10 Awesome Road Movies

3. Paris, Texas

We move from cringe college humour back to serious American cinema, this time by Wim Wenders. Paris, Texas (1984) was written by L.M. Kit Carson and playwright Sam Shepard. By this time Wenders was a bit of a road movie expert; his production company was aptly titled €œRoad Movies€. He opens Paris, Texas with a sweeping shot of a Texas desert where a man appears, wandering and eventually collapsing in a rundown bar. The man, Travis, is found by his brother Walt who takes him back home to Los Angeles. Travis refuses to fly so the brothers have to travel by car. Where are they going? The trip back to Los Angeles takes two days; they stop at a motel where Travis wanders off again only to be picked up by Walt a final time. The imagery in this film functions as a character itself; the aerial view of the bleak and alien landscape, the rusty billboards, broken down trucks, railway lines and endless roads and finally the drive-through bank in Houston. It is a homage to an America that barely exists any more. Along the way Travis€™s catatonic state slowly lifts and we find out that that he has a wife called Jane. Once in LA Travis is reunited with his son Hunter but there is still a feeling of restlessness inside him. He decides to embark on another road trip, this time to find Jane the mother of his son. Despite the fact that he is completely estranged from his son he decideds to take him along. Jane is found behind a one-way mirror in a peepshow parlour where Travis delivers the stunning 8 minute 41 second monologue inter-cut by shots of Jane, slowly realizing that he is not the usual punter behind the glass. Through their reunion it becomes apparent that Jane is not €œhome€ for Travis either and in the end he retreats back into the darkness. Travis becomes a mythical figure who perhaps is better of lost than found.