The American Friend (1977)

So much for my projection about not seeing more from Wim Wenders. Guess I was too interested in yet another European adaptation of a Patricia Highsmith novel. That Tom Ripley sure got some international popularity. It's also further honor for late cinematographer Robert Müller on my part.

Tom (Dennis Hopper) is the titular "friend" -- still not a real one by conventional standards. Indeed, protagonist Jonathan (Bruno Ganz), a Hamburg art framer, gives him a cold initial greeting due to his reputation preceding him. Not long after, on a secret recommendation from Tom, a French mobster (Gérard Blain) invites Jonathan to serve as a hit man, the idea being that his lack of criminal history makes him harder to trace and his terminal leukemia means he has little to lose. Since Jonathan hasn't saved much for his wife (Lisa Kreuzer) and young son, he agrees in desperation.

Paris, Texas (1984)

The only other picture I'd seen directed by Wim Wenders was Wings of Desire, which is distinctive but seems weak on plot. I decided that if I were to take another chance on him, it would be his most popular English-language effort.

For about four years, thirty-something Travis (Harry Dean Stanton) has been out of contact with everyone who knows him. Then he's found half dead on the edge of the Mojave Desert, and his L.A.-based brother, Walt (Dean Stockwell), picks him up. Walt and wife Anne (Aurore Clément, who sounds like she could have come from another Paris) have been raising Travis's son, Hunter (Hunter Carson), now seven. Travis wants to reestablish a connection to Hunter as well as his own wife, Jane (Natassja Kinski), who had also disappeared around the same time and hasn't returned. Understandably, this desire worries Anne, who doesn't want to lose custody of Hunter, especially to someone who might abruptly abandon him again. It doesn't help that Travis remains tight-lipped about why he left in the first place.