Paris, Texas is a 1984 drama film directed by Wim Wenders and starring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski, and Hunter Carson. The plot focuses on an amnesiac (Stanton) who, after mysteriously wandering out of the desert, attempts to revive his relationship with his brother (Stockwell) and seven-year-old son (Carson), and to track down his former wife who abandoned their family (Kinski). Paris, Texas is notable for its images of the Texas landscape and climate. The first shot is a bird’s eye-view of the desert, a bleak, dry, alien landscape. Shots follow of old advertisement billboards, placards, graffiti, rusty iron carcasses, old railway lines, neon signs, motels, seemingly never-ending roads, and Los Angeles, finally culminating in some famous scenes shot outside a drive-through bank in Downtown Houston. The film unanimously won the Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) at the 1984 Cannes Film Festival from the official jury, as well as the FIPRESCI Prize and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury.
