Visual Study of Paris, Texas

I want to start looking more closely at some cinematic frames that resonate with me. Cinema, when it works as artistic expression, has the power to catch us off guard and make us fall in love with the story - not just what is told, but how it’s told. Real cinema can shift our perception, it can make us question how we’ve been seeing things, without even realizing them.

The Colors of Paris, Texas

Paris, Texas (1984) is a film about reconnection - not only between people, but between a man and the version of himself he lost. Travis’s story, played by Harry Dean Stanton, is told through dialogue and through colors. Each shade carries emotional weight and reflects the inner states of the characters. This is actually very common in cinema, but not done as skillfully as in this film.

“It’s the subtleties that are the most difficult things…” Robby Müller

What stands out is not only the melancholic atmosphere of the story, but the way Wim Wenders (director) and Robby Müller (cinematographer) use color to elevate everyday moments. Each red, each blue, each neon glow is purposeful and speaks directly to what cannot be said aloud.

The Desert as Mirror of the Soul

The story opens with Travis wandering alone through the desert. The color palette immediately sets an emotional tone. Earth tones and faded beige dominate the screen, reinforcing a sense of desolation. Travis is not only physically lost; he’s lost within himself.

In the first frame above, he appears small and centered, surrounded by the dry, pale landscape. His silence is also physical and the environment around him seems to echo it. The sky is barely present in the frame and it offers only more constriction. The desert becomes a metaphor for his mental state: lifeless, arid, stripped of direction or identity.

He doesn’t speak. He’s found by a doctor at a clinic near the border. A few clues lead to his brother Walt, who comes to take him back to Los Angeles. During this return, everything remains quiet - the colors, the space, the man. Gradually, Travis begins to reawaken. He eats. He says a few words. He starts reconnecting with the world.

Look at this frame: In the hospital, Travis is bathed in an artificial green light. This green seems almost toxic, is a green of disconnection. He’s there physically, but emotionally still suspended in a kind of limbo. His eyes gaze into nowhere.

After 4 years of disappearance, Travis comes back as someone displaced from time. He had left behind his son, Hunter, and his wife, Jane, played by the beautiful Nastassja Kinski. The reunion with Hunter who now lives with Walt and his wife, is handled with care, built patiently, one gesture at a time.

The Red

Despite the film’s weight of loneliness, a small thread of hope is present from the beginning. It’s a reminder that no emotional state is permanent. Stories can be mended or transformed and in this film, hope is carried through warm tones.

Travis wears a red cap - not randomly chosen, but intentional. In the midst of the muted desert tones, this red stands out, it’s a visual sign that something inside him has the potential to awaken.

As Travis and Hunter reconnect, the film’s color palette begins to shift and red emerges with more presence. You can see the red of emotional intensity, of a paternal bond that has survived absence. Both father and son wear red shirts. Visually, this suggests alignment, unity and renewed connection. Something vital returns: warmth, emotion, blood running, life.

The Visual Poetry of Reconnection

The emotional and symbolic high point of the film occurs when Travis finds Jane again. She works in a peep-show booth where women speak to men through mirrored glass. It’s in this setting that the directors’ chromatic precision reaches its height.

This reunion happens not through physical proximity, but through reflection, fragmentation and indirect presence. The glass separates them, yet it’s also the only space in which they’re able to truly face one another.

Neon green, artificial pink and red dominate the scene. These urban tones convey both the artificial world that kept them apart and the overwhelming emotion of their meeting. It breaks from everything that came before. The visual tension here becomes emotional: raw, unresolved, intense. What we see is not the rebirth of a lost love, but the reemergence of something that never died - only became hidden…

The Last Conversation

The phone call between Travis and Jane is one of the most striking sequences in the film. Travis is shown in deep shadow and cold blue light. Jane is bathed in soft, warm daylight. The contrast is clear: they speak, they connect, but their realities remain divided.

He exists in emotional night; she, in the clarity of a new day. They seem to inhabit different seasons. In a moment of deep emotion, Jane touches the glass, and Travis’s reflection overlays her face. It’s a visual expression of longing and nearness without contact. One is in the other.

Yellow and blue - complementary colors - face each other on the chromatic circle. When placed together, they intensify each other. This natural balance, seen in skies and sunlight, is mirrored here to express contrast and longing.

The Solitary Green

The film ends with Travis outside a hotel, standing beneath green fluorescent light. This is not the toxic green of the hospital, but the lonely green of parking lots at dawn - sterile, silent, removed. He watches from below as his son reunites with Jane.

He doesn’t join them. He chooses to stay outside, in the muted cold of distance, so that his son can enter the warmth of reconciliation. The image is quiet, but decisive.

Cinema as a Visual Language

Paris, Texas is a reminder that cinema is, above all, a visual language. Wenders and Müller do not use color as embellishment, but as storytelling. Each hue and contrast carries meaning, carefully constructed to reveal what dialogue cannot.

This film shows how color can embody silence, memory, absence and love. Not only to create beauty, but to tell the truth.

Technical Notes

• Format: 35mm film
• Lighting: Mostly ambient and natural light
• Camera style: Minimalist setup, often tripod-mounted
• Color: No color correction (clearly visible in the raw neon greens and warm, natural daylight)
• Lenses: Long lenses and possibly split diopters to maintain focus across depth

Sources

• Kodak: Asteroid City & the Legacy of 35mm
• American Society of Cinematographers: Robby Müller and Paris, Texas
• Cinematography.com Forum: Lenses used in Paris, Texas

Images used for educational purposes from film Paris, Texas (1984), directed by Wim Wenders, written by Sam Shepard, produced by Road Movies Filmproduktion and distributed by 20th Century Fox.

This post was originally written in Portuguese. Entre em contato comigo para ler o original em português. 🇧🇷