Movie – The Last Picture Show

The Last Picture Show (1971) – a coming of age story set in a small, north Texas town in the early 1950’s.  Two best friends, Bobby and Sonny (Timothy Bottoms and Jeff Bridges), will try to find a future in the bleak, dying community they call home.  Meanwhile Jacy, the prettiest girl in town (Cybill Shepherd), uses her looks to try and make her way forward.  The story will wind among the lives of the other broken people in their little town.

Directed by Peter Bogdanovich  Starring- Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Cybill Shepherd, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, Ellen Burstyn, Eileen Brennan, Randy Quaid

The movie takes you not just into the town where Bobby, Jacy and Sonny live.  You are taken into the very emotion of it as well.  It is desolate, claustrophobic and without hope.  The reality is that there is no future to be found here.  Just a lingering death of a present.  Beginning by shooting in black and white plus a camera style that almost feels handheld at times gives a gritty reality to this story.  Life in Anarene is almost a life in stasis, leaving Sonny, Bobby and Jacy unprepared for life in the outside world.

This was Bogdanovich’s first major motion picture and it shows in some places.  The beginning strikes me as uneven, almost as if he is feeling his way along into how the story is to be told.  Once he finds that thread “The Last Picture Show” becomes an amazing cinema experience.  It’s little touches, like the lack of a traditional soundtrack.  Virtually all the music during the movie is coming from radios, giving the movie a further dose of reality.   I was enthralled by the ending.

Why I Liked It – The visual story telling of the movie.  The burden of living in that town while trying to maintain any shred of a dream for the future was inescapable.

Why You Will Like It – The incredible feeling of realism from the young cast, a great story, and, even though he is in the movie for only a short time, the astounding performance by Ben Johnson.  He won an Oscar for the performance.

Rated R for nudity, sexuality, and language, Top 10 movie of 1971

Rating – ***** Highest Recommendation