"Paris, Texas" Fox Home Entertainment

directed by Wim Wenders
UK / France / West Germany 1984

A man walks alone in the desert. He has no memory, no past, no future. He finds an isolated settlement where the doctor, another exile, a German, makes some calls. Eventually the man's brother comes to take him back home again. Before we think about this as the beginning of a story, let's think about it very specifically as the first twenty minutes of a movie. When I was watching "Paris, Texas" for the first time, my immediate reaction to the film's opening scenes was one of intrigue: I had no good guesses about where this movie was headed, and that, in itself, was exciting, because in this most pragmatic of times, even the best movies seem to be intended as predictable consumer products. If you see a lot of movies, you can sit there watching the screen and guessing what will happen next, and be right most of the time.

That's not the case with "Paris, Texas." This is a defiantly individual film, about loss and loneliness and eccentricity. We haven't met the characters before in a dozen other films. To some people, that can be disconcerting; I've actually read reviews of "Paris, Texas" complaining because the man in the desert is German, and that another character is French. Is it written that the people in movies have to be Middle Americans, like refugees from a sitcom?

Excerpt from Roger Ebert's review on the Chicago Sun-Times located HERE

Posters

Theatrical Release: September 14th, 1984 - Toronto Film Festival

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BUDGET RELEASE OF THE YEAR !!

DVD Review: Fox Home Entertainment - Region 1- NTSC

DVD Box Cover		CLICK to order from:
Distribution	Fox Home Entertainment - Region 1- NTSC
Runtime	2:24:45
Video	1.75:1 Aspect Ratio 16 X 9 enhanced Average Bitrate: 6.6 mb/s NTSC 720x480 29.97 f/s
	NOTE: The Vertical axis represents the bits transferred per second. The Horizontal is the time in minutes.
Bitrate:
Audio	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby), DUB: Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby), Commentary in English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Dolby)
Subtitles	English, Spanish, None
Features	Release Information: Studio: Fox Home Entertainment Aspect Ratio: Original aspect Ratio 1.75:1 Edition Details: • Commentary from director Wim Wenders • Trailer - 16X9 - 2:12 • Deleted Scenes (with optional Wenders commentary) - anamorphic, original un-restored footage - 23:35 • Kinksi in Cannes footage - 4:3 - 4:41 • Still Gallery (53 titled images in click through slideshow) DVD Release Date: December 14th, 2004 Keep Case Chapters: 28

Comments:

Well, we waited so long for this to come to Region 1... and our expectations were exceeded!

This is easily the DVD budget recommendation of the year 2004 - It is under $10 at Amazon and not only is the image quality a pleasant surprise with strong colors and contrast but it has a director commentary from Wenders. Also included are deleted scenes (over 20:00 worth), a trailer and some Cannes footage. THIS is a no-brainer purchase folks. I will eventually be comparing to the alternate region versions, but I highly doubt it will be beaten, especially if you taken into consideration the price, which almost looks like an error - ORDER NOW! If this was a Criterion it could be triple the price!

NOTE: This DVD is favorably compared to the Anchor Bay PAL edition HERE

Gary W. Tooze

Recommended Wim Wenders Books (CLICK COVERS or TITLES for more information)

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Wim Wenders: Once by Wim Wenders	The Cinema of Wim Wenders: Image, Narrative, and the Postmodern Condition (Contemporary Film and Television Series) by Roger F. Cook, Gerd Gemunden	The Cinema of Wim Wenders by Alexander Graf	Wim Wenders: On Film: Essays and Conversations by Wenders Wim, Michael Hofmann	The Cinema of Wim Wenders: From Paris, France to Paris, Texas (Studies in Cinema, No 41) by Kathe Geist	From Alice to Buena Vista: The Films of Wim Wenders by Roger Bromley	Paris, Texas/Screenplay by Sam Shepard, Wim Wenders	My Time With Antonioni: The Diary of an Extraordinary Experience by Wim Wenders, Michael Hofmann