Paris, Texas · reception & legacy

How Paris, Texas has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

It won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1984 and was embraced in Europe, while its American release was modest and some US critics bristled at a German's melancholy take on their own West. Four decades on it's fully canonised — routinely called Wenders' masterpiece and one of the defining films of the 1980s.

What's debated

The perennial debate: does Wenders' outsider eye see America more truthfully than Americans do, or is this a European's romanticised postcard of desert loneliness — plus the eternal 'transcendent or just slow?' split over its pacing.

Its footprint

Travis in his red cap trudging through the desert, Nastassja Kinski in that pink mohair sweater, and Ry Cooder's aching slide guitar (built on Blind Willie Johnson) are endlessly screencapped, covered, and homaged; the Scottish band Travis took their name from the film, and Kurt Cobain reportedly named it his favourite movie.

Where it stands

A Letterboxd-era sacred text — the crown jewel of 'lonely men in vast landscapes' cinema and the default gateway into Wenders.

Named by the director

Influences Wim Wenders has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

• John Ford — Wenders repeatedly named Ford his idol and framed Paris, Texas as his attempt to finally tell a story in the mythic American West that Ford's films had given him.