Tom Farrell - what a terrific scene Tom. Your monologue is genius with all of its "truths" above the the mundane highways,fog and broken promises of the American Dream. I originally though the director used a local man to do it lol.
The cinematography in this film is just insane, the first time watched I was so much in awe the whole that i had to rewatch it pay attention to other aspects of it.
Paris, Texas is my favourite film ever. Not even saying it just to get a good reaction but it honestly is. I cried the first time I watched it and I've never been able to match the feeling that I had whilst watching this ever again. It is special and gets better with every rewatch. Amazing. Faultless. As close to cinematic perfection as you can get. The Godfather, Lawrence of Arabia, Seven Samurai, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Bicycle Thieves... they're all incredible but I seriously think that this small overlooked film tops them all.
I actually feel as though the green lighting in the film is representative of healing taking place since green is a color of repair and life. Even more so when you consider our heart chakra is represented by the color green. For example when Travis is at the clinic the beginnings of healing take place, when the family is watching old family movies in the living room Travis and Hunter just begin to mend their broken bond, and in the ending scene the Jane, Hunter, and Travis all come to a resolution despite it being melancholic all of the scenes are saturated in green.
I just watched it for the first time and I had the notion that red represented his family and his desire to reunite, while blue represented his inability to do so. That's why the car he is driven away in is blue. The building where his wife works is blue. The red light upstairs in that building is the most intense red in the movie and it's the closest he's come to getting back with her. He and his son both wear red when deciding to go after mom. Mom's car is red. Everyone wears red when the family is together in the video. I'll have to dig deeper, but it seems that a case can be made for red = family, blue = difficulty in reuniting. Not sure about green or yellow.
Awesome analysis, I'm glad you too had interpretations of the color scheme. It's certainly very striking, and given the themes of the film, I think your hypothesis could definitely work.
Very insightful and incisive analysis. I think your observations are brilliant. Just saw it two days ago and interpreted the green as a hardship to communicate directly so therefore rendered in solitude and sheer loneliness.
Paris, Texas is a masterpiece. Its sad not too many people know of it. Great analysis nonetheless. Color indeed highlighted the main themes of the film
Movies to me are wonderful entertainment. But sometimes, very seldom, movie makers transcend entertainment and create true art. Paris, Texas is without a doubt a work of art. It is a Masterpiece of visual storytelling and, in one scene has one of the greatest monologues ever written.
It never ceases to amaze me the lengths talented Directors go to, to get their ideas across .... I would never have noticed all that without your invaluable insight, yet it's so obvious when it's pointed out. Thanks for making a great film even more thought provoking.
Great analysis. In a movie where (European) silence has a strong voice the colors are more than just allegories and but an active narrative voice as a background music. The clear yet simbolic atmosphere has a powerful presence while creating a strong and intimate drama with the delicate powerful dialogue and silences. Makes one think about kishlovsky's colors trilogy. Great movie, a masterpiece. Thank you
Great analysis! as an aspiring cinematographer (Director of photography) this movie was a riddle for me. Loved it but didn't quite understand the color. Thanks for the great video. You gained one more subscriber. Keep up the great work!
I'm sorry. I just find these color analysis videos to be a reach. It's like finding something in nothing. Anyone could look at a painting of a blob and imagine what it might mean
Nice work. It's also worth noting that the symbolism of the colors can also change based on context. For example, while green can be a color denoting sickness, decay, and jealousy, it also can represent, nature, lushness and life. In the desert, the patches of green are patches of life on an otherwise barren, forbidding landscape. And green is used throughout the the film when Travis is at nurturing, family man best. Likewise sometimes the vibrance of the reds and their connection to the desert and vibrant america, are flipped to represent Travis's latent rage, and his war with his own psyche. I think this is particularly true of his cap (the war in his head) and the total immersion in red as he enters the peep show.
Thank you Vaughn ,I will find this movie and check it out thanks to you. How it escaped me all these years is sad. Maybe life isn't all it's cracked to be.
Great video on the movie and colors....This was a Truly wonderful, deep feeling movie-----and very sad, but Harry Dean Stanton died 2 days ago.....Paris, Texas, one the the BEST movies ever.....The ending is a real tear jerker...
Hi! thank you very much for your analysis, it was very beautiful! did you study it somewhere or it was yours? because i have to do an exam at my university about wim wenders so I am looking for some sources of information, could you suggest me something? :-)
I'm glad this video exists. I watched it when I was 14 and I liked it but didn't know what I was watching. Just re-watched it and I really like thinking about the meaning and art that went into this film.
My thoughts exactly. I mean i guess its nice that people see things their own way but saying things like "representing" and "symbolizing" as if they're exactly and only that is nonesense to me. People tend to over analyse things a lot and push them down as a fact
I knew there had to be something going on. I noticed that almost every scene had RED. But GREEN was also dominant . PASSION & SICKNESS. The sickness of the heart. I didn't notice the RWB. But I was beginning to become annoyed and distracted by the RED. I love this movie. I lived this movie. Cool thing at the end ... Mom and child are of the same hue of dark green, but not vivid green. Their hearts and minds are already healing, but there is healing yet to overcome. And they are in the dark...with much to learn about each other. Travis is still drenched in vivid green. His passion for her is still strong. But he can't trust her. Traveling... He still has a long road ahead toward his healing. But the story isn't over for Travis. His TWO bright RED tail lights...flash even brighter as he makes his departure.... lightly tapping the breaks. Time to slow down. There is still love. There is still passion. For his two loved ones. I dream that they someday find joy in eachothers company.
