1991

Paris Trout
Showtime movie
Stephen Gyllenhaal, director
Tom Luse, unit production manager
David Womark, first assistant director
Brenda Kalosh, second assistant director

In one of TV's more oblique portraits of Southern racism, Dennis Hopper portrays the title character, a storekeeper and loanshark in 1949 rural Georgia, who shoots and kills a 12-year-old black girl and then asserts that it was nothing. His long-suffering wife, Hannah (Barbara Hershey), is affected by this latest, heinous act of violence, which triggers the abusive-by-rote Paris into a downward mental spiral. His lawyer, Harry (Ed Harris), finally meets Hannah, and the two find solace in each other while Paris becomes more uncontrollable. Pete Dexter adapted his own novel, and Gyllenhaal elicites one of Hopper's best performances.