Paris, Texas

I don't have a long post in me for this but I've got a short to medium post in me.... 

I think I first watched this (tried to watch anyhow) when I was in my early twenties. (Film curiosity in the early aughts had less options than today....IFC or wandering around Dollar Video...)

21 or 22 is probably not the right age to watch this film..23, 24, 25... No. Probably not then either. For most twenty year olds this is not the movie. The slow deliberate unfolding of lives on the sweeping southern plains (and LA I guess) is not (and was not for me) super relatable. I remember my impressions of watching this the first time. Its why I never watched it again. Among those memories, maybe the strongest, is that Harry Dean Stanton never speaks. (He does). I couldn't understand why someone would want to watch someone (Dean Stockwell) trying to communicate with a guy, his brother, who clearly is just being stubborn.

This is probably an autobiographical aside. My whole family (on one side) is incredibly, perpetually, annoyingly stubborn and I have no interest in any of that at this age and I apparently didn't then. Loosen up. Grow up. Don't be so rigid. SMH

On this rewatch, I found Paris, Texas much more interesting for what it is, which is a study on the pain of life and years. The drama of such monotony is just not really something that an early twenty-year-old has any idea about... Go ahead and fight me, film students who just discovered Wim Wenders. You are not the majority. I'll give you Wings of Desire and The American Friend and even Alice in the Cities... but not this one. Leave it to us olds. 

Now forty-five, and living, and knowing more of Sam Shepard, and travel (the road such as it is) and all the other accumulations of a life (I believe somewhat) well-lived, this movie makes a lot more sense to me. I've been really loving a return to slower films. I just watched The Straight Story and felt great about it. Tears for the story. Tears for the beauty. Tears for David Lynch.