Film Analysis Essay on Wim Wender's Paris, Texas

Introduction

The notion of love provokes many reactions and mixed feelings among humans. Throughout the history of cinema, love has featured in many shapes, colors, and sizes as directors struggle to find the best technique to present the idea of love. This has led to creative ways of presenting the message of love to audiences. The film, Paris, Texas, which focuses on different types of love, takes on an incredible stylistic way of expressing love. The film is about a man, Travis, who once turned his back on his family, but has now decided to return home to face the people he left behind and reclaim their love and connection. The film uses visual space and distance, as well as lighting to explore love as a state of mind and feeling rather than a catalyst for change as seen in most films.

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Love among the characters is the focus of the film as it emerges from dormancy necessitated by years of separation. The film uses camera techniques of distance and space to express how this love transitions from a distance emotion and feeling to a close relationship and connection amongst the characters. The different forms of love expressed in this film include love between father and son, father and mother, and mother and son. Starting from the scene of the desert, the camera shows distance and empty space. Moreover, Travis is far away from the camera and thus his figure dominated by the vast desert an indication of isolation and loneliness. As the film continues, the setting moves to a friendlier family atmosphere that demonstrates bonding and love. Similarly, the first encounter between Travis and his wife Jane exemplifies the use of visual space and distance to portray love at different levels. At first, there is evident space between the two as the camera shows Jane far away from the mirror that separates them. After a while, the space between the two becomes invisible. The progression of love at this point moves from separation to a pair of souls connected by love, which portrays the two as one composite individual.

Similarly, the film majorly centered on emotion uses lighting effects to bring out the reality of the love surrounding these characters. The producer plays around with light to create a visual tone of overwhelming emptiness that turns into emotional love at the end of the play. Evidently, lighting is used to draw attention to a particular character and their feelings. For instance, at the dinner, truck lights shining directly on Hunter draws attention to Travis son about to meet his long-lost father. The harsh light ignites the feeling of abandonment of a father's love that the son has experienced in absence of his father. Additionally, Wender uses light to show its characters in striking colors to heighten the emotional state of the characters, as well as unify them. The green light, for instance, features frequently in the course of the film. Green light is soothing and thus used in situations of high emotions to calm the characters and unify them.

Conclusion

The film, Paris, Texas produced by Wender is a classical piece that portrays the tactical use of cinematic features to explore in breadth the idea of love. Distance and visual space between the characters, as well as between the characters and their environment shows love mapped with emptiness, loneliness, and separation. As these distances reduce and become insignificant, the love and emotions between the characters become magnified. In turn, this creates an illusion of inseparable love that binds the characters together. Additionally, lighting portrays the different levels of love between and among the characters. Lighting in this film explores emotions and act as a unifying factor for the characters, thus, magnifying the love among them.