Recently departed actor Harry Dean Stanton plays laconic drifter Travis in the 1984 award-winning film Paris Texas to be screened by Whanganui Film Society next Monday night.
Directed by German film maker Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders, the screenplay was written by L.M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard, while the musical score was composed by Ry Cooder.
"Paris Texas follows the mysterious, nearly mute drifter Travis (a magnificent Harry Dean Stanton, whose face is a landscape all its own) as he tries to reconnect with his young son Hunter, living with his brother Walt (Dean Stockwell) in Los Angeles, and his missing wife Jane (Nastassja Kinski)," wrote the Criterion reviewer.
"From this simple setup, Wenders and Shepard produce a powerful statement on codes of masculinity and the myth of the American family, as well as an exquisite visual exploration of a vast, crumbling world of canyons and neon."
The film was shot in just a few weeks in the American Southwest and the Texas town of Paris the film was named after did not feature in the film at all.
