The_Film_That_Changed_My_Life

130 Austin Chick
But this does have a conclusion; he does get there. Tell me about some
of the other conversations in the film that stuck with you.
Chick: I’m trying to think of . . . is there an episode where they go to one
guy’s childhood summerhouse on an island, and they find something under
the stairs?
They go back to his hometown and commandeer a motorcycle, and it’s
the only time the movie feels like Easy Rider. It feels like the cemetery
scene in Easy Rider. Nobody’s tripping, but there’s still a bunch of angles
and emotional anguish; it’s the closest you get to Bruno in the film.
Chick: That section of the film seems a little out of character somehow.
The main thing that’s interesting is that you always see the film through the
looking glass of where you are in your life. You know, the reason why this
film has such significance for me is because it directly reflects what was
going on in my life. A lot of the films that were really influential early on,
like Wenders’s stuff—I don’t know that I would respond to them at all if I
would see them at this point in my life. The films that really inspired me
to get involved in making movies were these incredibly ponderous, barely
plotted films. And I guess that allowed me to think about film. At this point
I have a lot less patience.
Well, you and the rest of America.
Chick: Yeah, me and the rest of America. I don’t know that America ever
has that much patience. In general, I think the films that appeal to me now
are more plotted, more structured.
What makes his films unique?
Chick: The sense of visual design and pacing. The lack of rigorous narrative
structure. To me, all those things are very much a specific type of filmmaking
that clearly influenced a number of other people. I feel like Paris, Texas
is sort of the culmination of that style for him.
And that’s also his self-fulfilling prophecy. Because he says, “The Yanks
have colonized our subconscious.” Then, of course, like many directors,
he immigrates to America and starts making films.