It Looks Pretty from a Distance

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the premiere Paris, Texas, Düsseldorf-born Wim Wenders’s Palme d’Or-winning cinematic confrontation with the arid majesty and spectacular sprawl of the Lonestar State, a program of works which find filmmakers born outside the United States—recent arrivals and longtime residents both—giving their individual and idiosyncratic impressions of the American landscape, be it Werner Herzog exploring weird roadside attraction Wisconsin (Stroszek), Chloé Zhao in the South Dakota Badlands (The Rider), Chantal Akerman at the Rio Grande borderlands (From the Other Side), or Babette Mangolte’s studies of Western vistas (There? Where?, The Sky on Location). American visions, as seen by artists raised amongst very different scenery.