Light fantastic: the road trip that inspired Paris, Texas – in pictures

Nicholas Ray, Dennis Hopper, 1978, Barstow

‘Once, together with Dennis Hopper, we drove from Los Angeles all the way up to Barstow in the middle of the Mojave Desert, to see Nick Ray. Miloš Forman was shooting the movie version of Hair, and Nick played the general in it, in spite of the cancer he had just been diagnosed with. Dennis knew Nick from a long time ago, when Nick had given him a small part in Rebel Without a Cause. Dennis had become best friends with James Dean. Later that night the conversation inevitably turned to James Dean and Nick proudly declared: “I taught him how to walk!”’