Great analysis. When I first saw the film, the red color scheme struck me immediately and was so powerful that I overlooked the green. Thank you for sharing your interpretation. I have a whole new appreciation for a film I already held in high regard!
A man living in the shadow of a shady past produced by the tension in his role of a traditional father figure with an untraditional family environment. He's obsessed with a town that exists in his home country but carries the name of a foreign land, and the colors people wear around him could be representative of both America and France. To me, green is made to represent the movement of individuals in an attempt to burrow out of the overthinking rabbit hole. Life is quite fluid, and there is no perfect set of rules and rigid structures where one can submit themselves forever. Of course, this calls into question the meaning of our lives, and if we're living them out correctly or not. If our focus shifts to worry, then we start to affect the people around us with our insecurities. I think what Travis discovers is that beyond all the pressures of social pretenses, there is a peace that comes from action when we are operating under fundamental principles. In this case, it's the idea that human beings require positive and caring relationships to function. Happiness that comes from labels like "fatherhood" and "husband hood" are volatile - it has me imagining a white picket fence way of thinking. This is very narrowminded when you consider that there will be a lot of challenges that occur outside of tradition, like Jane's postpartum depression. Somebody that truly cares unconditionally will always be on the lookout for your growth. It probably wouldn't be healthy for Travis to assimilate into a traditional family role after what he did to Jane and Hunter in the past, which is why he was able to reconcile the two, but not stay with them. There's a line that was crossed. Had he stayed, Travis would put the Hunter and especially Jane in a position to endure him because they wouldn't be able to fully trust him 100 percent again. Hunter had good familial relationships regardless, but Jane deserved that too, and from the "green zone" Travis could make this possible for everybody without making the situation all about him. At the end of the movie, Travis keeps moving forward.
Redshift and blueshift- when a star appears to be moving away, it is red. When a star is moving towards us, it appears blue. Red is related to the past or moving away. Blue is moving forward. Green is nature. It’s life, it’s when the characters are close to nature
Very interesting observations on this great movie. There seems to be an interplay between natural and artificial colour schemes, in the cinematography of 'Paris Texas'. This conveys both a sense of urban alienation, and a feeling that contemporary experience (notably city life) remains rooted in something natural, and primordial. Atom Egoyan's film, 'Exotica', 1994, achieves a similar effect in its use of green: the fluorescent greens of a strip-club and pet-store give way to the natural green of a field, which recurs as a flashback image throughout the narrative. This location is associated with a tragic event that has occurred in the story; but is also a point of re-entry into nature, for the characters, who are trapped in artificial, self-enclosing worlds.
indeed one of my favorites too, has stayed with me forever it seems. Thank you for given me the understanding of the colour scheme. Always loved that but didn't put it all together and didn't fully notice as to how deliberate it was.
your content is so good. you know how to mix all those music and scenes together. keep it go, you have new follower here who is willing to see new content from you!
I made this list a while ago: letterboxd.com/pulp_fiction/list/revised-top-50/ . It's hard to rank films because this list changes day to day for me but here's a collection of my favorites.
Wonderful analysis of an immortal masterpiece. Great list of movies you have. We share the same taste. Maybe a Fellini could get there together with Chaplin and "Landscape in the midst" by Theo Angelopoulos. Thanks man!
Thank you, I haven't seen it yet, but was amazed by Ry Cooder's soundtrack- which brought me here. Your review was very perceptive, I look forward to seeing more of your insights , Cheers,...
Excellent! Thank you for posting this! I just watched the film again today for the first time in a while (I usually watch it every couple of years or so) and this viewing left me thinking about the amazing use of color throughout - so thank you for making me think some more!👍🎨🎞️
Thank you very much for sharring! In my opinion it is always sheer imposible to compare great films but Paris, Texas is certainly one of the greatest films I have seen about "ordinairy" people dealing with ongoing complexity of the life the are in. It is also a hopefull story about a child who eventualy can love more than two parents and about biological parents, who eventualy can become real parents. Your observations add some more speciality. (Nevertheless as told I saw other very special films about several people dealing with thier life, I remember: Happiness, Little Miss Sunshine, Tillsamans/Together and Das Leben der Anderen. Probably I forget another great film.)
One Of My Favorite Movies Of All Time. I had it on VHS, but when I subsequently got it on DVD and then BluRay, many of the color schemes you detail in this study were observable by me for the first time, and changed my whole perception of the movie. It is worth noting, that the interaction between motion picture film and Cameras, and the fluorescent lights of this period in the mid-80s, produced a very profound green hue, which occurred at regular intervals during the course of the movie.
I’ve also loved that film so much. About the colors, my english is not good enough to understand all you explain at the fist time, but I’ll try again 😊
3:49 here we see travis wearing a dark green cardigan, already does that not symbolise the distance he even felt all those years ago whilst still with his family? /not to mention the mild foreshadowing of overwhelming green we particularly experience towards the climax of the film
This film is, indeed, a masterpiece. I first watched it many years ago and it has haunted me ever since ! I’ve watched it many times and the quality of the story, the acting, the music, indeed the whole production, is mind-blowing. This analysis of the colour effects, particularly the reds and greens, is yet another surprise. This must surely be among the best films ever made.
we could do the same type of analysis with several other great movies like The stars chamber, color of money etc .. we could also talk about the presence of the windmills in the action movies or even the snow in Japanese movies .. just remember Kill bill 2. Tarentino had used.
Father was pathetic, a man protects his family, keeps it united, and leads it. Idk if I missed “the point”, but all I saw was a father leaving his wife and child
