Modernity crisis and loss of the narrative ability. The new outlook on the contemporary man in Paris, Texas

Abstract

In this article, a cinematographic analysis of the film Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984) is featured. It will attempt to explain the crisis of modernity, exemplified with the existential disorientation of the contemporary man on the one hand; and on the other hand with the narrative inability of the film, which faces the construction of (un)reality. Methods used to achieve this are pointed out as well, such as the lack of closure and circularity in the story, shown by the management of time and space and added, however, to the linear nature of the plot (which features an introduction, core and ending) which nostalgically reclaim the ability of classicism to tell stories by opposing it to the chaos characterizing modernism. These tools, as well as some others, will be analyzed in this article in order to bring meaning to the film.