Repeat

Frida Haziran 27, 2022

Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges and Cybill Shepherd
in "The Last Picture Show"

I first watched Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show" in Suva - the capital of the Fiji Islands - back in January 1973. It was spellbinding. And over the years I had remembered the understated and rather melancholic atmosphere of this iconic black and white film. However, after forty five years, most of the fine details had left my mind.

Although it's not my habit to watch any film more than once, I finally made an exception for "The Last Picture Show" after noticing that a DVD copy of it was available quite cheaply via Amazon. My copy duly arrived and last night I turned off the lights and hunkered down to watch it once again.

My nineteen year old self had not been wrong for the sixty five year old man who now occupies this body was equally absorbed by the film. It stars Timothy Bottoms as Sonny, a young Jeff Bridges as Duane and Cybill Shepherd making her screen debut as Jacey Farrow - the most beautiful girl in town.

For years I thought that town was Abilene in central Texas but it's not - it's a fictional place called Anarene in northern Texas - closely based upon Archer City where Larry McMurtry grew up. In 1966, he published the novel on which the film is based - also called "The Last Picture Show".

Sam the Lion with Sonny and Billy
at the lake or "tank" where he once swam with Jacey's mother Lois

Though there's usually country music playing in the background, this is a quiet film set in the dusty heart of America - miles from anywhere. Analene is a small town where people endure private struggles for contentment and love. It is wistful, subtle and if not heart breaking then certainly heart aching.

Though released in 1971, the film is placed twenty years earlier. California and New York City are a million miles away and they are never mentioned. The horizons of the inhabitants of Anarene are very restricted. Somehow this reminds me of Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" where the enormity of distance seems to weigh down on the lives of the people. Only Duane really gets away - to fight in Korea. Sonny is left behind running the decrepit old pool hall once run by Sam the Lion played by Ben Johnson.

As Sonny admits, "Nothin's really been right since Sam the Lion died". Sam the Lion had also run "The Royal" - the town's only cinema. In his will he left it to his longtime employee, Miss Mosey who soon called time on the failing business - "Nobody wants to come to shows no more. Kids got baseball in the summer, television all the time. If Sam had lived, I believe we could've kept it goin'. But I just didn't have the know-how."

"The Last Picture Show" - still five star brilliance in my book.