Wim Wenders has used the bridle-path movie format in musical compositiony of his best films including Paris, Texas. His image usually involves a man, disassociated with civilization, who takes to the road looking for "a pregnant existence or at the very least induction of his existence" (Barnes). The latter is the case with Travis (Harry Dean Stanton), a man suffering from amnesia and a self-imposed exile who turns up in a small desert town. The image of Travis move through the barren landscape along the Texas/Mexico border conveys the brain of estrangement characteristic of postmodern characters. The same sense of alienation is felt by the two male characters in curious Than Paradise. Willie (John Lurie) and his buddy Eddie (Richard Edson) lead dull, meaningless lives in New York City, chiefly gambling, smoking and watching television. Their lives take on some spark when Willie's teenaged cousin Eva (Eszter Balint) arrives in New York on her musical mode to visit her aunt in Cleveland, that overall the olive-sized more than a week the three spend unneurotic is boring.
Paris, Texas and Stranger Than Paradise involve two roa
The Arts. Article: 971002 ISSN: 1088-5870, 1997.
Travis' disassociation, his isolation, his search for self-identity and assumption of the role of mystify make him both a postmodern and an experiential character. His desperation and alienation, as tumesce as his decision to take function for his actions put him in the existential camp. According the Jean-Paul Sartre, the two main principles of Existentialism be that "existence precedes essence" and that "man is vigor else but that which he makes of himself" (Existentialism is a Humanism).
Sartre also states that human beings are not just accountable for their own individuality, but responsible for all people, and Travis' decision to reunite mother and son bears this out. In existential fashion, Travis strives to create moral values that will mould some meaning to his life. Existential characters are men in anguish and despair, and both Travis and Willie fit this description.
Carveth, Donald A. The Borderline Dilemma in Paris, Texas.
The second road trip to Florida is made by Willie, Eddie and Eva, but wherever they go life is the same for them; they are limit to an existential reliance upon their own wills, and their own wills are scatty. The existential view that existence is prior to essence implies that Willie's condition (as well as Eddie's and Eva's) is what defines human nature, rather then the other way around. Both road trips reveal characters trapped in lives that push through even to them to be pointless. In Stranger Than Paradise, as in Paris, Texas, characters live in a postmodern, existential society lacking easily defined roles and absolute truths. Even when they attempt to escort a purpose in life, they end up stranded in a meaningless existence.
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