Paris, Texas is the summation of Wenders’ fascination with the American West – its landscape and the people who populate it. Stanton’s grizzled face says more than any words could convey, his silence accentuating his feelings of dislocation from the modern world. Instead, Ry Cooder’s music, heavily influenced by Blind Willie Johnson’s blues standard ‘Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground’, along with Robby Müller’s stunning cinematography, transpose Travis’ emotional and physical journey upon the vast sights and sounds of the American landscape. The script, co-written by L.M. Kit Carson and acclaimed playwright Sam Shepard, plays with the notion of myth, country and character – a place always out of reach or a relationship consigned to the past. It’s a potent idea that Wenders’ film brilliantly embraces.