The Last Movie (1971)

A film shoot in Peru goes badly wrong when an actor is killed in a stunt, and the unit wrangler, Kansas, decides to give up film-making and stay on in the village, shacking up with local ... See full summary »

Director:

Dennis Hopper

Writers:

Dennis Hopper (story), Stewart Stern

Stars:

Dennis Hopper, Stella Garcia, Julie Adams

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dennis Hopper	...	Kansas
Stella Garcia	...	Maria
Julie Adams	...	Mrs. Anderson
Tomas Milian	...	Priest
Don Gordon	...	Neville Robey
Roy Engel	...	Harry Anderson
Donna Baccala	...	Miss Anderson
Samuel Fuller	...	Himself
Poupée Bocar	...	Nightclub singer
Sylvia Miles	...	Script clerk
Daniel Ades	...	Thomas Mercado
John Alderman	...	Jonathan
Michael Anderson Jr.	...	Mayor's son
Richmond L. Aguilar	...	Gaffer
Toni Basil	...	Rose

Storyline

A film shoot in Peru goes badly wrong when an actor is killed in a stunt, and the unit wrangler, Kansas, decides to give up film-making and stay on in the village, shacking up with local prostitute Maria. But his dreams of an unspoiled existence are interrupted when the local priest asks him to help stop the villagers killing each other by re-enacting scenes from the film for real because they don't understand movie fakery...

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Plot Keywords:

prostitute | killing | priest | peru | village | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Certificate:

R

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

21 October 1988 (Japan)

Also Known As:

Chinchero

Filming Locations:

Peru

Box Office

Budget:

$1,000,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Alta-Light

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Did You Know?

Trivia

Dennis Hopper came back from shooting in South America with more than 40 hours worth of footage. His final cut, after more than a year of editing (his editing antics were documented in a documentary called "The American Dreamer"), was incomprehensible to many of the studio heads. This was the last film that Hopper directed until 1980's Out of the Blue, which he took over directing after that film's original director left production.

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Quotes

Mrs. Anderson: You know, I had fantasies like that, about being beat up. Did you ever have a fantasy about women beating you up? Or don't cowboys have fantasies?

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Crazy Credits

There is nearly a full fifteen minute gap in between the first title card, "A FILM BY DENNIS HOPPER" and the other title card, "THE LAST MOVIE".

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Connections

Featured in The American Dreamer (1971)

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Soundtracks

"Me and Bobby McGee"
Written and Performed by Kris Kristofferson

User Reviews

They Don't (Dare) Make 'em Like This Any More

It's difficult to see why people have such a hard time with this movie. Anyone who is interested in European art cinema of the '60's or even the novel since Joyce should have no trouble reading the film on at least some levels. Hopper's method here is to try and get inside the head, to put thought and memory on the screen, not just pictures.

Part of the problem may be the sheer complexity. There are probably enough ideas crammed in here for a dozen movies, and Hopper throws them all at us, often simultaneously. There's a story about American imperialism, there's a story about the artifice of film-making, there's a story about the way audiences view cinema, there's a Christ allegory wrapped up with a general sacrificial victim theme, a story about men and women, sex, money and power, there's Hopper's own story, the story of cinema itself, there's a satire of Hollywood conventions in general and the Western in particular, very notably there's a story about the Peruvian landscape, ravishingly shot by Laszlo Kovacs. There's even the story of Hopper's gofer lost in a society he doesn't understand if you want a simple narrative to hang on to. The film combines all these facets into a structure which can only be described as crystalline.

Devotees of "folding" should find plenty to occupy them here - there's the film about Hopper's character "Kansas", the film Sam Fuller is making, the villagers' "film", "The Last Movie" itself, an on-set home movie and probably several others besides.

Hopper gaily references (and steals from) everyone from Fellini and Godard to John Huston and Nicholas Ray, and of course goes bonkers in Peru well before Werner Herzog got around to it (and appropriates tribal culture in a strikingly similar way).

Definitely not a film to be missed by anyone interested in fractured narratives, postmodernism in film or the beautiful image. Vastly underrated and well worth its Venice prize, this is to "Easy Rider" what "Pulp Fiction" is to "Reservoir Dogs". Hopper as a director has never been better.