{"id":36289,"date":"2016-10-05T23:21:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-06T06:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/?p=36289"},"modified":"2016-10-05T23:21:08","modified_gmt":"2016-10-06T06:21:08","slug":"challenge-week-36-paris-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/10\/challenge-week-36-paris-texas\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenge Week 36: Paris, Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"

As a huge fan of Wings of Desire<\/em>, I’ve been really eager to see more Wim Wenders films, especially this one. I didn’t know much about what it was about, though.<\/p>\n

It’s kind of a road movie, with Walt (Dean Stockwell) finding his brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) wandering through the desert in Utah or somewhere, and bringing him home. Turns out Walt and his wife have been taking care of Travis’ son since Travis and his wife Jane both basically disappeared off the face of the earth. The rest of the movie has Travis first trying to repair his relationship with his son, then the two of them going to find Jane.<\/p>\n

\"tf-railroad\"<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After a very intriguing start and some of the most gorgeous cinematography I’ve seen this challenge, I’ll admit to drifting a bit in the middle section, and I certainly want to return to it when I have time. But the third section pulled me right back in. Travis finally finds Jane working at a sort of a private striptease club (single room, window, phone\/speakers, etc, I don’t know what these things are called), and Travis tells her the story of their marriage, basically, by way of revealing himself.<\/p>\n

This scene is long and lots of monologue\/dialogue, and Harry Dean Stanton and Nastassja Kinski absolutely kill it. It’s a sad story, with alcoholism and abuse and what seems like severe post-partum depression (though he doesn’t know enough to call it that), and yet you sympathize with both of them despite what they put each other through. Both actors are mesmerizing and refocused what was starting to feel like a frustratingly meandering experience to me.<\/p>\n

\"tf-room\"<\/p>\n

Intriguingly, this ended up only two spots away from Joseph’s other pick, 3 Women<\/em>. Both films intrigued and mesmerized me in different ways, and also held me at arm’s length a little bit. I’m curious to see how these films move on my chart over time and with eventual rewatches.<\/p>\n

Stats and stuff…<\/h3>\n

1984, USA<\/em>
\ndirected by Wim Wenders, written by L.M. Kit Carson and Sam Shepard<\/em>
\nstarring Harry Dean Stanton, Dean Stockwell, Nastassja Kinski<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m ranking all my Challenge films on Flickchart (as I do all the films I see), a movie-ranking website that asks you to choose your favorite between two movies until it builds a ranked list of your favorites. Just for fun, I will average out the rankings and keep a running tally of whose recommendations rank the highest. When you add a film to Flickchart, it pits it against films already on your chart to see where it should fall. Here’s how Paris, Texas<\/em> entered my chart:<\/p>\n

Paris, Texas<\/b> > Il Postino (The Postman)
\nParis, Texas<\/b> > Come and Get It
\nParis, Texas < The Mummy<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < [REC]<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < Prometheus<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < Rocky<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < 21 Grams<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < Homicidal<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < The Decline of Western Civilization<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < Topsy-Turvy<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < Little Children<\/b>
\nParis, Texas < 3 Women<\/b><\/p>\n

Final #926 out of 3702 films on my chart (75%)<\/p>\n

It is now my #2 Wim Wenders film, my #5 Harry Dean Staton film, my #1 Nastassja Kinski film, my #1 New German Cinema film (which is kind of hilarious), my #23 Road Movie, and my #5 film of 1984.<\/p>\n

Paris, Texas<\/em> was recommended by Joseph Brown, a friend from the Flickcharters group on Facebook. Averaging together this #926 ranking with my #924 ranking of his other film, 3 Women<\/em>, gives Joseph an average ranking of #925.<\/p>\n

A few more screenshots…<\/h3>\n

\"tf-utah\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-walking\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-bar\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-car\"<\/p>\n

\"tf-jane\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As a huge fan of Wings of Desire, I’ve been really eager to see more Wim Wenders films, especially this one. I didn’t know much about what it was about, though. It’s kind of a road movie, with Walt (Dean Stockwell) finding his brother Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) wandering through the desert in Utah or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36352,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3027],"tags":[3227,3226,3225,2382],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/tf-feat.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":29313,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2011\/11\/afi-festival-2011-day-two-saturday\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":0},"title":"AFI Festival 2011: Day Two (Saturday)","author":"Jandy","date":"November 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Getting a little hopelessly behind on these (hopelessly because the fest has now been over for several days), but I'm going to go ahead and do them in order as planned anyway. Saturday was the fullest day of movies, with five features all in a row starting just after noon.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Film"","block_context":{"text":"Film","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Pina-feat.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":35505,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/2016-challenge-debrief\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":1},"title":"2016 Challenge Debrief","author":"Jandy","date":"March 15, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Well, it's been almost three months since my year-long movie challenge officially completed, and it's taken me that long to decompress, rerank everything, and generally get ready to post a recap of the year. The short version: it was awesome! I watched a ton of movies I really liked, very\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/crop-400-Blows-watching.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36601,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-48-son-of-frankenstein\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":2},"title":"Challenge Week 48: Son of Frankenstein","author":"Jandy","date":"December 13, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"True confession time. I have apparently seen this. I don't know why I didn't log it (either on Flickchart OR Letterboxd), and I was looking forward to it as a new-to-me Frankenstein film. But once it got going, things started to be familiar, and yeah, I've definitely seen it. But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-lab.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36435,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-42-the-phantom-carriage\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":3},"title":"Challenge Week 42: The Phantom Carriage","author":"Jandy","date":"November 17, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I went into this expecting an Expressionistic horror film, along the lines of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari or maybe Haxan, to get that Scandinavian flavor, and there's certainly a ghostly creep factor to much of the beginning, but the film as a whole is more of a morality tale\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-phantom-carriage.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36434,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/11\/challenge-week-42-millennium-actress\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":4},"title":"Challenge Week 42: Millennium Actress","author":"Jandy","date":"November 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"This completes Satoshi Kon's filmography for me, and OMG did I save the best for last (unwittingly). I liked his other three films, but I loved this one - not only does it avoid some of the excesses that anime often falls into for me (including the end of Kon's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/tf-feat-millennium-actress.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":36658,"url":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/challenge-week-50-footloose\/","url_meta":{"origin":36289,"position":5},"title":"Challenge Week 50: Footloose","author":"Jandy","date":"December 22, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"I love musicals and movies about dance, but I have to admit I put off watching this one for a couple of reasons: first, I dislike '80's movies in general, and second, the story as I understood it was about a town that has outlawed dancing and the city kid\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2016 Movie Challenge"","block_context":{"text":"2016 Movie Challenge","link":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/category\/film\/2016-movie-challenge\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/tf-feat-fooloose.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36289"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.the-frame.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}