Pat Greene is Bungalower Media’s first sponsored Resident Reporter. Greene has joined our team as our Arts and Culture Correspondent, supported by the efforts of Interstruct Design + Build, an award-winning Orlando-based design and build firm.
This Saturday, November 16 at 11 a.m., Enzian Theater (Website) will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the cult classic film Paris, Texas, by a 4K restoration. Click HERE for ticket information.
The film is set in the wide-open expanse of West Texas. That expansiveness, combined with Sam Shepard’s minimal dialogue and the casting of characters accustomed to playing forlorn types, captures an empty hopelessness that hasn’t gone away since it was released in 1984.
German Wim Wenders directed Paris, Texas, and Sam Shepard wrote the screenplay. Shepard was one of the best at capturing American pedestrian existentialism. Wenders and Dutch cinematographer Robby Muller made what Shepard had written into a beautiful film, which was based on Shepard’s Motel Chronicles.
Harry Dean Stanton’s character, Travis Henderson, searches for his wife, Jane Henderson, played by Nastassja Kinski. Stanton’s character is 34 years older than his wife, Jane. Their son had been staying with Henderson’s brother in Los Angeles. The brother, played by Dean Stockwell is another pillar of Hollywood outsiders who had significant stints inside.
It’s a beautiful film, with great performances and writing. Many of you may remember Sam Shepard as a handsome leading man, but his writing was his brilliance.
Go to the Kerouac House (Website) and Burrow Press (Website) event on Saturday night at 7 p.m. if you want to buy me a beer. The house in College Park is where Beat icon Jack Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums in the late 1950s. He lived there with his mother when his most well-known book, On the Road, was published. It has been referred to as the beginning of the counterculture in this country. The house has been the site for a writer-in-residence for the past twenty years and change.
Burrow Press and Alex Gurtis (Website), who works for Burrow and is on the Kerouac board, will host the event, which celebrates the book launch of Ariel Francisco, All the Places We Love Have Been Left in Ruins. Steve Chang (Website), the current Kerouac resident, will also read.
Kerouac House events are always great social outings. Orlando should be added to the literary map. We have a strong, tight community of writers, and both Burrow and the K House have helped facilitate that.