After almost 40 years, Wim Wenders’s Euro-Americanist masterpiece Paris, Texas feels as richly mysterious and mesmeric as ever: an outsider’s connoisseur-perspective on the US with its wailing, shuddering slide guitar by Ry Cooder which became as much of an instant classic as Ennio Morricone’s theme for The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It mimicked the desolate beauty of the Texas desert and the micro-landscape of the star’s own weatherbeaten face. He was, of course, the unforgettably gaunt and haunted Harry Dean Stanton, who at 58 years old, and after a lifetime of self-effacing supporting roles, suddenly leapfrogged mere star status to become an icon.
Paris, Texas is a beautiful-looking, beautiful-sounding film, although I have to confess to being unsure about the ending (reportedly one of a number considered by Wenders and his co-screenwriters Sam Shepard and LM Kit Carson). However, when I first saw it, I was hugely relieved about the way it turned out for Nastassja Kinski. I had been very worried about a sudden, final reappearance from Slater, the sinister, tough-looking guy that runs the peep show, played by Jarmusch regular John Lurie.
