Paris, Texas (1984)

Paris, Texas is The Searchers if John Wayne decided at the end that actually, he’s not equipped to bring anyone home, including himself.

I’m struggling with my thoughts on this film because it’s genuinely complicated. On one hand, it gives sympathy to people reeling from grief after committing horrible actions against their loved ones and ultimately abandoning their child. On the other hand, it’s a gorgeously shot meditation on identity, fatherhood, and the impossibility of reconciliation. The cinematography reminded me of The Searchers, obviously - that same vast American landscape standing in for the emotional distance these characters can’t cross.

This is a sad movie about a man who tries to put on the appearance of being a good father to his son and ultimately decides he can’t do it. And here’s where I get stuck: I feel like the film is overly sympathetic to Harry Dean Stanton’s character. I hated the way he treated Jane, even at the end in that booth scene that everyone loves. And him ultimately leaving his son Hunter after reuniting him with Jane? That feels like a terrible message to end on.

But maybe that’s the point. Maybe the film isn’t endorsing his choices - maybe it’s just portraying something that happens, something real and ugly and complicated. I don’t know. I feel bad about how much I dislike Travis as a character when the film clearly wants me to find something redeemable in him.

Harry Dean Stanton’s performance is impressive, but it feels overly gentle for a character who should be filled with so much rage. I could feel the grief and sadness radiating from him, but I didn’t feel the violence and anger bubbling underneath. For a man who did what he did, there should be more darkness visible in that performance. The gentleness feels like it’s letting him off the hook.

The structure works like a parable - a man who literally vanishes into the desert for four years, comes back like some kind of wandering ghost, and has to reckon with the consequences of his actions. Except he doesn’t really reckon with them. He just creates a new wound and leaves again.

I can understand why so many people consider this a masterpiece. I also feel utterly repulsed by the characters in it, which is probably the point. It’s a deconstruction of Boomer parenting in the 1980s, a rejection of the Leave It to Beaver fantasy of the perfect American father. Travis is what’s underneath that myth - absence, violence, ego, and ultimately more absence.

The title itself is about identity and misunderstanding. Paris, Texas is often mistaken for Paris, France - people pretending to be something they’re not, aspiring to something more cultured or sophisticated than what they actually are. Travis is doing the same thing - trying to put on the appearance of a father while fundamentally misunderstanding what that actually means or requires.

This is a film I respect more than I love. It’s gorgeous, it’s ambitious, it’s emotionally complex. But I can’t shake the feeling that it’s too forgiving of a man who doesn’t deserve forgiveness - or at least, not yet. Not like this.

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