Paris, Texas

Wim Wenders named the film after the town of Paris in Texas, where no scene takes place; it appears only as a photograph of the empty lot Travis owns. Sam Shepard and Wenders drew the story out of Shepard’s book “Motel Chronicles”: two brothers, one who had lost his memory. Shooting began before the script was finished, in story order. When Shepard left for another job he sent notes for the ending, and at Wenders’s request wrote Travis’s long closing speech, dictating it by phone to a production secretary. The scene on either side of the glass was deliberately not realistic; the team wanted a setup that let the two talk more. Nastassja Kinski could see no one there, only a mirror, and says the solitude was real. Ry Cooder built the score on Blind Willie Johnson’s “Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground”, tuned to the E flat he says he heard in the desert. It won 3 awards at Cannes: the Palme d’Or, the FIPRESCI Prize and the Ecumenical Jury Prize. It had 4 nominations at the 38th BAFTAs and won best direction. A good fit if you want the heaviest information delivered in one long conversation through glass rather than a chase. Not for viewers expecting the closing scene to gather the three together.