,
Travis made a strange request: "Did you ever go to Paris?...Could
we go there now?" - he wasn't referring to France, but to
a small town in Texas (seen in a picture) where he owned a vacant
lot bought when he was married - he believed he had been born there:
("Mama once told me that uh, that's where she and Daddy first
made love...So I figured that that's where I-I have began")
- upon arrival in Los Angeles, Travis became better
acquainted with Hunter after watching Super 8 home movies of everyone
together five years earlier on the Texas coast (when Hunter was three),
and looking at an old photo album of family pictures
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Super 8 Home Movies of Travis with Young Hunter
and Everyone Together, Including a Loving Jane with Travis
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- Anne revealed to Travis that a year earlier (and
the last time there was contact), Jane called and requested to
have a bank account opened for Hunter; in Houston, once a month,
she would make wire deposits into the account for Hunter's future:
("She goes to this bank on the 5th of each month and wires
money for Hunter....Sometimes a hundred dollars, sometimes fifty,
or five. For Hunter's future. I had the bank trace the wire. It
comes from a bank in Houston")
- to locate and reconcile with Jane, Travis drove back
to Texas (with a eager and cooperative Hunter who also wanted to
find his Mom); on the drive, Hunter speculated about the Big Bang
and the formation of the Earth: ("This whole galaxy, the whole
universe, used to be compressed into a tiny spot this big. And, and
you know what happened?... It went pfew and blew up....the Earth
just formed into one hard big ball of ocean. Nothing but ocean. So,
there are sea animals. And under the water, volcano went pfew! And
the hot lava hit the water and formed rock to make land")
- in Houston, Texas, Travis (with Hunter's assistance)
located his separated wife Jane at a drive-in of the bank, and followed
her from there to her sex industry job; as Hunter waited in the truck,
Travis entered the upper-floor bar area and caught a glimpse of Jane;
in the lower-floor peep-show booth area, he requested her by phone:
"I want to see a blonde girl, with kind of short, straight hair,
about 25 years old" - finally, he was united with her in her peep-show
booth job on the other side of a one-way mirror (she couldn't see him)
- Travis was silent for many minutes as she asked patiently: "Is
there something I can do for you?"; he first spoke when he declined
to have her remove her pinkish-red sweater, and then told her: "I
don't want anything...I wanna talk to you"; she asked: "Is
there something you want to tell me?...You can tell me, I can keep
a secret"; she added that she mostly talked and listened to
clients; he wondered: "What else do you do?"; she laughed
nervously: "We're not allowed to see the customers out of here...We're
not allowed to have any outside relationships with the customers";
he snapped back: "You can go home with them if you want to.
All these places say that. I mean, how much extra money do you make?
How much money do you make on the side?"; when she suggested
that he talk to one of the other girls, he refused; she added: "I
just don't think I'm the one you want to talk to," but she remained
in the room when he urged her not to go. After she agreed to listen
to him ("Relax and tell me what's on your mind. I'll listen...
to you. I don't mind listening. I do it all the time"), he quietly
got up and left the booth without her knowing.
- the bravura scene of their second long conversation,
when Travis delivered an 8-minute "I knew these people" monologue,
a summation of their own life together, first happy and then evolving
into an abusive and hateful relationship - ("I knew these people.
These two people. They were in love with each other. The girl was
very young, about 17 or 18, I guess. And the guy was quite a bit
older. He was kind of raggedy and wild. And she was very beautiful,
you know. And together they turned everything into a kind of adventure.
And she liked that...."); Jane was unable to see him, until
she realized that he was describing their life in his story - their
images overlapped or melted together and then separated, followed
by the climactic moment when she turned off the light in her room
so she could view him and recognize him
Second One-Way Mirror Conversation
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- the heartbreaking conclusion of their talk - estranged
father Travis volunteered to return Hunter to Jane in his downtown
Houston Meridian Hotel room, #1520 ("He needs you now, Jane,
and he wants to see you...He's waiting for you"); she picked
up her son inside the hotel room, while Travis watched from afar
in the parking lot, and then drove away with tears flowing down
his cheeks; he had earlier stated that he believed Hunter would
be best served by being with his mother ("I know that now.
You belong together with your mother")
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Travis Henderson Stumbling in Texas Desert
Travis' Brother Walt Henderson (Dean Stockwell) in LA
Anne Henderson
(Aurore Clément)
Travis' Son Hunter Meeting His Dad After Many Years
During Road Trip - Hunter Speculating on the Big Bang Theory
and the Creation of Earth
First View of Jane at Bar in Strip Club
First Visit - Peep Show Booth Reunion Scene
Hunter Reunited with Jane in The Hotel Room
Travis Watching And Driving Off From Parking Lot
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