Amazon.com Essentials:
Like Easy
Rider, Bonnie
and Clyde, The
Wild Bunch, and
The Graduate,
The Last Picture Show is one of the signature films of the "New
Hollywood" that emerged in the late 1960s and early '70s. Based on
the novel by Larry
McMurtry and lovingly directed by Peter Bogdanovich (who cowrote
the script with McMurtry), this 1971 drama has been interpreted as an
affectionate tribute to classic Hollywood filmmaking and the great
directors (such as John Ford) that Bogdanovich so deeply admired. It's
also a eulogy for lost innocence and small-town life, so accurately
rendered that critic Roger Ebert called it "the best film of 1951,"
referring to the movie's one-year time frame, its black-and-white
cinematography (by Robert Surtees), and its sparse but evocative
visual style. The story is set in the tiny, dying town of Anarene,
Texas, where the main-street movie house is about to close for good,
and where a pair of high-school football players are coming of age and
struggling to define their uncertain futures. There's little to do in
Anarene, and while Sonny (Timothy Bottoms) engages in a passionless
fling with his football coach's wife (Cloris Leachman), his best
friend Duane (Jeff Bridges) enlists for service in the Korean
War. Both boys fall for a manipulative high-school beauty (Cybill
Shepherd) who's well aware of her sexual allure. But it's not so much
what happens in The Last Picture show as how it happens--and
how Bogdanovich and his excellent cast so effectively capture the
melancholy mood of a ghost town in the making. As Hank Williams sings
on the film's evocative
soundtrack, The Last Picture Show looks, feels, and sounds
like a sad but unforgettably precious moment out of time. --Jeff
Shannon
